The end of suburban sprawl - The Diigo Meta page

• 09 Aug 08
  

  Yule Heibel

  Well, well ...an opinion piece in the Ottawa Citizen (republished across the CanWest newspaper empire, therefore also in Victoria's Times-Colonist), unsigned, that lays out the tenets of anti-sprawl and pro-urbanist thinking succinctly and favorably. (Except that while the title calls it "suburban sprawl," the author calls it "urban sprawl" in the first paragraph. Odd.)
  
  Of interest for a Canadian perspective is that the article hints at the realities of infrastructure funding in Canada.

  sprawl ottawa urbanism cities commentary

  • Some years ago it started to become clear the post-Second World War race to suburbia was damaging North American cities. The result was long anti-social commutes (anti-social because we live in our cars) and outrageously expensive infrastructure -- funded by taxpayers -- to extend services to these outlying neighbourhoods.
  • Ottawa residents know well the negative effects of sprawl. It's hard to create a sense of civic identity when a city is made up of disparate communities separated by vast tracts of land. And yes, the economic inefficiencies of this kind of arrangement are legendary.
  • 4 more annotations...
  • • City of Ottawa planners, like planners across North America, have come to recognize the cost of uncontrollable sprawl, which is why they would like most new development in Ottawa to occur inside what is called the urban boundary.
    • Some developers, however, are outraged. The efforts of city planners to increase density inside the boundary is being dismissed as "naive."
    • In fact, it's the naive ones who somehow believe sprawl is sustainable. Right now, for example, Ottawa is trying to build a light-rail system, but sprawl -- as expressed in low-density living -- makes that project more difficult and expensive.

      • 

        Yule Heibel on 2008-08-09

        - exactly right!
    • As the price of fuel increases, and people become more sensitive generally to their carbon footprints, anyone who's going to argue against the benefits of intensification could find himself in a very lonely position indeed.

Public Stiky Notes

• 
  Yule Heibel on 2008-08-09
  - exactly right!

Would you like to comment?

Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.