I heard a lot about the outer suburbs during the suburban revolution conference. I read a lot about them in this great book. Now I finally wanted to see a bit more of them. You can discuss if they are still outer suburbs of Toronto, or if Richmond Hill, Markham & Co. are towns and cities (officially they are, of course) with their own downtown core and suburbs. But I won’t to write too much about deconcentrated concentration and so on, I will first of all show some pictures.
Younge Street, one of the most important, if not the most important street in Toronto, hosts some interesting malls in North York.
Younge street continues all the way north to Lake Simcoe, passing Richmond Hill's old city centre.
It is difficult to explore Richmond Hill and Markham by public transport (without mobile internet), because most of the bus routes are running not really often…
…and at the most stations you have no idea when the next bus will depart, as you have – similar to Toronto – no schedule information at the station. A positive exception is the VIVA express bus network, with comfortable, frequently running buses, and bus stops with weather protection and digital displays.
Most of the human beings in the outer suburbs are hidden behind the front window of their car – or behind a fence.
There’s enough space for cars in Markham…
…and sometimes as a pedestrian you have no idea where you should walk.
Markham is the most diverse city in Canada. 51% of the more than 300,000 inhabitants are immigrants, 66% are visible minorities. Here are some more pictures I took in Markham:
As Markham continues to grow, the Stadtkante is moving northwards year after year, like a carpet that is being rolled over the agricultural fields.
I walked (there was no bus… and it was still cold…) to a new urbanism project that is called “Cathedraltown”. In short, New Urbanism is an urban design movement which promotes walkable neighborhoods and a mix of uses.
Yes, there is indeed a cathedral in the middle of the settlement. When this “Slovak Cathedral of the Transfiguration” was built and consecrated by Pope John Paul in 1984, it stood alone in a field several miles north of the built up area of Markham. In 2010, the city reached the Cathedral. More and more buildings are surrounding it.
Unfortunately, the cathedral isn’t well maintained… The only thing which still works is the video control…
Here are two panorama pictures of Cathedraltown:
I finish this post with two unorthodox pictures of Toronto’s subway I made today, showing subway cars on a highway and on a bridge.
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