Real Edmontonians Speak Out About Edmonton City Growth
When we designed our Edmonton Building Age Map and wrote about Edmonton’s Urban Sprawl, we did not anticipate all the feedback and thoughts we would receive from Edmontonians and other great people through Twitter. Rather than just keeping the conversation there, we thought it would be useful to further share some of the thoughts and ideas here. Keep the #yegurbansprawl conversation going, by further sharing your thoughts on this heated topic.
- @adgelessness – “We have city’s to manage and service those effects to satisfy our choice of lifestyle.”
- @salcomm – “So many thoughts on sprawl. #1 dense suburbs still car centric. #2 Amenities in power centres, strip malls separated by big roads. #3 Neighbourhoods pw.o. alleys have to demolish hses and add more driveways crossing sidewalks to densify. #4 people still leaving to breed in the burbs. Weak connection between high density builds & less sprawl or affordability. Suburbs may be dense but still very car centric. Amenities a drive away across big roads. Street design 60yrs old. First, [we need to] stop building new developments using failed patterns.”
- @tstewarts – “My thoughts are we need to start building up.”
- @RobMeekel – “There’s a few things I’d say, first of all “urban sprawl” is designed as a negative term. No matter what side of an issue there’s usually more to it than people know and/or want to share. All cards on table needed. Which is OK if you are from that point of view but greater density has its own set of negative issues, conversation needs balance. Building codes have not kept up with Higher density, we now build zero property line 4 feet apart wrapped in combustible plastic siding. One house starts on fire its guaranteed that surely neighbouring properties will too, older 50s & 60s residential driveways were barriers. Smaller streets, more people, cars stacked on top of each other create streets its dangerous for children to be out on. In
#YYC we have issues with 2nd scary suites (catch my POV?) people who buy R1 to live don’t want them, but property investors (which I am too) wanna buy on the low end and have re-zoned for profit (rentals). It doesn’t help that#yyc for years neglected to have sufficient multi-unit & multi family requirements in new residential areas. So when rental is tight (boom years) they use it as excuse to “need” more rental re-zoning. This leads to anger amongst property owners with different views. I don’t want anything but R1 where I live, my biggest investment was by choice in R1. My other properties (by specific choice) have been zoned multi from the start.”
These are all great points. The key to enhancing our city is conversation to allow for new possibilities to emerge regarding the needs of Edmonton’s urban planning.It is up to all of us to design and build places we love living in and our proud of! By re-looking at design concepts for urban planning and shifting our perspectives, we will find the right balance between “urban vs. suburban” “growing up and out” and making this city of ours even greater.
