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September 28, 2007

Jane Jacobs was wrong about a stadium, but Toronto ain't Brooklyn

Atlantic Yards Report

Skydome.jpgJane Jacobs admitted she was wrong about the Toronto stadium, but would she have approved of Atlantic Yards?

Norman Oder poses the question to himself:

A 5/31/93 New York Times profile of Jacobs... reported:

Because the Sky Dome is amid downtown office buildings with ample parking and easily accessible by public transit, it did not require the sort of vast parking lots that turn the areas surrounding most stadiums into wastelands. The Sky Dome also incorporates stores and hotels that make it active even during the off season.

"Before it was built, I had thought that would be a terrible site for a stadium, blighting the area like other stadiums," Mrs. Jacobs admits. "But I was wrong. I am wrong plenty of times, you know.

But the site in downtown Toronto did not border a residential neighborhood, as in Brooklyn and could rely on empty office parking rather than nearly 1600 spaces of interim surface parking.

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Posted by lumi at September 28, 2007 11:50 AM