Habitat 67 is a monument to what happened when progressive idealism met the Quebec construction industry, imo.
The few examples of modern "sustainable," neighbourhoods that emerged organically were the result of a community (often illegally) adapting industrial buildings for mixed use, and then a cycle of gentrification that makes them desirable. Letting owners convert residential to mixed use also does it. The central planning route just creates subsidized luxury housing for the politically connected.
Architecture expresses economics, and Habitat 67 was an artifact of using federal largess to bribe Quebec to stay in confederation in an age of naive social engineering. When I last saw it in the 90's, the way it continued to absorb subsidies to maintain it on behalf of people who worked in publicly funded culture industries, was basically the most Canadian thing ever.
I often say that Canada is british democracy with french efficiency that only persists for lack of many natural predators this far north. Habitat 67 is kind of a monument to that absurdity.
Quebec has in some ways paid the price for lethargy, I think due to the resulting institutional inefficiency, it's clearly poor for a more advanced province.
That said - it's hard to fathom how Ontario is that much richer without the indirect stimulus offered by large scale immigration. When newcomers arrive and eventually take out mortgages at inflated prices, we basically print money for those and flush it into the economy.
At the end of the day I'm not sure there's that much difference between Quebec and Ontario.
The transfer payments equation basically dictates how much it should spend. If the province got richer it would end up in a situation where it pays more than receive from the federal government. Just imagine the constant electoral adds "instead of hiring X teachers we were forced by the feds to write a check to Newfoundland or some other money pit".
The few examples of modern "sustainable," neighbourhoods that emerged organically were the result of a community (often illegally) adapting industrial buildings for mixed use, and then a cycle of gentrification that makes them desirable. Letting owners convert residential to mixed use also does it. The central planning route just creates subsidized luxury housing for the politically connected.
Architecture expresses economics, and Habitat 67 was an artifact of using federal largess to bribe Quebec to stay in confederation in an age of naive social engineering. When I last saw it in the 90's, the way it continued to absorb subsidies to maintain it on behalf of people who worked in publicly funded culture industries, was basically the most Canadian thing ever.
I often say that Canada is british democracy with french efficiency that only persists for lack of many natural predators this far north. Habitat 67 is kind of a monument to that absurdity.