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I live in a condo tower in Vancouver, BC. I live above a supermarket, Starbucks, dry cleaner, hair stylist, and Domino's pizza. It actually works out quite wel

by pkaler 18y ago

I live in a condo tower in Vancouver, BC. I live above a supermarket, Starbucks, dry cleaner, hair stylist, and Domino's pizza. It actually works out quite well. Because of the supermarket, I only have to buy food for one meal at a time. http://www.metropolitantowers.com http://www.metropolitantowers.com It's called New Urbanism and it was implemented here in Vancouver by the former head of Urban planning, Larry Beasley. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Beasley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Beasley http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism

DannoHung 18y ago
I dunno, seems a little redundant to me. I mean, it'd make more sense to have residential and commercial combined real estate in a non-urban area.
- pkaler 18y ago
  Redundant in what sense? The point is to increase density in a sustainable way. Buildings malls is not sustainable because there is wasted space. All that indoor walking space could be outdoor parks. In urban areas, you try to reduce wasted space by building stuff like underground parking. You put services along the sidewalk and close to residential so that people can just walk to these services. You build residential and office buildings upwards since there is a shortage of space. You make the neighbourhood more pleasant by putting in outdoor walking malls, green spaces, and building a sidewalk patio culture. It doesn't make sense to split your downtown core into two. If half of your core is industrial/commercial and the other half is residential, suddenly you have to jump in your car and drive to the grocery store. This causes congestion. On the other hand, a grocery store, Staples, a cold beer & wine store, an electronics store, a book store are all 2 blocks away. I just step out and walk there and it only takes 5 minutes to pick up that one thing I need at that exact moment. You wouldn't believe how much less food I waste now that I buy that one fresh chicken breast for dinner and those two bananas I'm going to have tomorrow for breakfast and as a snack.
  - DannoHung 18y ago
    No, sorry, I meant like, having a mall that has apartments in it doesn't make sense in a city. I think the idea makes sense in general, but I'm just saying I don't think building a mall with apartments in it makes sense in a city like Toronto.
poutine 18y ago
I lived in that exact building for a couple years. The major downside of it and similar developments is that it's extraordinarily noisy from all the street traffic. Made me hate buses with a severe passion. This is the major downside to mixing a lot of cars with apartment buildings. Many cities do this way better than Vancouver which is terribly overrated as a city to live in. For instance in Beijing the city blocks are very large with residential (schools, etc) on the inside and the major streets on the outside with little through traffic. As a result it's quiet at your apartment through the day in a city of 15M.
- pkaler 18y ago
  There are a few ways to manage this. The first way is to have larger sidewalks. This puts traffic further away from the buildings and there is less echo reverberating up sides of buildings. The sidewalks are larger in Gastown and deeper in Yaletown. Granville Street is being repaved to have larger sidewalks, too. The second way to do this is to make the first floor retail. Then make floors 2 through 10 be commercial office space. People don't have to sleep in this space so sound doesn't matter as much. I live on the 17th floor and I don't really notice traffic noise. I do get noise from Granville Street on Friday and Saturday from the Christian Audigier crowd. If I go to bed early on the weekend, I just sleep with ear plugs in. Inconvenient, but not that huge of a deal. I used to live in the West End across from a senior's home. I swear an ambulance used to rip up the street at least once a week with it's siren blaring to pick up a senior. Ear plugs don't help in that case. The third way to reduce noise is to have better windows. The building does have almost floor to ceiling windows and they are not the most sound proof. The City of Vancouver needs to improve the building code with respect to windows. It would save a lot more energy, too.

by pkaler 18y ago

DannoHung 18y ago

I dunno, seems a little redundant to me. I mean, it'd make more sense to have residential and commercial combined real estate in a non-urban area.

pkaler 18y ago
Redundant in what sense? The point is to increase density in a sustainable way. Buildings malls is not sustainable because there is wasted space. All that indoor walking space could be outdoor parks. In urban areas, you try to reduce wasted space by building stuff like underground parking. You put services along the sidewalk and close to residential so that people can just walk to these services. You build residential and office buildings upwards since there is a shortage of space. You make the neighbourhood more pleasant by putting in outdoor walking malls, green spaces, and building a sidewalk patio culture. It doesn't make sense to split your downtown core into two. If half of your core is industrial/commercial and the other half is residential, suddenly you have to jump in your car and drive to the grocery store. This causes congestion. On the other hand, a grocery store, Staples, a cold beer & wine store, an electronics store, a book store are all 2 blocks away. I just step out and walk there and it only takes 5 minutes to pick up that one thing I need at that exact moment. You wouldn't believe how much less food I waste now that I buy that one fresh chicken breast for dinner and those two bananas I'm going to have tomorrow for breakfast and as a snack.
- DannoHung 18y ago
  No, sorry, I meant like, having a mall that has apartments in it doesn't make sense in a city. I think the idea makes sense in general, but I'm just saying I don't think building a mall with apartments in it makes sense in a city like Toronto.

poutine 18y ago

I lived in that exact building for a couple years. The major downside of it and similar developments is that it's extraordinarily noisy from all the street traffic. Made me hate buses with a severe passion. This is the major downside to mixing a lot of cars with apartment buildings. Many cities do this way better than Vancouver which is terribly overrated as a city to live in. For instance in Beijing the city blocks are very large with residential (schools, etc) on the inside and the major streets on the outside with little through traffic. As a result it's quiet at your apartment through the day in a city of 15M.

pkaler 18y ago
There are a few ways to manage this. The first way is to have larger sidewalks. This puts traffic further away from the buildings and there is less echo reverberating up sides of buildings. The sidewalks are larger in Gastown and deeper in Yaletown. Granville Street is being repaved to have larger sidewalks, too. The second way to do this is to make the first floor retail. Then make floors 2 through 10 be commercial office space. People don't have to sleep in this space so sound doesn't matter as much. I live on the 17th floor and I don't really notice traffic noise. I do get noise from Granville Street on Friday and Saturday from the Christian Audigier crowd. If I go to bed early on the weekend, I just sleep with ear plugs in. Inconvenient, but not that huge of a deal. I used to live in the West End across from a senior's home. I swear an ambulance used to rip up the street at least once a week with it's siren blaring to pick up a senior. Ear plugs don't help in that case. The third way to reduce noise is to have better windows. The building does have almost floor to ceiling windows and they are not the most sound proof. The City of Vancouver needs to improve the building code with respect to windows. It would save a lot more energy, too.