The View from Vancouver (via San Diego)
May 31, 2009
Planning Director Brent Toderian, back from San Diego, shares his views of both cities.
With San Diegans having looked for years to Vancouver as a model in generating downtown housing and promoting walkability, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) brought Toderian to town to share his thoughts with planners and mayors.
“I have to admit I wasn’t sure what to expect – I’d never been to San Diego before,” Toderian said. “I was really impressed. It certainly is a fun city. Our city could learn about how to have more fun from San Diego.”
Advertisement
12 Comments
leave one →
Mr. Todie visits San Diego! Ooooooooo-ha! “I was really impressed. It certainly is a fun city.” says he.
Brent dear friend. “Fun city!” Do you know what San Deigo’s business is? The US Pacific’s home base!
Do you know what the US Pacific Fleets business is?
Kill, kill kill!
Is that what you want for Vancouver?
Huh stupid . . .
“Agua Flor” – there is more chance of you becoming a panda bear and sprouting wings than with the US Navy coming to Vancouver. If that is what you took out of the article I suggest you think again. And again.
This is about urban planning and learning from others, not about replicating the US military in Canada.
Huh stupid indeed.
Mr. CS sir,
Of course it isn’t about the US Navy coming to Vancouver: silly. As an ex-Royal Navy man I know what a fun city is when the US Navy is around and, as I suspect you to be quite unworldy, it would make you blush.
Sin embargo the purpose of a navy is to kill: the antithesis of planning . . . surely that goes without saying . . .
Mr Toderian going off on a tax payers junket to a navy fun city does no credit to this city’s planning. And to brag about speaks of naiveté.
As an architect and planner and graduate of SCARP, of some half century, it is my opinion. the Vancouver Planning department is responsible, despite your cheer leading, for a lack urban planning and design skills.
Someone has to speaks truth to vacuous.
The town is hectic, noisy, polluted, declining: sort of fun in small doses. The new VCC, on the water: clumsy, ill conceived, a white elephant. A country, a province, a town up to their yings in red ink . . . what the hell are we thinqing?
I am at a loss to make sense of all this crossfire.
Is the problem 0.5% vacancy? Who are we to question CHMC stats? Some youngster trying to prove something about Hydro bills: 15,000 empty suites? Does he have an agenda? Professor Paradise’s camera says no way! Does Mr. P have an agenda? We’re owned offshore! Really? Views, views, views . . . are we really that bereft? Burnt umber proboscides.
John Lennon preempted Dr. Doggie Run who says all you need is love. Frankly, I’d settle for integrity!
Until planners (LEED/Sustainable. kiddin’ who?) refrain from accommodating greed-besotted psychotics we’re in melt down. No green shoots . . .
Khama . . . http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/83/slow_revolution.html
check it out . . .
PS . . . and Mr. CS, sir, if you cannot follow all that you haven’t been paying attention to the make work hysteria coming out of the planning dept.
We’re in decline and Hallistas are in a funk . . .
Paz . . .
To AF – as I tend to feel that all opinions have value, I won’t debate yours above, even though it won’t be a surprise that I disagree. I would note 2 things though. I notice you dont tend to give other’s opinions the same respect that I’m giving yours, and your responces tend to be aggressive, insulting and very personal. They have a tone of “I’m smarter than you, so you shouldn’t bother”. If you truly like discussion and debate, then that approach is unhelpful.
Second, I tend not to correct inaccuracies in blog comments, but do want Gordon’s readers to know that this was not a tax-payer funded trip as you suggest above. I try to say yes to a few such invitations a year, and chose cities that I and the Planning Department can learn from (which is most cities, really, but I have to pick my spots), and of course all expenses must be covered. This trip was paid for by ULI.
Regards,
Brent
Vancouver: The willful desecration of a magnificent setting . . . Khama
PS
Dear Brent,
Thanqu for having the courtesy to respond. Yes I’m rude, agressive, hostile but I know of what I speak . . .
And you wont learn anything useful from your cronies . . . politeness falls on deaf ears . . .
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/83/new_aesthetic.html
“What have our contemporary artists (sic planners) been giving us? For the most part, they’ve given us objects and empty forms – golden calves and diamond skulls. It’s the economic substructure of art – the underlying network of critics, curators, collectors and tenured academics . . .”
Ditto planners . . .
Hi Brent, if you’re still reading here.
Since you took the time on the blog to rebut some strange and negative comments, I wonder if you could also delve into the positive aspects of your trip and specifically what you would like to see done here that they’re doing over there, and what you’ve learned. The article provided spoke from more of a San Diego point of view (understandable), but I’d love to hear the results for Vancouver.
Good point Tessa – agree that it would be great to hear more about Brent’s impression of San Diego.
And to AguaFlor – while your rants are at times humourous, it would be good if you could develop another routine. Your constant bitching is tiring, not only in this forum but in the many others you troll. Get a new gig.
I won’t even begin to discuss the ‘wisdom’ articulated on your website (despite you suggesting you ‘know of what I speak’) I find it amusing how you despise so readily the actions of all the planning department (as lacking ‘planning and design skills’) and yet the alternative you put forward is nothing short of comical doodling. Are you serious that your curvy rock-band commune is somehow relevant?? Please articulate what ‘place’ is created? I’ve tried hard to understand it, but despite all my years of wisdom and great education, travelling to the greatest cities in the world, I can’t imagine how it’s a real alternative form of development. It’s shocking. And while your principles of good urban design have merit, these are overshadowed by your constant bitching, and fall way short when you finally attempt to put pen to paper.
