Sprawl continues it's reign in Canada
 

TORONTO — Nearly all of Canada's population growth over the past five years occurred in the suburbs, according to a new analysis of the 2011 Census data by an urbanist who says government policies are driving people out of the city — and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

While the downtowns of Canada's six largest metropolitan areas made modest gains, urban cores have been "dwarfed by the scale of suburban population increases," which made up 93 per cent of the nation's growth, Wendell Cox, principal of Demographia, a St. Louis, Mo., demographics and urban policy firm, wrote in an analysis this week posted on the website NewGeography.com.


http://www.edmontonjournal.com/techn...070/story.html

At least our urban areas aren't dying like they are south of the border.

I equate sprawl with poor planning more than suburban growth. The garbage replacing the vacant industrial along Warden Ave. between St Clair and Eglinton (deep inside the 416) is the apex of sprawl.

Here is a map of rates of growth across the Montreal CMA. The highest growth is occurring in the far-flung north shore suburbs.

Agreed. It's no big secret that greenfield growth will always outpace infill and intensification. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a bit delusional. The trick is making sure it's done in the correct manner - which aside from a few examples isn't really happening.

Some of the 416 infill replacing viable employment areas is simply egregious though. There are far too many examples of this, another being the garbage on St Clair West near Weston (both residential and commercial). Spitting distance from working fat rendering plants and only a short walk from the historic Junction strip.

I thought that was the whole point of the Placers to Grow Act - so that cities in the GGH can't continue to sprawl.

Modest gains? The downtowns of Toronto and Vancouver (not sure about the other cities) are growing considerably faster than their suburbs are.

^ i would be surprised if that is true.

if it is, it is only as a percentage but represents a tiny proportion compared to suburban growth.

as an example, winnipeg's downtown population has grown by 30% in 5 years, the rest of the city 6%, but 95% of the growth is still suburban....which is pretty typical for all cities....even the big ones.

'fastest growing' is the statistic for losers....its like 'most improved'...doesnt mean good.

Downtown Edmonton had 16% growth versus a city avg of 12% this census

Yes, but it doesn't prohibit greenfield growth. The aim is both for a more sustainable form of greenfield development mixed with a higher proportion of infill/intensification in key areas. 40% of growth from the plan's inception in 2006 to 2031 is to occur through intensification. The remaining 60% is on greenfield land.

Of course one can very convincingly argue that the blanket goal of 50 persons and jobs per hectare in general growth areas isn't all that effective. Milton meets these targets unfortunately.


Back to the topic at hand - approximately 1/5th of growth in the GTA during the last census period occurred within the City of Toronto. All through infill (of varying quality), and particularly in central areas. This isn't exactly insignificant.

Where'd you hear that? Between 2006-20011, Vancouver proper increased by 25,000. Greater Vancouver grew by 200,000, albeit mostly in brownfield development. Toronto proper grew by 100,000; Greater Toronto grew by half a million.

Vaughan
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/6075/vaughanv.jpg

Brampton
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/1205/brampton.jpg

Markham
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/4820/markham.jpg

Richmond Hill
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/4434/rhill.jpg

See:


In comparison, Toronto's suburbs grew by 13.7% and Vancouver's 11% (total CMA growth was 9.2% and 9.3% respectively).

Suburban growth is not a bad thing IF it is properly planned. In most cases in Canada, suburban growth is very poorly planned and you end up with massive expanses of low-density residential with what urban planners call "shopping nodes". That is a growth model that does not create a sense of community, does not create a sense of place, and encourages people to drive everywhere.

Where I used to live in suburban London, within a 15-minute walk, the only things other than houses were a couple of elementary schools, a couple parks, and a ski club. The nearest variety store was a little more than 15 minutes away. Everything else, you had to drive to. The nearest place selling hardware-related items was a 14-minute drive away. The nearest place selling clothes was about the same distance. And everything is corporate - there's virtually no local businesses owned and operated by your neighbours. The street I lived on for over 25 years was dead - lots of people living in the houses, but never seen outside except when shovelling snow or cutting grass. Some of my neighbours I only ever saw after snowstorms, and I never knew most of the people on my street. Nobody except next-door neighbours ever talked to each other. There were almost never kids playing outside. A very dull place I could never go back to.

