The Toronto Waterfront plan: A Slow Landscape as basis

A Slow Landscape forms the basis for redevelopment of the harbour area's at the Toronto waterfront. Together with a mixed-use strategy and slow traffic lanes and parks, this will be the place where, acording the masterplan, communities should 'grow'. Though in the renderings I do see also very big buildings, it seems there is place for small initiaves of groups of people or familyhouses.

To me these form the small seeds voor a slow transformation to a real city. The video shows a timeline where the built up area is growing. So there must be some rules or strategies in the masterplan to be flexible and react to changing programmes, circumstances and crisises. Check the movies:

Slow urbanism and private housebuilding in Holland

A video of the Dutch ministrie of internal affairs promoting self building of your own house. Main reason for them is the cancellation off many projects in Holland because of the absence of project developers and investers. Projects only get built when at least 70% is sold. Because of the crisis this is very hard, though private persons and families can get a loan from the banks to build there own house. But there are almost no possibilities for this in the most urban part of Holland the Randstad (Amsterdam-Utrecht-The Hague-Rotterdam)

Slow urbanism promotes this creating of city structures based on the smallest unit. The city will later transform itself into a more urban setting by natural processes. There is no need to always built 'instant city' ensembles by project developers. City life needs time to grow.

Check the movie, it is in Dutch.