From SFU Urban Studies:
Making (Sub)urban Space
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Speaker: Jill Grant, Professor, School of Planning, Dalhousie University
Discussant: Don Luymes, Manager of Community Planning, City of Surrey
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October 17, 2014
5:30 pm
Room 2600, SFU Surrey, 13450 102 Avenue, Surrey
RSVP: www.sfu.ca/reserve
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Contemporary planning theory about how to plan and design (sub)urban spaces advocates building ‘complete communities’, with a full range of services and uses designed for a wide variety of people and activities. Plans and policies call for mixing uses and housing types, increasing densities, and constructing an attractive and accessible public realm. Developers and builders are experimenting with new strategies to try to enhance affordability and to appeal to a wide cross-section of the market.
Why then do we find lingering evidence of low-density (sub)urbanism, unaffordable housing, segregated land uses, and privatized or gated communities? The irony of contemporary planning and development practice is that it can often produce suburban landscapes even as most of the participants in the process aspire to urban environments.
Co-sponsored with SFU’s City Program.