I now live in the northern suburbs of Mexico City, but it is not a suburb in the Canadian sense. Within a 10-minute walk there's a laundromat, supermarket (with a real bakery, not what passes for a bakery at Metro), several variety stores, several restaurants, elementary school, park, police detachment, car repair shops, soccer fields, tortilla shops, hair salons, hardware store, dental clinic, medical clinic, and extensive public transit. On Mondays there's a farmers' market on one of the nearby streets. You can easily buy local. Most of these establishments are operated by your own neighbours, and you don't have to live in the area very long to become a regular customer and get to know them. You don't have to drive 15 minutes to the corporate Home Depot to buy a light bulb, you can buy it in your own community from your own neighbours. There are no backyards here; if you want to go outside you go to the front of your house, and you get together with your neighbours. In this suburb there is a strong sense of place and a sense of community like I've never seen in a Canadian suburb. If you want anything even remotely resembling this in a city like London, you have to live in the older central part of the city. At least Downtown Toronto has everything.

There is no reason why new Canadian suburbs have to continue being cold places where you have to drive everywhere and never see your own neighbours. But, as long as new developments continue to be built by corporate interests whose "market research" shows that "today's families" want to drive long distances to buy the basics and only buy from major corporate retailers, drive long distances to get to the hockey rink, use drive-thrus exclusively to avoid having to deal with real humans at Tim Hortons, avoid human contact with others on their street, and hide in their backyards where they can't be bothered by those pesky other humans. I will never live in a North American suburb ever again.

And we all thought Calgary was bad....

http://i993.photobucket.com/albums/a...ulationmap.jpg
http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-re...-01-00-eng.pdf

It's not really a suburban thing, it's more of a North American attitude problem. I live in a townhouse complex, which is fairly dense with people in much closer proximity to each other than they would be out in Herp Park. After 2 years I know an equal number of people: my neighbour on one side, and a classmate who also lives in the complex. Most people (even students- who make up about 1/3 of the complex's population) live their entire lives inside their units. Reaching out to them is a waste of time because you're usually met with a cold rebuke.

The same thing happened to my old neighbourhood in North York. I noticed that as a lot of the older (usually Jewish) owners moved out, the newer owners made every effort to avoid interaction with others. At first I was tempted to treat it as a cultural issue (they were mostly from Hong Kong), but I think it has more to do with the fact that people don't have established roots in a community and thus don't really care for the place or the existing residents. A friend of mine who lives near Mortimer and Woodbine in East York is beginning to complain about the same thing- as the place gets "yuppified", the newer folks are much less inclined to interact with the people already there.

Yup. Not only are those houses all miserably squashed together on tiny lots, but the developer is giving little or no thought to commercial zones.

The story is slanted. 20-30% growth is not a "modest gain". There has been a large and significant resurgence in infill construction in many Canadian cities during the last census period. The article is also framed in a misleading way -- it is perfectly natural that cities will use some additional land as they grow. That was the case even before modern suburban sprawl existed. It's also possible for old suburbs to become new candidates for infill decades later, particularly if rapid transit is built. City (some existing sub-area) vs. sprawl (any greenfield construction) is a false dichotomy.

It isn't realistic to expect most new construction to be downtown condos, but it is easy to imagine a future where a city like Toronto will diverge considerably from the path it was on in the 1980s and 1990s. Going from 5-10% infill (or whatever it was) to 40% is very significant. Presenting this change as a continuation of late 20th century patterns of sprawl is wrong.

Most of Canada's suburban development is sprawly, but also not sprawly at the same time.
Our suburbs are approaching the density of most inner city neighbourhoods. If you look at the new suburbs going up in Toronto, those subdivisions have housing that would fit right in, down in the Beaches area of Toronto, or other areas. In fact I think the inner city may have more grass and backyard space than lot of these new subdivisions.

Where the sprawl comes into play, is the way these new areas are designed, and the almost 100% auto dependency, etc.

It is... (in comparison)

Practically every neighbourhood in this city is postwar suburbia.

In Toronto, you're right - the housing I've seen in Milton, the newer parts of Mississauga, etc. is very dense. That's not the case in London; although newer housing is more dense than it was in the 1950s, lot sizes in newer parts of London are still quite large compared with Toronto's suburbs. And in the communities near the city such as Ilderton, the lots are even larger.

Except in no way is it possible that the 705 sq km # could be close to accurate regarding the city's actual built area. Calgary, which comprises about 90% of the population of the CMA is right around 500 sq km built area.

