Suburban Development and Sprawl

[Platinum107]

The problem with pushing density on a community and criticizing suburban neighbourhoods as "sprawl" is that it necessarily involves imposing one person's set of values on another: "I think density is good for X, Y, Z reasons, therefore YOU should want it as well. The fact that you don't is bad, very bad."

The reason that outlying neighbourhoods get built--with all their deficiencies, such as car dependence, longer commutes and higher costs of servicing--is because residents WANT what they have to offer. Not everyone wants to live in a high rise, an infill row house or a redevelopment that sees three houses jammed onto a single lot in the city core. Many people WANT bigger backyards, more distance from their neighbours, a feeling of space.

I've been to plenty of places around the world--the Chungking Mansions come to mind--where space is used ultra-efficiently to house a maximum number of families in a very small footprint. These places are nowhere I would want to live. I do not like the idea of living on top of and underneath a bunch of other people. I like my kids having space. If it means that we have to put up with some of the drawbacks, like growing commutes and anemic public transit, so be it. It's a lifestyle choice.

Residents living in outlying neighbourhoods DO pay for the costs of so-called sprawl, in taxes which seem to be ever rising (not just property but also fuel taxes). If taxes do not fully cover the higher costs of servicing, I would point out that there are plenty of services that are subsidized by outlying areas that only benefit the older neighbourhoods of a city. LRT is an example: homeowners in Glenridding and Schonsee are paying for LRT expansion to Mill Woods, West Edmonton Mall and Blatchford, but when will they ever see stations in their own neighbourhoods?

I would also strongly caution against judging one's fellow citizens whose personal choices are not fully "covered" by the taxes they pay. I have a neighbour who has five kids--it is highly unlikely the education portion of her property taxes come close to the costs of educating five children in the public school system, which means some of my taxes and some of our neighbour's (who has no kids) help cover that cost. It's called living in a society.

One should be careful about trying to impose one's own personal set of values on everyone else: "I believe urban density/monogamy/religious adherence is important. If you do not agree, I support using the tax system to punish your differing choices."

Your personal preference for housing is your own and you are free to not live in a dense city. If you like having "a feeling of space" for you and your kids, live in the country on a small anchorage for all I care, but my point is that you shouldn't expect all the services and conveniences that come with living in a city at the same time.

If you want an affordable single-family house with lots of space, almost everywhere else in the world outside of New-World English-speaking countries you would expect a more rural lifestyle with certain inconveniences such as: limited power supply and maybe a backup generator, on-site septic tank and water storage and having to pay yourself for maintenance, and of course being relatively far away from services like groceries, schools, healthcare, law enforcement, fire, etc. It's a distinctly more difficult lifestyle than living in a city with, sure, the drawbacks of space constraints, transport constraints, and lots of people (if you don't like that), but without any of the conveniences that make life much easier, accessible and even affordable in a different way. The urban and rural lifestyles are naturally distinct from each other in many ways, and that's just how it's been for most of human civilization.

Here in Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, etc., The post WWII phenomena of suburbanization, car dependency, separation of uses and low-density development completely flipped the known way of building cities on its head, aiming to give everyone the comfort of a rural lifestyle with the convenience of an urban one. It really is a permanent experiment when you think about it, where the governments of these places and private interests tried to take the best of both worlds and make the "ideal lifestyle" for the every day citizen.

You might say "This experiment is clearly working then, right? People love the results and want more of it!". I agree that on the surface it looks quite appealing if you are simply making your own lifestyle choice, however start peeling back the layers and you start to see problems, huge problems on a societal level which make our cities unstable and plagued with many social issues which I could go on for hours about, however I'll focus on the economic side of this since that's what you're talking about.

If you completely remove personal preferences from the situation, the case for the way we built cities here becomes actually even worse in my opinion. The balance between property tax income and required maintenance is so nonsensical that it's funny, where we build suburbs with densities (residential and commercial) that, while increasing, are still too low overall to be financially solvent so that when the time for maintenance comes around the tax revenue crashes through the floor. So what do we do to pay these costs? Build more neighborhoods of course, leading to a sort of Ponzi-scheme scenario where we are always building new to pay for the old. What happens when rough economic times come for a city, and it's main source(s) of revenue vanish? What if no new neighborhoods on the edge are built? What happens to older suburbs which lack any new development? Infrastructure in disrepair, people leaving the community for "better", rising crime and poverty rates, and overall the destruction of the fabric of that initial community are what happen, in most cases.


