From “Highrise Nation” by Katrerina Cizek, in the Globe and Mail:
When Canadians think “highrise nation,” we tend to look elsewhere, and imagine the density of Singapore, New York City or Hong Kiong. Yet, Toronto’s downtown St. James Town has a density of 63,765 per square kilometre, compared with Hong Kong’s densest district, Kwun Tong, at 57,250..
St. James Town
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Kwun Tong
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And even on the outskirts of Toronto, a strip of 19 rental highrises at the north end of Etobicoke’s Kipling Ave … holds over 35,000 people per square kilometre. You’d never feel it driving by.
Kipling Road.
The difference is that hong kong has street life, and it feels like a dense, vibrant and organic neighbourhood, while toronto is planned by urban planners following a book. Density doesn’t really matter after a certain point; what matters is the quality of people who live there.
Ugh. St. James town. A good place to send planning students as an example of what not to do, and proof positive that density alone isn’t enough to make a neighbourhood function, but otherwise not good for much.
I took the bus by St. James Town earlier this year and at least from the outside it seemed like a passable and affordable place for new Canadians to live close to jobs and services. More active street fronts would certainly make it nicer, perhaps at the risk of making it too desirable to remain affordable.
Although I’ve been to Toronto countless times I’ve always, somehow, missed visiting St. James Town. These types of blocks are thankfully disappearing due to extensive use of dynamite. Set back from the street and often cut off with bits of lawn and fences to disencourage pedestrians. Little retail on the streets. They’ll blow it up soon.
I’ve spent some time wandering through St. James Town and, compared to the inner suburb tower complexes also described in this piece, it has a much more active at-grade life. When the weather gets warm there are streams of kidding running around, adults hanging out and chatting with their neighbours, etc. St James Town has in some respects succeeded despite its design in that it has managed to integrate itself into the surrounding neighbourhood, can use those neighbourhood amenities and has, in some cases retrofitted its buildings for more diverse uses. For example, there’s an affordable grocery store in the complex now as well as a mosque built into the underground of one of the buildings. Comparable, though less of a success story is Thorncliffe Park.