The development pattern of the 905 is really sporadic compared to Calgary's subdivisions, which by and large are planned in large chunks, with a more complete set of services and amenities.

I think they have misused the term, since "sprawl" can be any new greenfield development looking at the big picture. Sprawl is forced, unless growth is zero or negative, since it is not desirable to freeze boundaries as not everyone wants to live in condos or townhomes, otherwise people will go to other outlying municipalities.

The real story is the declines in the vast majority of the inner suburbs and older urban areas.

Mississauga is truly a city of extremes. In the northwest the subdivisions marketed as singles are more or less glorified townhomes. As we all know the city center is beginning to rival North York in its condo boom while Meadowvale is the epitomy of the office park. South of the 401 you'll find many communities such as Birchwood, Mineola and Lorne Park where forested 1-2 acre lots are the norm.

Can I please get links to these exact places for google maps?

The Calgary posters are incoming with lattes and pitchforks in hand.

The density figures are inconsistent between cities and not very useful for comparison. If you look at the census tract maps you will find that some include large undeveloped areas and others do not. Similarly, some cities with broken up geography include large amounts of undeveloped or commercial land while others do not.

Another factor that is not mentioned very often is that only residences are included in the population counts. You don't often see much about parkland, industrial, or commercial land use.

What the census tracts are useful for is looking at changes over time within a fixed area.

The problem with these figure is they compare city and suburban but city is not just downtown but the whole city.
Downtown/inner city areas of major Canadian cities are doing quite well and are experiencing high growth rates but other parts of the city itself maybe losing population due to demographic changes.
All those suburab houses of the 1990/70s that were still in the city proper has M&D and 4 kids but now M&D are the only ones left.
I will use my family as an example..................when we were growing up there were 6 in the family all in one house.
My sister was the only one of the 4 of us kids that had a kid of her own. Now there are 7 of us but we occupy 5 different residences.

• Vancouver grew by 4.4 per cent — to 603,502 people.

• Surrey grew by 18.6 per cent — to 468,251.

• Burnaby grew by 10.1 per cent — to 223,218.

• Richmond grew by 9.2 per cent — to 190,473.

• Abbotsford grew by 7.4 per cent — to 133,497


Read more:

If the above trend continues, Surrey will pass Vancouver as the largest city in the Vancouver CMA in the 2021 census... will they will rename it to the Surrey CMA?

It's funny, the same day that article was printed so was this one.

Toronto Star

Toronto office rents soar 17.5 per cent as companies bypass suburbs to settle in the city
Companies appear willing to pay the price to open or expand offices in Toronto’s booming downtown, despite rents that jumped 17.5 per cent last year.

Unexpectedly strong demand for space in the core helped push office vacancy rates down to just 4.7 per cent in 2011. That’s placed Toronto No. 4 among the world’s Top 10 cities seeing significant increases in office rental rates, according commercial brokerage Cushman & Wakefield.

“Toronto has come through an extremely robust period of demand and it has tightened the market to the point where it’s challenging to find the quality locations for companies that are in the market right now,” says Stuart Barron, national director of research for Cushman.

The hefty rent increases not only point to Toronto’s international appeal as a safe place to do business, but a shift in thinking among companies that previously would have been inclined to set up shop in the suburbs, says Barron.

Read on here -http://www.thestar.com/business/arti...-the-city?bn=1

Impossible.

If then, then Victoria CMA should've changed to Saanich CMA, right?

:haha:

Calling Wendell Cox an urbanist is a bit like calling Chad Kroeger a songwriter.

Very true.

Not surprised to see no growth in the downtown area. I wish this map was more clearly labelled, but I think Kenmount Terrace and Bristolwood are either in the block labelled St. John's or the one below and to the left. Really the only real place in St. John's that's growing, and even still it's sprawl. Not like any huge developments are bringing people back to living downtown, LeMarchant, Mundy Pond, etc.

That means everything between downtown and the outer suburbs are growing much slower, despite its better access to transit compared to the latter.

I also think you also put too much stock in density numbers. Sunbelt cities have some of the densest subdivisions anywhere, and their urbanism is abysmal. Cramming families into tacky boxes with more asphalt than greenery only delays the real solutions to the sprawl mentality, while creating some of the ugliest landscapes imaginable. In some ways, ultra-low density east-coast sprawl is more of a greenbelt, being spared from the greybelt that encompasses the inner city.