I advocate for a denser, mixed-use, transit-oriented and activity-filled inner city because I believe that, without one, we as the citizens of Edmonton are wronged and left with a huge disadvantage compared to the rest of the world. I advocate for more choices in housing and mixing of zones, not less, as I believe that a varied and storied neighborhood with a house, a duplex, townhouse, small apartment, and common courtyard within walking distance of the hardware store, pharmacy, cafe, grocer, and transit stop are what give a neighborhood character, not a stranglehold of what can and can't be built dictated by the residents who bought in before everyone else.

Cities are evolving organisms, growing and shrinking in different places, and transport networks are the arteries and veins of it. Cities are artworks of culture and human interaction that tell a compelling story of everyday life, a little chaotic and messy at certain moments but still a piece of art nonetheless. I want to be a character living and breathing within that art.

What about you?

 

[occidentalcapital]

...

Here in Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, etc., The post WWII phenomena of suburbanization, car dependency, separation of uses and low-density development completely flipped the known way of building cities on its head, aiming to give everyone the comfort of a rural lifestyle with the convenience of an urban one. ...

I think this is an astute observation. I also think we're almost there with densities to essentially come close to making this possible. E.g ground-oriented townhomes, missing middle, and SFH on small lots, basically you get the street-oriented/ground oriented experience (albeit at a smaller scale) at densities that are close to reaching, or actually hitting that sustainability threshold.

 

[Oilers99]

I think this is an astute observation. I also think we're almost there with densities to essentially come close to making this possible. E.g ground-oriented townhomes, missing middle, and SFH on small lots, basically you get the street-oriented/ground oriented experience (albeit at a smaller scale) at densities that are close to reaching, or actually hitting that sustainability threshold.

Yep as mentioned in new neighborhoods you have SFH that are 18' wide and townhouses that are going as narrow as 14' wide. Not sure how much more dense we can make it than that.

 

[soupcrate]

Yep as mentioned in new neighborhoods you have SFH that are 18' wide and townhouses that are going as narrow as 14' wide. Not sure how much more dense we can make it than that.

If only the original suburbs were built that way too. It's kinda ironic that the new suburbs are dense enough to support walkable communities, but now they are now located so far away from the rest of the city that you need a car to live in them (and so they are designed automobile-first).

 

[occidentalcapital]

If only the original suburbs were built that way too. It's kinda ironic that the new suburbs are dense enough to support walkable communities, but now they are now located so far away from the rest of the city that you need a car to live in them (and so they are designed automobile-first).

A clever developer will try out the grid pattern in one of these new suburbs and mix in some small scale commercial and voila you have walkability. It has got to be just a matter of time.

 

[TravellingChris]

Your personal preference for housing is your own and you are free to not live in a dense city. If you like having "a feeling of space" for you and your kids, live in the country on a small anchorage for all I care, but my point is that you shouldn't expect all the services and conveniences that come with living in a city at the same time.

If you want an affordable single-family house with lots of space, almost everywhere else in the world outside of New-World English-speaking countries you would expect a more rural lifestyle with certain inconveniences such as: limited power supply and maybe a backup generator, on-site septic tank and water storage and having to pay yourself for maintenance, and of course being relatively far away from services like groceries, schools, healthcare, law enforcement, fire, etc. It's a distinctly more difficult lifestyle than living in a city with, sure, the drawbacks of space constraints, transport constraints, and lots of people (if you don't like that), but without any of the conveniences that make life much easier, accessible and even affordable in a different way. The urban and rural lifestyles are naturally distinct from each other in many ways, and that's just how it's been for most of human civilization.

Here in Canada, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, etc., The post WWII phenomena of suburbanization, car dependency, separation of uses and low-density development completely flipped the known way of building cities on its head, aiming to give everyone the comfort of a rural lifestyle with the convenience of an urban one. It really is a permanent experiment when you think about it, where the governments of these places and private interests tried to take the best of both worlds and make the "ideal lifestyle" for the every day citizen.