No doubt you’ll have some charming response, but I will not be responding to you out of respect for Gordon and his blog.
When I get some time, I do plan to do a substantial blog post on my own blog on Planetizen on learnings from San Diego, of which there are many. I’ll also post some of the best of my several thousand photos. In the meantime, here’s a few quick thoughts in responce to your request.
1. By far the best urbanist work I saw is downtown, the work that the development corporation has done. The development around Petco ballpark is quite good, and the ballpark itself is in the genre of new urban ballparks – permeable, lots of blending of public and semi-public, integration of heritage buildings into the park design, and reasonably good street-edge design to integrate it into the surrounding streets. The Gaslamp district has very good heritage restoration, and great patio-lined streetscapes, and they preserved the original scale as a counter-point to the taller neighbourhoods adjacent. It had a great energy, both on weekdays and weekend nights, seemed fueled significantly from tourists from the convention centre.
They had the benefit of some strong initial urbanist thinking from practicianers like Michael Stepner (past city planner/architect, who now teaches at the New School of Architecture and Design, which has a well-designed new campus in heritage buildings downtown), who pushed for strong urban performance in scale and at grade and in the public realm design – Michael actually gives credit to Ray Spaxman, and later Larry Beasley, for influencing their early work.
The resulting mid-rise in particular is very good, better than their towers I think. We could learn some things from their mid-rise. The most obvious thing is how the individual buildings all have a similar favour, but at the same time are all different and interesting enough, to avoid the criticisms of architectural monotany that I hear so often here at home. There are splashes of colour and architectural flair, enough to make it interesting but not so much to make it cheesy. Very good integration of heritage buildings in with newer buildings of varying scales, sometimes additions to heritage buildings but with the new construction being distinguishable but respectful. And the public realm design made ample use of intersection bump-outs, to calm traffic and shorten the crossing distance for pedestrians – very well done. They also have a scramble intersection in the Gaslamp area, similar to thoise I’ve also seen recently in Toronto, Calgary and elsewhere.
2. The suburban projects had some merit, but to be honest were average TND projects at best. Still generally low density, car-oriented, relatively low use-mixing, and too “traditional” in architecture. I tend to still consider such developments “smarter sprawl”, rather than real smart growth.
3. The Little Italy area really was exceptional – there was a street festival going on, and some side streets were just closed off for community use as usual (one was being used for stick-ball). Some good models for our new Summer Spaces program. The mid-rise new projects were very good, the best perhaps from local developer architect Jonathan Segal (who I would be pleased to have come do some work here in Vancouver). The Development Corporation had done some good work in the public realm as well, insertions of small plazas into the street right-of-way with movable chairs, etc. Very good heritage restoration and reuse here as well.
4. The Bosa “vancouver” development in between the downtown and waterfront was very interesting to walk/roller-blade. Although I thought it was well designed and looked like some of our better podium-and-point-tower projects, it seemed out of place where it was… Rowhouses along a very busy car-oriented roadway. Rather than people walking along the street, it seemed like residents would drive into the pull-in “cul-de-sacs” between buildings. Still seemed like a car-oriented lifestyle – a vancouver-style building type in the wrong place. In that context, we would have likely called for a higher podium, with retailing at grade, something more like San Fransisco’s Embarcadero in scale.
As you can expect, I was often asked what I thought of these “vancouver buildings” – I said they were well-designed, but I saw more of the vancouver model at work in what I saw in other places downtown. The vancouver model is not about one building type.
5. Good street-car systems now in place, and well designed adjacent mid-rise density. Lots of people walking downtown, and many cyclists too (even saw a family cycling) but a lot less outside the inner city. I didn’t manage to ride the streetcar line though, so can’t comment on the system and its densities outside the downtown.
6. The city needs a lot of work and time to connect the downtown with the waterfront – I’ve seen the plans, some right things are being called for, but it will take a long time to bridge the gap. A lot of the intervening land, I understand, is still owned by the Navy.
Hope this helps a bit. Will try to do more when I have some writing-time.
Regards,
Brent
Look this is far deeper than tweaking Brent’s tail.
If he needs cheer leader’s support to justify his junket to San Diego that of itself speaks badly of Vancouver’s director of planning. Does he, and indeed you Tessa, really believe you are above the fray.
Actually Brent you seem more at ease with personal opinion which I suppose is okay given your brief stay.
Yes, I am angry and so you should be too given the state of planning in Vancouver. Vancouver planning has not lived up to its pretensions since CityPlan, some twenty years ago.
I have enough professional enjoyment behind me, hopefully in front too, not to have to justify myself to the likes of you. I see no point in this discussion. Passion and the will to learn just ain’t here . . . petulance just doesn’t cut it with me . . .
You might find carpet cleaners in San Diego and some other places who use very powerful and
effective techniques like hot water extraction, deep steam cleaning, fast flush rinse and
fast dry using specialized machines like hot water truck mount. After the cleaning you will
find that there is no residue or odor. When free you can fix an appointment with these
cleaning companies and you can discuss the work schedule and the estimate as well. After
your discussion with the cleaning company and after you get the quotation from them you can
fix up an appointment and register a cleaning session which will suit your convenience so
that it will not obstruct with your normal work life. Generally these carpet cleaning
companies have an insurance cover and give you a guarantee on their work.