I’m back! Great trip to LA and Minneapolis (more about the former in an upcoming Price Tags – www.pricetags.ca) In the meantime, here’s the unedited version of my latest column in Business in Vancouver:
It’s time to end the myth of ‘suburbia.’ Not the actual suburbs, of course; they’re here to stay. But “suburbs” as a synonym for unbordered expanses of dreary low-density, single-use sprawl without a decent place to drink coffee. Where everyone lives uniform lives in single-family houses, drives to the malls in their SUVs and only goes to City Hall to fight changes in the single-family zoning bylaws.
It’s over, if it ever really existed.
The suburbs of Vancouver are embracing change on a scale that would been unheard of, if not unimaginable, a few years ago. Highrises in Abbotsford and White Rock. A university in Whalley. Town centres in Port Moody, with apartments above shops and parking below ground. Good coffee in more places than just Starbucks.
Superblocks are being divided, surface parking is disappearing, storefronts are being pulled up to the sidewalk. Transit, too, is being embraced: civic leaders want trains and streetcars and anything else that will lever urbanity. They’ve seen False Creek and said, ‘We want a piece of that too – something that gives us distinction, a heart and a boost in our tax base.’
Here’s a measure. Richmond is revising its city-centre area plan, given the five Canada Line stations eventually coming to No. 3 Road. Planners figured, with the right services and amenities, they could accommodate maybe 120,000 people – the same number the downtown peninsula of Vancouver expects in about 15 years – in an area only 50 percent larger.
What makes this story surprising is that when the planners revealed the maps with all that development sketched out, they didn’t get lynched. People were willing to consider it, having seen how the core has improved as pedestrian-scaled density increased.
Nor has a backlash occurred in the leafier parts of Vancouver when Mayor Sam Sullivan overruled the advice he was getting to avoid the ‘D’ word, and announced in his ‘Ecodensity’ policy that “high-quality densification is one of the most critical steps to reducing our ecological footprint as a city.”
While it’s an exaggeration to say suburbanites are embracing a radical change to the character of their communities, a new sensibility is evident throughout the Lower Mainland – in projects underway as well as plans in process. Significant challenges remain, particularly with respect to the location of businesses and the dispersion of jobs, but at least politicians and community leaders are no longer as scared of the D word.
So how come? I can think of at least seven reasons.
We’ve run out of the easy land. Vancouver was first to start densifying because of geographical constraints, but many other GVRD communities have also built out – and are deciding to build up. Otherwise – second reason – they can’t address the biggest problem in the Lower Mainland: the high cost of land and housing.
And, thirdly, they no longer have to provide largely single-family, ground-oriented housing to meet demand. With aging baby-boomers wanting more choices, particularly housing without stairs and gardens, communities like White Rock believe they can actually reinforce their small-town quality with some big-town urbanity.
Fourth, there’s a new coalition out there. Environmentalists and developers were typically antagonistic until both discovered smart growth. Sustainability may be an awful word, but it continues to gain traction because it more effectively reconciles the conflicts inherent in growth and conservation. Politicians no longer have to choose between the two pressure groups if the choice is denser but smarter development.
Fifth, planners have new tools that help show more accurately what change will look like. In fact, with Google Earth and Sketch-up distributed free on the Internet, citizens can construct their own virtual worlds and see what development proposals actually look like in situ. This visual literacy has helped the conversation move beyond fear of the unknown.
Sixth, we have successful models that people can actually experience. Because urban design has improved so much since the 1960s, because developers have been required to fund amenities out of the growth process, the benefits are of development are more apparent. In fact, communities are finding that some civic improvements may not be achievable without denser development, at least as an alternative to raising taxes.
Seventh, the post-war models have their own too-apparent flaws, particularly with respect to transportation. Few believe it’s possible to solve congestion by building more of what caused the problem in the first place. People want choices that make them less car dependent. Alternatives which once violated the myth of suburbia are now being embraced in order to save it.