You might say "This experiment is clearly working then, right? People love the results and want more of it!". I agree that on the surface it looks quite appealing if you are simply making your own lifestyle choice, however start peeling back the layers and you start to see problems, huge problems on a societal level which make our cities unstable and plagued with many social issues which I could go on for hours about, however I'll focus on the economic side of this since that's what you're talking about.

If you completely remove personal preferences from the situation, the case for the way we built cities here becomes actually even worse in my opinion. The balance between property tax income and required maintenance is so nonsensical that it's funny, where we build suburbs with densities (residential and commercial) that, while increasing, are still too low overall to be financially solvent so that when the time for maintenance comes around the tax revenue crashes through the floor. So what do we do to pay these costs? Build more neighborhoods of course, leading to a sort of Ponzi-scheme scenario where we are always building new to pay for the old. What happens when rough economic times come for a city, and it's main source(s) of revenue vanish? What if no new neighborhoods on the edge are built? What happens to older suburbs which lack any new development? Infrastructure in disrepair, people leaving the community for "better", rising crime and poverty rates, and overall the destruction of the fabric of that initial community are what happen, in most cases.


I advocate for a denser, mixed-use, transit-oriented and activity-filled inner city because I believe that, without one, we as the citizens of Edmonton are wronged and left with a huge disadvantage compared to the rest of the world. I advocate for more choices in housing and mixing of zones, not less, as I believe that a varied and storied neighborhood with a house, a duplex, townhouse, small apartment, and common courtyard within walking distance of the hardware store, pharmacy, cafe, grocer, and transit stop are what give a neighborhood character, not a stranglehold of what can and can't be built dictated by the residents who bought in before everyone else.

Cities are evolving organisms, growing and shrinking in different places, and transport networks are the arteries and veins of it. Cities are artworks of culture and human interaction that tell a compelling story of everyday life, a little chaotic and messy at certain moments but still a piece of art nonetheless. I want to be a character living and breathing within that art.

What about you?

First, I would point out that millions of people around the world are voting with their feet. Countries like the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia are some of the most popular destinations for immigrants in the world, and there are millions more who would happily come if they could. True, to a great extent it is due to the fact that all of these nations are democracies with the rule of law, a free press and other civil liberties (I'm not saying they're perfect, let's not go off on some tangent here). But also a big part of it is the lifestyle these countries offer: the very one you're criticizing. One of the first things that visitors often remark upon in the U.S., Canada or Australia is the sense of space, the fact that people aren't crammed together like sardines (obviously the UK is quite different in that regard, due to the size of the islands). Many immigrants love the sense of open horizons and possibilities.

And where are these immigrants coming from? In many cases it's places like India, Latin America and Africa: where density is high and where neighbourhoods are "self-contained" and have all their own services within a short walk (the Rio favelas come to mind). These people are trying to get OUT of societies which offer the very thing you're suggesting we need to emulate here. If it's such a great thing, how come so many people are desperately trying to come to societies built on prioritizing living arrangements just the opposite? I've traveled extensively around the world and visited some of these dense, self-contained neighhourhoods in places like Asia. And I've met and talked with local people, many of whom make a point of imploring me to help them come to Canada. Again, many of them are living in self-contained neighbourhoods which don't depend on the automobile and are the very antithesis of sprawl--and they want OUT.

 

[TAS]

Just because it relates to this discussion of why sprawl is challenging for cities - in just 5 years, Edmonton added 2,000+km of roadway- an increase of more than 20%. I don't think our population increased by nearly that much during the same period.

 

[TravellingChris]

Just because it relates to this discussion of why sprawl is challenging for cities - in just 5 years, Edmonton added 2,000+km of roadway- an increase of more than 20%. I don't think our population increased by nearly that much during the same period.

View attachment 395771

A lot of that may have to do with the fact that Edmonton is a winter city. Biking is a wonderful way to get around in our all-too-short summer. Only a diehard is going to do it when it's -30C with a windchill or the roads are sheer ice. Roads are needed 365 days a year, we get max use out of bike lanes only when the weather cooperates.

 

[thommyjo]

A lot of that may have to do with the fact that Edmonton is a winter city. Biking is a wonderful way to get around in our all-too-short summer. Only a diehard is going to do it when it's -30C with a windchill or the roads are sheer ice. Roads are needed 365 days a year, we get max use out of bike lanes only when the weather cooperates.