They're not hard to spot on google earth... these areas are measured in square miles rather than acres or hectares.

The East Coast does seem to have a different conception of what constitutes sprawl.. Halifax, for example, has an inner ring "905-style" suburbs - Cole Harbour, Bedford, Sackville, and most of Mainland (West) Halifax. Beyond this "greybelt" are the exurbs or "rural commutershed" - very low-density areas that are almost exclusively residential. This is part of Hammonds Plains, perhaps one of the best examples of this type of sub-suburb:

http://g.co/maps/vsp88 There are some advantages to this type of development - considerably more privacy, access to nature, and general preservation of the area's natural integrity. However, there are major downsides as well - they are very expensive to service, and effective public transportation is a non-starter.

I can't stand sprawl, it's worse for the environment and it feels like it kills the idea of community.

Here in the Windsor area sprawl is bad enough imo and I feel it has hurt the area, or mainly the city than helped it, mainly because the sprawl is happening in the nearby towns that literally rub shoulders with Windsor.

The downtown is struggling, but the regional mall has always done well, and if I see another strip mall go up in a former farmers field I'll scream.

I do wish there was overlap between urban planning and climate science. Your understanding of the former subject is very articulate and I agree with you for much of it. Your understanding, however, rests upon the assumption that resources are limitless.

Sprawl is never good for the environment; therefore, sprawl is devastating to long-term economics. As more fertile lands are cleared for suburban developments and farm lands, the less able those lands are at filtering the pollution we create.

At some point in the near future sprawled development must be halted. There will be no amount of rhetoric that will convince our economies of this reality; it will be physical proof that finally moves societies to implode to city centres -- to densify. Ever more frequent and severe natural disasters, escalating prices for everything (gas, food, building supplies, social services, etc.), and a global digital awareness of how dramatically widespread and deep our problem is what will finally move us to a stronger linkage between our economic activities and climate science.

It's disheartening to see our lack of compromisation and our ample efforts in how we distract ourselves with politics, when there is a much bigger opponent looming over our heads.

With a growing population and a diminishing capacity to support it -- just how expensive shall our futures become? Completely unaffordable? It seems as though we're all waiting for environmental bankruptcy, for which, there is no bailout.

It is interesting to compare sprawl in the Maritimes with sprawl in Ontario or points farther west. The exurban lots tend to look much more attractive but are unsustainable and are not being developed as quickly now. I think exurbia works when it is subsidized by 95% of the city but does not work when it is 50% of the city.

There are planning differences between different regions but the local geography also plays a big role. The Halifax metro area has a large harbour, hundreds of lakes, watershed areas, steep areas, rock that requires expensive blasting, etc. At the other end are some Prairie cities that are pretty much just a giant flat area that can be cheaply and easily paved over.

Exurbia aside, it is unfortunate that Halifax has many new developments that are medium density but car-oriented. In these areas people don't have the advantage of being able to walk around and they don't have the advantage of extra space. It would be so much better if these areas had mixed use developments and if walking were encouraged:

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7209/6...36310e11_z.jpg
source - Urban_Halifax on flickr

I don't necessarily think the walkable neighbourhoods would be much more expensive, and people do want them. Sadly many of our problems appear to be caused by a legacy of misguided planning decisions and poor planning regulations aimed at separating uses, adding in setbacks and green space, etc. Even today in Halifax when people try to plan better neighbourhoods they always seem to think they want more green space. Green space can be good but the current problems are not caused by a lack of green space.

In comparison to what? Do you even understand what the expression "in comparison" means?

Calgary is about average for density- so what exactly is your fucking criticism? Or your fucking point?

Speaking as a planner, I've been reading through this thread with great interest. A point I want to make from something Ryejay mentions is that CIP (the Canadian Institute of Planners) is pushing planners in private and public practice to consider their actions in relation to the environment. This is a recent initiative, so I can't see it being that strong right now - but certainly something will come of it (I hope).

Someone123's photo is a great shot of where my mom lives now in Bedford. She's actually in the shorter building third one up from the water. But this community she lives in is very car oriented, it's not easy to walk up to the sobeys (that hill isn't fun sometimes).

