New report on Urban Sprawl from the David Suzuki Foundation

[JohnyCanuck]

The David Suzuki foundation recently released a report on the need to reverse urban sprawl. While it is targetted at Canadians and addresses the issues as they relate to Canadian cities, the report contains information that would be useful to city planners and environmental/citizens groups interested in publicizing the detrimental effects of urban spawl in any North American city.

Here's the table of contents and a few paragrapsh from the introduction to the report.

Introduction 1
From Compact City to Sprawling Suburb 3
1 Cities and suburbs 3
2 Urbanization and sprawl 4
3 How transportation determines the way we use land 5
4 Is sprawl the consumer’s choice? 7
The Costs of Sprawl 9
1 Low-density means high cost 9
2 Household costs of sprawl 10
3 Consuming precious land 11
4 Public health 12
5 Climate change 15
6 Energy 16
7 Water 16
8 Wildlife 17
9 Aesthetics and quality of life 17
Conclusion 19
Other resources 20
Notes 21

Understanding Sprawl is a guide for decision-makers and citizens who want to create a healthy, affordable and sustainable urban future. It is not an architectural blueprint but an exploration of the forces that shape cities and what people can do about them. It probes the history of city and suburban development, which is critical for understanding current urban patterns. It reviews the nature of the city and outlines the social and economic costs incurred by recent development.

Canadians have good reason to become designers of our own urban future. According to the 2001 census, close to 80 per cent live in an urban area, defined as a place with a population of 10,000 or more. In fact, most of Canada’s population growth in recent years has focused on just four regions: British Columbia’s Lower Mainland and southern Vancouver Island; the Edmonton-Calgary corridor; Toronto’s Golden Horseshoe region along Lake Ontario and up to Lake Simcoe; and the Greater Montreal area. While there was virtually no growth (+0.5 per cent) in the rest of the country between 1996 and 2001, the population of these four regions (where 51 per cent of Canadians now live) grew 7.6 per cent.1 The rate at which land was urbanized in these regions was even greater, sometimes double or more the population growth rate. This difference between the growth rates of people and of the land they occupy defines urban sprawl. As cities spread into vast low-density urban areas, sprawl evolves into a drain on ecological, social and economic capital.

Although sprawl is not a new problem, addressing it is even more critical now as a means of meeting our commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Sprawling communities are a major contributor to climate change and air pollution, in part because they require so much automotive transportation, which is heavily dependent on energy consumption from fossil fuels, the biggest source of greenhouse gases. In addition to burning gasoline, sprawling communities have to pump water in and waste out over long distances, deliver natural gas and electricity over long distribution networks, and provide solid waste, recycling pick-up and other services over a much wider area. Each of these services uses more energy and therefore produces more greenhouse gases than providing similar services to denser communities.

Many parts of Canada, particularly urban areas, are currently impacted by air pollution from automobiles. Climate change will make these impacts worse. This is because ambient air temperature is one of the key factors in the formation of secondary air pollution such as ground level ozone and particulates, key components of smog. Building more sustainable cities will help address both these problems by contributing to our Kyoto emission reduction commitments and by reducing immediate local air pollution. Sprawling communities are a major contributor to climate change and air pollution.

The full report can be downloaded in pdf format (requires Acrobat reader) here:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/Climate/Ontario/sprawlreport.pdf

For more links to other resources on urban development as it relates to the environment go here:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Sprawl.asp

From "About us" at www.davidsuzuki.org :

Nature is our home. And just as we take care of our house, we also must take care of nature.

But nature takes care of us too. Nature cleans our air and water, makes the soil that grows our food and provides the resources to make all our material goods.

Unfortunately, with six billion of us now living under one roof, we are gradually eroding the services nature provides – even though we depend on them for our quality of life and our future.

Since 1990, the David Suzuki Foundation has worked to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that sustains us. Focusing on four program areas – oceans and sustainable fishing, forests and wild lands, climate change and clean energy, and the web of life - the Foundation uses science and education to promote solutions that help conserve nature.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. What needs to be done

1. Urban growth boundaries and incentives for infill development.

2. Good public transit and transit-oriented development, as well as pedestrian and cycling paths linking all major destinations

3. Encouraging businesses to disperse to small towns so that people who want a more rural lifestyle can have it without contributing to sprawl

4. Tax surface parking lots and require all new construction to have parking under, inside, or on top of the building. Turn as many existing parking lots as possible into parks.