What are we doing? July 3, 2010 – 7:45 am
I wish I could live in the third one from the left……..You know, the one with the red door. With a red door I could be “different” and express my “individual character”. Nothing is more depressing then seeing suburbia from the sky. At least everyone has a garage and a big back yard………that’s a good thing right? Why does the “Ottawa Urban Infill Guidelines” promote front porches to animate the street, discourage large garage doors, express the need for a dominate front door, encourage sustainable elements, require landscaped front yards, will not allow front yard parking and goes through great lengths to promote interesting concepts in housing while allowing this to be built over and over? Why can’t there be a Suburban Design Guidelines?
2 Comments
The offender here may not be the monotony-of-style as much as the grid in which these houses reside. The red door is merely a band-aid response in this case. I see it time and again how huge tracts of land are developed quickly, usually by a single developer. Driven by profit they have the overriding objective of stuffing the maximum number of units cheaply efficiently and with little regard to the long-term psychological impact to the inhabitants. Authorities on the other hand are partly driven by the prospect of increased tax revenues, so the last person on the scene – the buyer – ends up paying the real price.
I have to believe its because our city councilors are small minded and not well traveled enough to understand where the world is going rather then where it came from. In this same spirit we see them attempting to bring back a failed business model in the CFL franchise to Ottawa……..just keep beating at the same thing.