Urban Development Concepts

• Summary of the functions of the city of Toronto:
• Mobilization of factors of production, including land, labor, capital, physical infrastructure, diverse population, and attraction of entrepreneurs.
• Effective beneficial environment for business.
• Decision-making center for numerous headquarters, influencing companies, partners, and other regions.
• Central location for decision-making by entities such as CIBC, BMO, aerospace industries, major hospital administrations, and government departments.
• Generative function: Concentration of people fosters interaction among diverse groups.
• Environment with a pool of talented, creative, skilled, experienced, and knowledgeable labor.
• Pool of labor promotes competition, innovation, and the production of high-quality services.
• Transformation: Diversity creates freedom and liberation, differing from limited opportunities in smaller towns.
• Presence of various attractions and activities provides a break from the rigidity of rural areas.

Urbanization

• From 2011 to 2021, approximately 81% of the population resided in major cities.
• Major cities including British Columbia Lower mainland landSouthern Vancouver Island, Edmonton, Toronto's Golden Lakeshore lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe and Montreal greater area.
• Fundamental questions about urbanization include:
• What makes the city of Toronto distinctive or unique?
• Do significant patterns or regularities exist in the spatial organization of land uses?
• What factors account for the form and patterns of the growth of the city of Toronto?

Urban Form

• Urban form refers to the structure and organization of a city, including land use, built environment, and street layout
• Toronto exhibits a "grit patent," characterized by extensive and intensive growth, and vertical development due to intensification and gentrification.
• Some city areas undergo redesign, redevelopment, and reorganization, regulated by various laws.

Zoning Types

• Incentive zoning involves granting builders legal rights to disregard certain provisions in exchange for providing social amenities like affordable housing, public parks, and recreational spaces, leading to relaxed prohibitions on development.
• Density bonusing entails agreements between developers and municipalities, offering developers incentives to exceed height restrictions in exchange for providing amenities like recreation rooms or walk-in clinics. An example includes developers being able to ask for more than 20 floors in a building
• Discretionary zoning, being restrictive, is less effective in setting context, context-specific, designed to be flexible, and adapting to specific needs of neighborhoods and communities.

Urban Ecology

• Urban ecology encompasses the social and demographic composition of a city, with ongoing movement of diverse groups based on ability to pay and connect.
• Human agency and natural entities create cultural landscapes, with mosques, temples, and Jewish sanctuaries representing different ethnic groups competing for space and opportunities.
• Immigrant movement may cause:
• Displacement of existing groups who move out due to new groups practicing religion in large numbers.
• Integration, where groups coexist harmoniously with cultural respect.
• Cultural assimilation or acculturation, where barriers are eroded.
• Repulsion, where new groups struggle to settle due to high costs, leading to rejection by the majority group

Urbanism

• Way of life promoted by urban settings.
• Fashion sets urbanites apart from rural people.
• Urban people are more exposed to fashion.

Urban System

• Characteristics of urban system: interrelated urban systems and interdependent cities, divided into top, medium, and lower tiers based on population and economic activity, as well as connectivity through people, services, and the economy.
• Features nested hierarchies of a core (central business district) and a periphery (surrounding areas).
• Combination of networks of cities is called a conurbation.

Central Place Theory

• Walter Crystaller, a German geographer from the 1930s, developed the central place theory.
• Cities evolve as market centers due to people's shopping behaviors and demands for goods and services.
• Range represents the maximum distance an individual is willing to travel for a good or service, influenced by cost and time.
• Shorter distances result in greater interaction, whereas greater distances reduce the frequency of travel.
• The distance decay effect theorizes that closer things are more related than distant things.
• High-order goods and services are specialized items produced in major cities, like neurosurgeons or cancer facilities in Toronto.
• Low-order goods are ubiquitous, cheap items found everywhere, such as groceries, convenience stores, walk-in clinics, and gas stations.
• Threshold population is the minimum number of people that the service is used by.
• Services: thrive based on customer base, land costs, labor costs, and distances.
• Market analysis: helps determine suitable businesses for what threshold populations.
• Ideal circumstances involve a flat plain with good transportation, low transport costs, low rent, and cheap labor.

Types of Urban Cities

• Gateway cities command entrance and exit from a region, emerging as port cities for merchandise like Florence, New York, Halifax, Vancouver, Kitimat, and Prince Rupert.
• Shock cities embody surprising change, arising from industrial manufacturing and processing, exemplified by Detroit's boom and bust.
• Colonial cities are established for colonial administrations, fulfilling ceremonial functions and serving as trading posts, like Forth York.
• World cities serve as nerve centers of financial, economic, and political culture, where decisions impact other regions, such as Toronto, NYC, Paris, and London.
• The neo-liberal introduces the Structural Adjustment Program.
• PAMSCAD is a program of action to mitigate the social cost of adjustment.

Sprawl

• Sprawl: Is low-density development outward from urban centers, catering desirable lifestyles for wealthy individuals.
• Sprawl: Causes wasteful resource use and aesthetic issues, requiring extensive infrastructure connections.
• Physical Development: Happens quicker than the population growth.
• Edge cities are major highway intersections, restaurants, and houses. Nodal towns tend to be linchpins

Causes of Sprawl

• Human population growth, per capita land consumption, highways, automobiles, and technologies.
• Rental market and noise and crime levels lead to sprawl.
• Uncentered commercial: Is strip development and low density.
• Low-density: Is single-use development, properties, and housing.
• Scattered Development: is leapfrog development.
• Sparse street network happens in remote spaces.

Problems of Urban Sprawl

• Urban vs Consumer choices:
• Choice in the development industry.
• High cost infrastructure and development in low density areas.
• Transportation expenses and home maintenance costs in suburban home buying.

Pollution and Health Problems

• Pollution and health problems: Is exposure to carbon monoxide while driving.
• Suffocation: From driving and falling asleep while driving.

Land Use Changes

• Bid Rent Theory: industrial, commercial, residential, and agricultural competes for the type of profit investment
• This leads to the losses of farmland.
• Land agreements save farmland.

Urban Environmental Conditions And Trends

• Food Production:
• Distribution and poverty: lead to inequitable food amounts.
• Deforestation and overgrazing: potential changes in land use.
• Community Gardening: increase in gardening.
• Atmosphere:
• Microclimates form from climate and change structures.
• Temperature: cities have an average temperature difference of 5 degrees. The 3.7 million deaths: Deaths from air pollution.
• Health Issues: From the frequent use of cars.
• Water Issues:
• Most Canadian cities: supply water by surface water.
• Cities affect quality of water.
• Walkerton: 2000 people got sick because the advisory was not released.
• Water test samples: Manitoba results were too late.
• Kashechewan: Also had E-coli.
• Southern Ontarians: Rely on groundwater.
• Provision: Water is public and private. PPPs.
• Sustainable Housing:
• Canadians: Strong preference for homes.
• Co-housing: Started in Denmark in the 1960s. Common Shared amenities and home clusters.
• Concern for environmental stewardship: Homes can have a concern for the health of the occupant and have appropriate tech.

Problems of Post-Industrial City of Toronto

• The community loses money: fiscal problems and economics.
• Not enough revenue is raised.
• Infrastructure problems:
• 1.2 Billion to fix the Gardiner Express.
• Neighborhood Problems and poverty:
• $38,000 is household debt.
• Homelessness

Explore urban planning, ecology, and systems. Understand density bonusing, urban ecology, and the dynamics of urban structure. Learn about conurbations and the impact of structural adjustment programs.