Why does much of HRM look like a sprawling parking lot?
The car culture here is outrageous, and everywhere ya look, giant parking lots and car dealerships are at every turn, making the city look ugly and uninviting.
And evidently, pedestrians and cyclists were given little or no consideration.
Hey city planners… get your heads out of your asses!
This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2008.
The city really does seem to be going in a very car-culture kind of direction. It is really sprawling much more than seems reasonable for such a small city – and many of the developments, especially the shopping parks, are really only accessible by car for most people. The commercial and the residential are far too segregated. In most neighbourhoods, you have only homes, and you have to leave to find food, entertainment, etc. etc. They really aren’t complete “neighbourhoods”.Clayton Park West, for example, is not pedestrian-friendly at all.Even in the downtown where any development should include ground-level retail and other amenities to encourage walking, most of the newer buildings that have gone up have included a lot of blank concrete walls at ground-level. Ooops, no reason to walk down that street!I hope the HRM by Design reports can encourage our developers to start to move in a new direction that brings a bit more of that European-style mixed commercial-residential neighbourhood flavor to the city. Vancouver is a really good example of how this works when done right. The streets are flooded with people there (I don’t mean East Hastings!), because there is a reason to be on the streets…it’s a really positive, exciting kind of vibe that is missing from most areas of Halifax. (bring on the so-fucking-move-to-fucking-Vancouver-if-you-like-it-so-fucking-much-good-riddnace-we-like-our-fucking-parking-lots-and-we-are-fucking-nicer-than-those-snobby-fucking-Vancouver-hippies-with-their-fancy-schmancy-stores-and-vegetable-vendors-and-delis-and-cafes-in-every-fucking-neighbourhood-)
Walk back to Vancouver you hippie! Gah!The sprawl is to be expected with the compete lack of anything resembling leadership in City Hall. Any developement downtown is met with resistance anyone from council members from ouside the peninsula and shit just doesn’t get done. Plus things like Dartmouth Crossing gets approved. What bugs me most aboutDC and Bayers lake is that they built acres of parking lots instead of having several parking garages. Which is especially egregious when you think of how often the weatherhere is cold and shitty. HBD will only work if anyone bothers to actually apply it, when they get different applications for various building permits.The reality is that a healthy downtown will benefit all of HRM. There is a definite trickle down, but people are more interested in getting outdoor cats banned, or saying what kind of dogs people canown. Pretty ludicrous really. I sometimes even debate about running for council myself, but I think the general way of doing business is too entrenched to make much of a difference, and I’mnot sure if I’m willing to devote a few decades of my life to a city where I don’t know if I want my family growing up here. Hopefully there will be a wholesale change come next elections, but I doubt it. And the true cost of sprawl is never covered by the token fees developers pay anyway. Things like new sewer runs, power, roads, etcseems to come out of the pocket of the city. Bullshit.
Even something as simple as putting the buildings at the sidewalks, and the parking lots BEHIND the buildings would very much change the character of the shopping parks, and of the strip-malls of areas like clayton Park.
Pete you should be careful about saying anything critical, constructive or not, about our fair city. You’ll soon be accused of being me. And Homie. And Coyotex. And there are others (check one of Floyd’s posts; he listed us). We are One. We are Legion.We are Borg.
Now Jammie, don’t go getting things all stirred up foolish here…For what its worth… I agree with the OP… Actually this is a good bitch.. Valid points & well written….Leave the name calling to the salt thread… You Troll…
What name calling? What are you even talking about?
The OP is right. In fact, there’s a song about it… Check it out, it’s called ‘This Town’:http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=756040
Pete, I always like what you have to say about the urban (piss-poor)planning of Halifax…do us all a favor and take a run at a council seat.