sprawl

Vote for De-suburbanization

28 May, 2009 | Deborah Curran

It all started when the American dream of single-family home ownership leaked into Canada. Yet who would have predicted that the desire to provide inexpensive housing and stimulate the economy after the Second World War would result in the expensive-to-maintain, agricultural-land-gobbling, ecosystem-fragmenting community form we find today outside most major centres in North America? ...

Published in: Saving the Land that Feeds Us 34.3
Tags: urbanization, urban growth, sprawl, ecosystems

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Places to Grow

28 May, 2009 | Nicola Ross

With four million more people expected to flock to Southern Ontario’s Greater Golden Horseshoe by 2031, something has to be done to ease the region’s debilitating traffic gridlock and unchecked urban sprawl. The McGuinty government’s response is a major growth management initiative, referred to as Places to Grow. Introduction of the Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt in 2006 was a first step.

Published in: Saving the Land that Feeds Us 34.3
Tags: urban growth, sustainability, sprawl, agriculture

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Calgary in the year 2050

28 May, 2009 | Brad Stelfox

Rural Growth
Stress on water systems
• In 1950, Alberta irrigated 180,000 hectares of land. In 2000, 520,00 hectares were being irrigated.
• In 1950, Alberta had 20,000 drilled water wells. In 2000, there were 325,000.

Questionable Environmental Impacts
• Alberta’s cattle population in 1950 was 1.8 million. In 2000, the cattle population was 5.7 million.
• In 1950, Alberta supported 68,000 farms. In 2000, the number dropped to 29,000 as agriculture tended towards larger farms. ...

Published in: Saving the Land that Feeds Us 34.3
Tags: urban growth, sprawl, population

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Clinching Sprawl

28 May, 2009 | Maureen Carter-Whitney

Calgary is losing the density game.

Each year, its 3-per-cent population gain takes up 4.5 per cent more space.

A greenbelt, according to international wisdom, could help save the city’s near-urban lands. ...

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Published in: Saving the Land that Feeds Us 34.3
Tags: urbanization, sprawl, agriculture

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Citizen Monitors

28 May, 2009 | Robert Gibson and Debbe Crandall

Lake Wilcox should be safe. It is on the Oak Ridges Moraine, an area specially protected under Ontario planning law. But if Lake Wilcox isn’t ruined by spreading suburbia, it will owe more to Sharon and Jim Bradley than to planning policies.

Published in: Saving the Land that Feeds Us 34.3
Tags: sprawl, preservation, conservation

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Faulty Towers

27 May, 2009 | Edmund P. Fowler

Thinking outside the box is a metaphor that refers to mental boxes such as preconceptions and unexamined assumptions. However, most cultures have tangible physical boxes as well as mental ones. These boxes take the form of settlements and individual buildings that influence our thoughts as well as our behaviour. ...