Honestly biked for the first time this winter and it was way easier than I expected. Even with it being one of our worst in a decade in terms of snowfall, freezing rain, and the December cold spell. Biking in winter will never be huge, but could become 1% of trips. I think the ideal is high transit ridership in winter that then shifts to more micro mobility in summers and nice days. Flexibility and options will be key. People often see biking and cars as too binary. I think it’s helpful to think about Trips vs Ownership. I own both a car and bike. But I use my bike for 40% of trips in winter and probably 70-80% for summer. But I still need a car to get to windemere or edgemont. I just don’t need to drive it every day. If everyone lived like this, it would help our emissions and congestion a bunch! So I think that’s a better target than “drivers becoming cyclists” permanently.

In terms of density, agreed, new suburbs are quite dense and we should celebrate that. Challenge is they’re still very car dependent. Zoning reform will help. More “town squares” would be nice, mixed with TOD linking to core uni/DT areas. The new Nodes idea in the city plan is great, it’ll just require a lot to truly happen.

I wonder if mileage taxes are the best solution? Cause in some ways, you can live DT and still drive a lot or live in the burbs and not drive lots. My sister and brother live SE of summerside. Basically Beaumont ahah. But she bikes 3mins to her elementary school to teach and he works from home. Their in laws are a 5min drive. Their shopping is mostly 2min drive or 10min walk. So that’s actually an ideal situation. I think the problem is more people who live down there and drive DT everyday for work, etc. mileage paired with density targets I think has a better chance of creating sustainability in city design vs green belts and toll roads

 

[CplKlinger]

One of the first things that visitors often remark upon in the U.S., Canada or Australia is the sense of space, the fact that people aren't crammed together like sardines
And where are these immigrants coming from? In many cases it's places like India, Latin America and Africa: where density is high and where neighbourhoods are "self-contained" and have all their own services within a short walk (the Rio favelas come to mind). These people are trying to get OUT of societies which offer the very thing you're suggesting we need to emulate here.

There's a difference between making sure that all neighbourhoods have a mixture of housing types, including single detched homes, townhouses, and apartments, and allowing unregulated and rapid development that sees thousands of people packed together in overcrowded and unplanned neighbourhoods that lack basic amenities. We want communities that are walkable, we want amenities close to where people live, and we want to make sure that our communities are financially sustainable. You are comparing two very different things here. Would you compare Larkspur to a Rio favela? And trust me, my roommates are from Singapore, and I've heard extensively about how crowded it is there. Nobody here is arguing that all lawns are bad and all towers are good.

As I said before; just like not everyone wants a condo, not everyone wants a single detached home. Much of the growth that we have experienced in Edmonton has occurred in developing neighbourhoods that have the exact sort of housing mixture that you're saying many immigrants are trying to leave. In 2017, the city found that mature neighbourhoods (which excludes downtown) had a net decrease of 73,000 people in 40 years. Furthermore, according to the report, "Net unit increases were driven by secondary suite creation (41%), multi-family units including semidetached and row housing (29%) and apartment housing (30%)." That is to say: Any growth that is happening in these areas is largely due to an increase in the sort of housing variety that people here are arguing for; the same sort of variety that is already being built in the newer neighbourhoods.

 

[occidentalcapital]

First, I would point out that millions of people around the world are voting with their feet. Countries like the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia are some of the most popular destinations for immigrants in the world, and there are millions more who would happily come if they could. True, to a great extent it is due to the fact that all of these nations are democracies with the rule of law, a free press and other civil liberties (I'm not saying they're perfect, let's not go off on some tangent here). But also a big part of it is the lifestyle these countries offer: the very one you're criticizing. One of the first things that visitors often remark upon in the U.S., Canada or Australia is the sense of space, the fact that people aren't crammed together like sardines (obviously the UK is quite different in that regard, due to the size of the islands). Many immigrants love the sense of open horizons and possibilities.