I'm not surprised by the growth of the suburban areas, it's not hard to see population rising in these areas at double digit rates. Keep in mind that these places are starting from zero and working up - so as new homes/multi come on stream, they fill up quick. But many cities are pushing redevelopment and infill in their centres, so the population numbers will start trending up in many places. Calgary for example saw a lot of projects get approved but never built because of the economy - now they are coming on stream. After 3-4 years of building, you'll see the Beltine take a notable increase for them. The same is true for HRM - it's regional centre initiative will help with increasing numbers in that area.

Thing to keep in mind about changing cities like Calgary (where people equate it with sprawl) is that it took roughly 30 years for the city to sprawl out, it can't change in a day. Plan It (the new municipal development Plan) took how many years to develop? It recognized that as we start to turn the corner, it will still take 5-10 years of typical thinking before the train slowed down and switched tracks. It may not be something which you may see right away, but it's happening and I've been noticing it. The a typical suburban developments aren't getting an easy ride through planning commission and council anymore...but things take time. Plan It looked at Calgary over 60+ years and we're only 2 years in!

It is a really hard problem, because it is hard to modify the existing sprawl and it is hard to build better development outside of the sprawl belts of cities like Calgary.

In the 905 area of Markham there are some developments that are a bit better, with small blocks, garages in behind, small lots, etc., but everybody still drives because they mostly work in office parks or have long commutes that generally don't work with transit. In Toronto there isn't even good rapid transit coverage of the core, let alone suburban areas.

Halifax doesn't really have anything like that out in a genuinely suburban area but there have been a couple of proposals. One was for the Papermill Lake area of Bedford and the other is for the Motherhouse lands by MSVU. Regardless of how well-designed those neighbourhoods could be, I don't think many people would choose to live in them without regularly using a car to get around.

For now the best solution seems to be to encourage urban infill and to invest in rapid transit lines with transit-oriented development near the stations. Suburban Vancouver has many "town centre" areas that are reasonable places to live without a car. That would not be possible at all without transit.

For a city like Halifax a "best case" type of situation would involve some LRT or streetcar-like transit system and a 30-40% market share for new urban infill. A worst case 100% sprawl type of scenario would probably result in chronic budget problems, escalating tax rates, and economic problems. People need to accept that this is an economic and environmental issue, not something that comes down to personal taste.

Don't forget the ferry system!

No need to get so defensive there, champ. It was in comparison to Toronto, in response to a post that implied the opposite. Even though the satellite pics look bad, the Toronto population centre is the most densely populated in the country by a significant margin.

Once again, people need to get their facts straight! Calgary may seem sprawling in pure number comparisons.....but


1. Calgary has a few massive parks within city limits. One is large provincial park. Fish creek Provincial is 13.5 km2 and nose hill park is 11.3 km2

2. Calgary also has many large parks especially around the 2 rivers.

3. Calgary also has many area that cannot be developed because of the slopes and escarpments.

4. We make up for it with the good LRT transit that connects to many important amenities and a fairly dense urban core that you really dont need to leave and you can still live well.

5. Almost forgot the glenmore reservoir, the weaselhead and glenmore park......very large as well.

The density numbers monkeyronin quoted are misleading anyway. It includes a huge amont of farmland and unusable land. Most density numbers put the largest 3 metros in the 3500/km2 range, and they're all much closer than currently portrayed. Montreal is supposedly the densest of the 3 cities.

All very good points and very true. My point was that when people think of Sprawl, they often point to the suburbs of Toronto and Calgary. Calgary 'seems' like sprawl central - but I'd love to see the numbers, it may not be as bad as people think.

One thing that I've been thinking about in terms of sprawl is the upcoming demographic shift, so I'm going to pose this question to everyone. With the boomer generation now beginning to retire and I'd guess about 20% (so far) moving into condos or senior's housing, it makes me wonder how this is going to hit the suburban single family house market?

If I look at Halifax, I would guess that a good portion of the inner city market is probably boomers and that many of them are moving into condos to enjoy more ability to travel and not have to shovel or rake leaves, etc. Makes you wonder how suburban growth will be effected in say 30 years, when 50+% of the boomers put their homes up for sale? Considering they could be living anywhere from the inner city to 60's suburban communities to even new greenfield areas - what the housing market will be like?

This article is an outright lie

Sprawl does not reign supreme in Canada at all. In fact only 32% of all housing starts in 2011 were classified as "single family" dwellings. The other 68% came from "multi-family" dwellings such as condos and townhomes. No matter which way you slice it, thats not sprawl.