Suburbs that don't Suck - Streetcar Suburbs (Riverdale, Toronto)

Car-dependent suburbs suck. But that doesn't mean that all suburbs suck. It is possible to build suburbs that don't suck, and the US and Canada used to design great suburbs all the time. But even though these pre-war suburbs are loved by many people, and in huge demand, they're illegal to build today.

NJB Live (my bicycle livestream channel):

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References and Image Credits

High North Cannabis Testing

Suburban Space and the City of Rome: Liminality Fluidity and Differentiation

Improving Modern Suburbs with lessons learnt from an Old NJ Town
Alan Fisher - The Armchair Urbanist

Pacific Electric Railway cars piled atop one another at junkyard on Terminal Island, Calif., 1956

Riverdale Population Density

Other Population Density Figures from:

Toronto / E01 Region Housing Prices from MLS (not publicly available):

How Wide Should a Neighborhood Street Be? – Part 1
PlannersWeb

On-street parking: good or bad?
Urban Kchoze

NACTO Urban Street Design Guide
Lane Width

London, Ontario Zoning Map

What If We Rated Schools by Walkability?

Highschool Walkscore

FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN
Journal of Environmental Psychology

Do Minimum-Lot-Size Regulations Limit Housing Supply in Texas?

Minimum-Lot-Size Regulations Mean Less Housing

Toronto’s two front doors issue pits neighbourhood character against renters’ dignity, expert says
Toronto Star

Setbacks, Suburbs and the American Front Lawn

Parking demand and zoning requirements for suburban multifamily housing

Scottsdale, AZ Zoning

Tustin, CA Zoning

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Chapters

0:00 Intro
0:05 Car-dependent suburbs suck
1:17 Suburbs are not the problem
2:15 Suburbs that don't suck are possible
3:20 Introduction to "Streetcar Suburbs"
4:05 About Riverdale
4:24 Why Riverdale is great
5:17 Walkability & schools of Riverdale
6:05 Shopping & Groceries
7:24 Storing your ugly metal boxes
7:47 Population density
8:24 High demand & housing prices
9:46 You can't build it: streets
11:07 You can't build it: zoning
11:46 You can't build it: schools
12:20 You can't build it: housing
13:00 You can't build it: lots & setbacks
14:23 You can't build it: parking
14:40 Conclusion & summary
16:16 Patreon shout-out
16:28 Outro

#suburbs #streetcarsuburbs #urbanplanning #riverdale

[christopherjurich]

I grew up in South Florida suburbs where the closest store was 3 miles away and I relied on my parents to take me anywhere. I had no idea what I was missing until I moved out for college. Now I live in one of the few streetcar suburbs in the state in Jacksonville FL. Because it was largely planned and built before World War I, we have over 100 businesses, parks, and other places to go within 0.5 mile walking distance and hundreds more within 3 miles on bike. I never thought I would be able to use my bicycle as a primary form of transportation in Florida.

I'm so upset that I and so many other people from my generation were robbed from a better childhood and adolescence that a pre-war neighborhood would have provided.

[naomirobinson]

It’s interesting to me that two front doors is considered less aesthetically pleasing than a massive garage door that takes up the entire front of the house.

[jpisty]

I live in an American suburb just like "Phoney London" and I have to admit that I didn't get your criticisms at first. I like having space between my neighbors homes and a nice big front yard. However when you mentioned that suburbs in Europe have pubs, shops and stores intermixed with the homes it got me thinking. It would be really nice to take a stroll to the pub without having to get in my car. Your videos have got me thinking of how much our society has sacrificed for cars and silly zoning regulations. I've been thinking about it all day! You just earned a new subscriber. Thanks for the great videos man.

[cebbi]

When I visited my aunt in America, the thing that shocked me most was getting in a car TO GET BREAKFAST. Who drives to breakfast? What hellscape is this?

[namenamename]

Can I just say that it is amazing to think that Los Angeles, the city known for having awful traffic all the time, used to have a tram system the world could envy?

[karth]

Hearing him refer to Vaughn as a "suburban hellscape" developed a deep kinship that I've never had with any other creator on youtube

[ANDSENS]

I just realized why Amazon has this huge retail sales market share in the US (even selling toiletpaper etc.). In Europe ordering something online seems silly when you can walk to a shop down the street and buy the exact same thing and not pay for shipping while also getting some fresh air.

