A look at the problem of urban sprawl in Canada and the ongoing efforts at controlling and minimizing it.
Abstract
This paper takes a look at the constant growth and development of residential and commercial structures in Canada and the measures that have been undertaken to control this growth, as well as transform it so as to create healthy and sustainable communities. The paper focuses on what such effort called “Smart Growth” and outlines the basic concept of this method.
From the Paper:
“Canadians have spent a lot of time, effort and money in developing our urban environment. Through constant growth and development of new residential or commercial structures, we have transformed the landscape of our country. Growth and development have expanded so rapidly that we now classify it as sprawl. There have been many debates on how to contain this sprawl that is occurring. Efforts such as Smart Growth and New Urbanism are just two of the ideas conceived to contain our sprawl. In order to understand how to contain sprawl, we must first understand what sprawl is. The Canadian Urban Institute identifies sprawl as “the way in which new development consumes land at a faster rate than the rate at which the population is growing.” (Canadian Urban Institute 2001:5) Sprawl as we know it is low-density land development with high dependency on automobiles.”