Really?
Tell this Canadian Socialist to speak for himself.
Posted on 06/17/2006 11:35:30 AM PDT by Lorianne
Sprawl wasn't always a dirty word.
In the post-World War II period, the suburbs were considered the best of all worlds.
They offered people the option of living close to the jobs and entertainment of the cities, while still owning a large house, on a quiet, clean street, with few neighbours, surrounded by green space.
As incomes rose and car manufacturers produced affordable models, more people discovered the joys of driving in their own car, instead of waiting for a crowded bus.
But the rosy glow of sprawling suburban life has been gone for quite a while.
The more common saying these days goes along these lines: If we don't kill sprawl, it will kill us.
The Greater Toronto area is already experiencing a record number of smog alert days and if the current patterns of development aren't changed, smog-causing auto emissions are projected to increase more than 40 per cent in the next 25 years.
Many people already spend hours in their cars getting to and from work each day and commute times are only going up.
And, with rising gas prices, people aren't so happy about burning a litre of gas to buy a litre of milk.
These factors, along with a shortage of available land, have already led developers to start changing the way they build new communities.
Some subdivisions are already being built across the Greater Toronto area that are meeting the province's new greenfield density target of 50 people per hectare — about twice the density of traditional sprawl made up of single-family detached homes.
Houses are still big compared to city standards, but the lots are getting smaller and more semi-detached homes and townhouses are getting mixed in.
Some developments even include mid-rise apartment or condominium buildings, community centres, stores and parks.
This type of development is often called "new urbanism" and aims to create communities where people can live, work and play without having to get into a car.
"We are building much more smartly than we were in the 1970s. Regulation, consumer attitudes, price are all things that have evolved the industry into that," said Neil Rodgers, president of the Urban Development Institute, which represents developers and builders.
But the province thinks more needs to be done to better manage the growth of nearly 4 million people and 2 million jobs in southern Ontario in the next 25 years.
It's releasing its "Places to Grow" plan today to force 40 per cent of that growth in the Greater Golden Horseshoe into existing built-up areas.
Right now, leaving out Toronto, which is fully built out, only about 20 per cent of new housing is accommodated in existing urban areas in the region stretching from Niagara through the GTA to Peterborough and north as far as Collingwood.
While environmentalists were the first to attack sprawl for eating up precious farmland and putting pollution-causing cars on the roads, by the 1970s the financial costs started to become obvious.
That's when business people, residents and politicians began to rail against it — though not enough to stop it.
That's about to change, said David Caplan, Ontario's minister of public infrastructure and renewal.
"We've seen the negative affects of traffic congestion, of more smog days, of the loss of economic activity and there's a growing realization of the need to correct these measures and I think that's why we have such broad-based support," Caplan said.
More compact development, requiring fewer kilometres of roads, sewer lines and other infrastructure, will save the province $12 billion over the next 25 years, Caplan said.
"I don't know a citizen or a taxpayer in the province of Ontario who doesn't think we can't get value for the investments we're making," he said.
While the province is taking aim at sprawl, it doesn't expect everyone to live in a high-rise either, said Caplan.
"We think it shouldn't just be a choice of a 50-foot lot or a 50-storey condo," he said.
"There is a range of options in between that consumers should have access to and that's why we need a plan like this in order to give those kind of choices," Caplan added.
Social engineering whiner ...
Really?
Tell this Canadian Socialist to speak for himself.
Disagree about the dig on cars, but otherwise, it's dead on center. Only time we ever lived in the burbs was when I had that job in Birmingham, and even then, we located in one as close to downtown as possible without giving up our profile of what our neighborhood should be.
I personally just don't see the appeal of the long commute if you can afford private school, which is not really all that expensive if one budgets for it. Also, I've found that down here, our suburbs tend to attract more outsiders, people newer to an area will go for the suburbs and in general, I never wanted to do that, as you're likely to get into conflicts with newcomers.
It's suburbia that I love.
You kiss your mother with that mouth?
What really T's me off, is when they regulate land usage so that you can only build one house per 2 1/2 acres, then complain about sprawl.
Now there are so many of them, that they organized and have a picnic every year. And the area has over-populated. And about the same time the Democrats moved into the area, we started having problems with gangs, and drugs, and other social problems we never had before.
The "sprawl" argument always centers around commuting. Beyond that, there's not much to complain about from my perspective, and the commuting argument is also wrong. Many people now live and work in the suburbs. We live about 20 miles from downtown Atlanta. Most of the people on my street drive less than 5 miles to get to work. The kids can play in the street during the day. We don't have sidewalks because you can walk in the street.
No one talks about the social costs of living in high population density - high cost of maintaining infrastructure, rapid spread of disease, crime, etc. They far outweigh the one social cost of "sprawl".
Obviously its a personal preference and should stay that way. Legislating suburbs out of existence is ridiculous.
I live in the Huntersville suburb of Charlotte. First house on a 1/4 acre, 2500 sq ft on a corner lot in a nice subdivision. I commute 50 miles every day.
I wouldn't trade that for a 1000sq ft. condo downtown any day of the week.
Er, no:
First, out here in the suburbs, most people work in other suburbs, not the big city. All those office parks you drive by: they're actually filled with workers. Many of the companies headquartered in office parks are successful technology companies that are publicly-traded.
In my exurb (Ridgefield, CT), only about 5% of the people I know commute all the way to NY City. The rest of us work in suburbia.
Sprawl allows for cheaper housing. Bring on the sprawl!
To the controlling twits maybe.
If it was that undesireable, the phenomenon would stop. The market rules.
Stupid people, what are they thinking?
< /sarc >
Question. Why do we need all the offices in the big cities? That is the real anachronism, in the 21st Century...
I've always found it interesting that the more liberal elements are concentrated in metropolitan areas. The denser the population, the more liberal it seems. (No criticism, just interesting.)
In other words, the denser the population, the denser the populace.
Never said I liked transportation. It's true, I live in the city limits, but it's also true that I take the freeway to work. Even if we do move downtown, like we're now considering, I'll be driving to work, granted it's a shorter distance.
I'd argue the housing near downtown is not that dense, most of the residential neighborhoods that immediately abut downtown are houses built during the Victorian period. I have also found that most of the people that live in our suburbs do end up coming to work inside the city limits. Then again, to each his own.
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