Due to events in my life I have been behind in what I was planning to do with a review of the neighbourhoods in this city. I am now ready to start this project, the first area will be the first neighbourhood in Victoria - James Bay.
I am interested in your thoughts, ideas, pictures and anything ekes about the area. You can contact me at Bernard@shama.ca or through facebook or twitter.
I spent a couple of afternoons in January in James Bay looking at the lay of the neighbourhood.
I expect two post stuff over the next two weeks.
After James Bay, I think I will try Gordon Head, or somewhere else?
2 comments:
Yule Heibel had a good column on James Bay's urban planning peculiarities in one of the more recent issues of FOCUS magazine.
The most interesting aspect for me is its interrupted state. In the 60s it was doomed to West End-style highrise development. It was halted nearly 40 years ago after some of the region's tallest buildings were constructed: Orchard House, Roberts House, Lord and Lady Simcoe etc. Yet the odd mix of Corbusiesque residential towers and century-old bungalow and cottage housing seems to be a happy mix. For all the aesthetic complaints about the highrises, life without them would be unthinkable as most of them not only provide reasonably priced accomodation and eco-friendly density, they provide breathtaking views to people from many different income brackets.
Hi Bernard, my FOCUS article on James Bay is available as a PDF on Scribd (see http://tinyurl.com/bcxpry), if you want to read it.
There's also a James Bay-based blog that we display on metrocascade.com - you can see their "contributors" page here:http://www.jamesbay.org/bios.php. Their postings are a mixed bag, but interesting.
Aside from what I wrote in my article, I find James Bay suffers from too many 3 to 4 storey 60s and 70s apartment buildings with surface parking lots, which (because the lots span the width between streets) often front a street (essentially the back of the building, which has its front on the parallel street, but its lot extends to the next street over).
Today, there would be a lot more thoughtful, conscious design put into these buildings, and no one would literally wreck the streetscape with these ugly parking areas.
Other than that, what Rob said: those buildings along with the highrises provide lots of housing. James Bay should have more amenities (grocery stores, etc.) - the one major grocery store (Thrifty) is a zoo most days...
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