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Centred in Motion presents a strategy for adapting the existing suburban development of Pickering, Ontario to accommodate contemporary needs. The cultural and geographical conditions that generated Pickering, along with similar suburbs in the Toronto area and across North America, are vastly different from current conditions. An adaptive response addressing these suburbs is necessary to foster intelligent future growth in the Greater Toronto Area. The thesis proposes the design of a mixed-use complex that builds on existing infrastructure and adds density in centrally located, underutilized space within Pickering. A key element is an “inhabitable bridge” that connects the Pickering Town Centre mall in downtown Pickering to commuter services at the GO Transit station and lands to the south. The project embeds a variety of residential, commercial, and civic programs within this infrastructure, providing new services to existing residents, and creating expanded living options with a reduced dependency on personal automobiles within Pickering.

Centred in Motion presents a strategy for adapting the existing suburban development of Pickering, Ontario to accommodate contemporary needs. The cultural and geographical conditions that generated Pickering, along with similar suburbs in the Toronto area and across North America, are vastly different from current conditions. An adaptive response addressing these suburbs is necessary to foster intelligent future growth in the Greater Toronto Area. The thesis proposes the design of a mixed-use complex that builds on existing infrastructure and adds density in centrally located, underutilized space within Pickering. A key element is an “inhabitable bridge” that connects the Pickering Town Centre mall in downtown Pickering to commuter services at the GO Transit station and lands to the south. The project embeds a variety of residential, commercial, and civic programs within this infrastructure, providing new services to existing residents, and creating expanded living options with a reduced dependency on personal automobiles within Pickering.

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The ubiquitous settlement pattern of the American suburb is in fact a carefully constructed reality. Because the vision of the home in the suburbs is very deeply rooted, any development which is considered threatening to this image is met with a defensive reaction. Too often, however, when these NIMBY ("Not In My Back Yard") sentiments are permitted to dictate what is acceptable in a community, housing affordable to low- and moderate-income households is purposely excluded. / This thesis explores the processes by which discriminatory NIMBY sentiments are realized as legal development regulations in contemporary suburbs. The historic evolution of the suburbs and the psychological foundations behind their typical characteristics are presented as the sources of a suburban value structure which esteems NIMBY. Suburban governments are mandated to represent their constituents' values, but exclusionary development controls are a complex product of constituent demands, fiscal constraints, and constitutional limits. / This analysis reveals that legislative responsibility often bows to political weakness. NIMBY groups use political pressure to manipulate municipal governments into using their vast discretionary powers over development as a weapon for exclusion. In response to either political or fiscal motivations, legislators pressure planners to validate discriminatory legislative agendas with their plans, thus undermining their abilities to guide growth effectively. Although the process of development regulation is well-grounded in historic and legal precedents, when legislation is used for discriminatory ends, citizens' civil and property rights are jeopardized. This thesis explains how regulations such as zoning ordinances can be used for exclusion when municipal government disregards its mandate to be the guardian of the general welfare. / Increased awareness of both the motivations and the manifestations of the NIMBY phenomenon may enable individuals as well as lawmakers to create a more equitable suburbia.

Thesis (Ph.D.). / Written for the School of Urban Planning. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/08/04). Includes bibliographical references.

This study addresses the development of the English suburb in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Its proposition is that suburbs were where people wanted to live, and not just to avoid the dirt and disease of the city. They had an appeal beyond the practical. Whether it was a feeling of security, independence, oneness with nature, or of living in 'a place apart', there was an emotional, culturally-conditioned attraction. The specific focus is on the development of the Calverley estate in Tunbridge Wells. The point is not that Calverley was typical, but that it represented a suburban 'ideal'. It was created by a London developer, John Ward, to be just such a 'place apart', an idyllic retreat for a wealthy metropolitan middle class. The study starts by considering Ward's 'vision' for Calverley. Ward had been a major investor in Regent's Park. The study suggests that Calverley, with its 'picturesque' landscape setting, mirrored the fantasy world created by John Nash in Regent's Park. In Calverley, though, Ward and his architect, Decimus Burton, built individual houses in gardens, a model for what was later to become 'a universal suburbia'. A second section considers what attracted Ward's customers. It suggests four influences: the notion of the Picturesque; historical associations; idealised visions of the countryside; and the appeal of certain architectural styles. The final part then examines those customers in more detail. They were not drawn from the existing residents of Tunbridge Wells, but were metropolitan/cosmopolitan incomers (70% of them women). They could have lived anywhere. The study uses five themes of suburban historiography: movement, control, separation, withdrawal and identity, to show how they moulded the physical and social space around them to further achieve their ideal; to create, in the words of one advertisement, this 'enviable little English Elysium'.

This study is based on identifying and analysing the problems which arise from suburban expansion into the urban fringe; and on suggesting certain policy measures which could serve as a basis for directing development in such a way as to avoid these problems. The urban fringe is recognized as the contact zone between the city and the countryside. As such, it experiences the major development forces which arise from the growth of the metropolitan population. It is characterised by change and instability; which are reflected in unrealistic land values, speculative land holding, and unproductive use of much of the land. As suburban development encroaches into this zone, so the forces which precede it reach further out into the countryside. Many fringe areas comprise prime farmland and, in some instances, the environmental characteristics of the l and are scenically attractive and offer great opportunities for meeting the outdoor recreational needs of the metropolitan population. The threat to these attributes. constitutes the major problem associated with suburban expansion.

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