I thought this was an appropriate article for this thread :
You can’t fight sprawl without downtown development
By ROGER TAYLOR Business Columnist
Fri, May 13 - 4:54 AM
No disrespect to Halifax — or Detroit, for that matter — but the Nova Scotia capital has a long way to go before it could be considered the Detroit of Canada’s East Coast, as some suggest it is in danger of becoming.
For one thing, Halifax Regional Municipality, one of the largest municipalities by area in the country, has a population of about 400,000, which is still not nearly as large as Detroit even after it was decimated by a declining economy, crime and urban decay.
In many respects, it is like comparing apples and oranges.
Despite losing a large portion of its population to the suburbs, urban Detroit has a population of slightly more than 700,000 residents. When you throw in the population of the suburbs, metro Detroit has a population of about 4.3 million.
Yes, Halifax is growing, but the sprawl here is nothing compared to the other major centres in the country. Anyone who has tried to get around metro Toronto knows what I’m talking about.
Some people who live in the former city of Halifax consider long-standing communities like Lower Sackville, Bedford and even parts of Dartmouth to be sprawl. But that’s not sprawl.
Those communities have been there and the city has simply grown to melt those communities into one larger entity.
The Halifax purists may moan about the creation of retail centres like Dartmouth Crossing, but that is not sprawl. It is a legitimate development within an area of the regional municipality.
While some want to create laws to rule various aspects of life including where you can live, the real answer to preventing sprawl is to make living and working in the urban core more attractive.
Part of the problem has been opposition to downtown development, including some by the same people who lament urban sprawl. Arguing against downtown development while at the same time fighting the natural evolution of the city growing outward seems like a losing proposition for everyone. A choice has to be made.
The fight to block downtown development is partially responsible for downtown Halifax becoming pockmarked with empty lots while developers move to reduce taxes while waiting for conditions to improve. There’s nothing attractive about it.
Redevelopment of the downtown needs to be economical because of the costs involved, therefore a higher density is necessary. But there is a vocal segment of the population who still believe downtown construction should be restricted to six storeys.
That forces developers to move office buildings and jobs to the industrial parks and other parts of the city where the costs are less and they can get a legitimate return on their investment.
Such action also encourages people to move closer to their jobs in the suburbs.
Even if you use a car to get to work in Halifax, the commuting times are still reasonable, especially when compared to larger cities like Toronto. In many cases, the commute in Halifax only becomes much longer if you choose to use the transit system.
Fixing the transit system would be another answer to preventing sprawl. Most people can live outside the downtown and still get to work using their car in reasonable time, so there is little benefit to living in the urban core.
I’m not endorsing sprawl. It is happening, but it’s not within Halifax’s control.
A growing number of people are commuting to Halifax daily from Truro, the South Shore and the Annapolis Valley.
(
rtaylor@herald.ca)
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