[RPRIMICI]

Grew up in Riverdale but strangely, we all moved out. I think it's perception. We are conditioned to believe that car-dependent suburbs are a step up so that's what the next generation aspires to. After watching this vid, your arguments make a lot of sense. Everything was close and we lived a 10 min walk from Gerrard Square (the nearest mall). The Gerrard streetcar was the main streetcar to get downtown. Went to Riverdale Collegiate for high school (5 min walk).

[vurrunna]

What makes this all feel so insane is how there's so much demand for these classic-style suburbs, and yet our laws literally make it illegal to fill it. I live in Boise, Idaho, one of the fastest growing cities in the US--in our downtown area, we have the "Northside, " a suburb that's exactly like you see in the video, with stores and parks and cafes. The Northside is exorbitantly expensive due to its incredible demand, and is such a popular location that people will drive down from upwards of thirty minutes away just to enjoy the parks, stores, and general scenery. What's so insane is that our house prices are skyrocketing, and instead of building more dense suburb districts that try to imitate the success of the Northside, we're just getting suburb block after suburb block of mass produced homes. We all want to live in the Northside, and yet we're so used to modern suburbs that no one's questioning why we don't just build more Northsides.

[maxwellvigil]

one thing that really annoys me (i’m a 13year old who commutes to school by bike) is the lack of bicycle lanes and one stretch of quite literally bicycle gutters they got removed cause “ it hurt the local businesses” and on that road is a big box retailer and a giant parking lot

[LeahandLevi]

I absolutely love your unabashed hatred of these places. It makes my heart sing. 😂

[rrenatabp]

Love how you can't have two front doors because that's "ugly" but having two massive garages is the law somehow 🤔

[mdhazeldine]

I'm British and married to a Canadian. On one of my first trips to Ontario I noticed how unwalkable it was when we had to cross the road and my then girlfriend (now wife) wanted to drive! I laughed and said that's ridiculous, let's walk. And then we tried to cross 2 parking lots and a 6 lane road and then suddenly I understood why she wanted to drive. It's no wonder North America has an obesity issue if you can't even walk across the street!

[wez]

Maybe I’m being dramatic, but I feel like suburbs subconsciously make Americans feel more isolated and divided in this country. Imagine the sense of community and unity we could have if we could gather in the center of a neighborhood at a park. Nowadays we watch the same news network, pundits, radio programs when we drive to work/school, maybe we interact with other coworkers/students, and then we go back home with our ideas unchallenged. Car-dependent suburbs normalized the echo chamber effect.

[apmgold]

It amazes me that, in a country like the USA that seems to be so against government control, one of the most basic needs, a place to live, is massively prescribed/controlled.
Great video and a nice insight into the difference in cultures and what they offer, or don't.
Thanks for the effort put into this video.

[kolawoleolayiwola]

Funny enough as a Nigerian living in Nigeria, this is also happening here, we have new neighborhood where there are huge house and great aesthetic, asphalt everywhere, usually very quiet almost like no one lives there, the schools are far away you never see any kid in the streets, always nice cars and all that.

But old neighborhood are kinda different, kids walk to school, usually public transport, not very big houses there's a huge sense of community usually loud, but it's always fun
There's always something that engages you. There's a lot of diversity In taste, aesthetic, functionality but the only thing I don't like is the noise.

We haven't really gotten a hang of the balance of both.

[playlets]

nothing says freedom quite like "minimum building size"

[gmart]

I love my American friends but in all honesty when I first visited the US as a teen, I couldn't wrap my head around why anyone would want to live in a concrete, unwalkable road desert. Still can't.

[Whole_Note]

Just as I was about to graduate high school, my first car was totaled in an accident. It took an entire year for my parents and I to find a good replacement car in a decent price. Because of the suburban sprawl, I sat at home doing nothing during that time when all I wanted to do was find a job. Couldn't get anywhere without a car. Ever since then, I've despised the car centric development of North America.

[rocketGimbal]

I think a sorta midway example of this type of decent suburb that more americans might actually recognize is the basic american college town. In these places there is usually a sort of de facto ‘student neighborhood’ which has smaller and closer together houses and apartments which aren’t super set back from their relatively small (~6-7 meters wide) roads. The entire neighborhood is usually walkable to at least whatever campus the students attend and often also are walkable and/or bikable to the ‘downtown’/‘main street’ area which will have shops and pubs and such. I lived in such a place when I went to my state school in the US and I loved it bc I always hated cars and driving and I just didn’t have a way to express why until I found your channel and those like it. These college towns aren’t perfect but they may be more recognizable to the average american as most have attended college. Might be a more effective way to graft support for our movements. Maybe you could make a video on college towns or something of the like? Either way great video and keep up the great work!