And where are these immigrants coming from? In many cases it's places like India, Latin America and Africa: where density is high and where neighbourhoods are "self-contained" and have all their own services within a short walk (the Rio favelas come to mind). These people are trying to get OUT of societies which offer the very thing you're suggesting we need to emulate here. If it's such a great thing, how come so many people are desperately trying to come to societies built on prioritizing living arrangements just the opposite? I've traveled extensively around the world and visited some of these dense, self-contained neighhourhoods in places like Asia. And I've met and talked with local people, many of whom make a point of imploring me to help them come to Canada. Again, many of them are living in self-contained neighbourhoods which don't depend on the automobile and are the very antithesis of sprawl--and they want OUT.

How can you be so sure they are escaping mainly to get themselves into "low density" living? If that were the case, they would simply move back to their countryside/rural areas where they first came from. Most of those slums you mention are, after all, populated by migrants to those cities, often the rural poor. esp in India, Africa.

 

[archited]

Here is a single aerial photo of a suburban neighborhood in Capetown, South Africa. The left side of the highway highlights a densely packed "Shanty-town", the right side a suburban area that might well be representational of a district in Edmonton. Which side has more appeal in terms of living accommodation? This is a little unfair, I know. But, since the discussion revolves around affordability, think about the choices. It is e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y hard to rise up out of poverty. Puts me in mind of the song refrain -- "I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down." But it takes way more energy than most people can imagine "to get up again". Coming from privilege allows us to envision the latter part of the song refrain without much deeper thought. Some twenty-plus years ago Planners came up with the catchy catch-phrase descriptor "the new urbanism". It is now the focus of the day -- planned neighborhoods where most of the community activities are located in a central area surrounded by the greatest density that slowly dissipates the farther one goes from the neighborhood core. The main problem with the idea of it -- it is just too synthesized. Most of society throughout history evolved organically (and Shanty-town in the photo did). And organic evolution is more relatable because it feels uncontrived. It has been surmised that 1 in 4 people in North America have a disability, either a physical disability, a mental disability, or a social disability. ONE in FOUR. And suicides are through the roof. Do you really think that those with a disability really care about the connectivity of bike paths or whether it takes them only 20 minutes to walk to the grocery store?
Those of you who know me know that I am a disbeliever in Planning as a "thing". Planners in fact are the ones who gave us the non-grid suburban mega-neighborhoods in the first place. And the City carved up into zone upon zone delineating where we can do this or build that. So long have we been at their mercy that we can no longer define what is organically developed and what is pre-planned.
The automobile is here to stay -- it is going to change character for sure -- commuter-mobiles will become smaller, electric and in many instances shared like scooters are today.
I guess what I am trying to get to is that this argument is becoming circular with everyone trying to solve a problem based mainly on their own preferences. The thing to remember is that your preferences are not mine and mine are not Sally's and Sally's are not Bill's.

 

[TAS]

The city is stepping into some interesting territory regarding its upcoming 2023-26 budget discussions. Not only is it going to look at projects in terms of their monetary cost, but also their environmental cost (called carbon accounting). It's tricky business and so are our environmental targets. Carbon accounting is something Oslo and some other cities do - Edmonton will be Canada's first city to attempt it.

Keith Gerein: Edmonton budgets soon to be expressed not just in money, but megatonnes

As council picks over dollars and cents this fall, they will simultaneously be asked to consider a different sort of currency — carbon.

edmontonjournal.com

A few posts above, I shared that Edmonton added 2,000km of roadway in the past 5 years as we continue to sprawl. What does that mean in terms of carbon accounting? Just 1.6km of new asphalt roadway construction produces a staggering 4,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

According to a Google search, just 1 tonne of CO2
Is equivalent to: Driving 23,000 miles in the average car (once around the world) 18 dairy cows in weight. 25 million plastic straws.

That's the impact of 1 tonne, and again 1.6km of new roadway produces 4,000 tonnes. And we added 2,000km of roadway. That doesn't include all the car trips on those new roads, maintenance, snow clearing and on and on. If we are going to meet climate goals, that needs to change.

My reference for the CO2 emissions for 1 mile of roadway is from research shared here:

 

[archited]

^^^^ Think electric, produced from passive energy sources.

 

[TAS]

^^^^ Think electric, produced from passive energy sources.

Absolutely, hopefully that is coming sooner than we think but in the meantime while we are trying to curb massive carbon emissions and meet our targets, i would advocate for reducing the amount of energy intensive new roads we need to build.