| When Calgary Mayor Dave Bronconnier responded to a 2002 report that highlighted Calgary's growing urban sprawl problem by saying, "There is no such thing as urban sprawl in Calgary," he stunned a lot of people.
Among those people were members of the Calgary chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental group that has watched as Calgary expands outwards and inevitably runs into the same problems that afflict all cities following such growth models. They decided they had to do something about the problem, and have formed a special committee to focus on urban sprawl.
According to Brian Pincott, a member of the group, the goal is to convince Calgarians that Bronconnier is wrong, and that the root of many of Calgary’s problems can be attributed to something the mayor doesn't even think exists.
"People clamour about a lack of schools. People clamour about traffic, and those are just symptons of the real problem, which is the way the city develops," he says. "The solution is not simply annexing more land."
Pincott says the city is developing in a way that is unsustainable. As new communities are built on the fringes of the city, it puts pressure on nearly every aspect of the existing system – infrastructure like the water system is taxed; traffic gridlock worsens, which ramps up air pollution and carbon emissions; city services like garbage collection and park maintenance are stretched; functioning inner-city schools are abandoned, while new school construction can’t keep up with demand in the suburbs; community bonds are broken down because car culture removes first-person neighbourhood contact; and the list goes on.
Pincott says the Sierra Club urban sprawl committee’s first mission is simply to inform Calgarians about its ideas. Although it hasn’t formulated any concrete plans yet, the group already knows it is fighting a formidable adversary: money.
Suburbs offer cheaper and bigger housing for Calgarians. They are also sure-fire profit generators for land developers, builders and construction companies, which donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to candidates during the last municipal election (see for yourself – visit the city’s Web site at www.calgary.ca and click the following links in this order: City Hall, Municipal Government, Elections, Disclosure of Campaign Finances).
But Pincott says all the money being thrown around doesn’t represent the real cost of suburban growth, which is masked by taxpayer expenditures on infrastructure improvement and other intangibles. As a result, houses are cheaper in the suburbs because they’re being subsidized by everyone else.
"What’s the real cost of building a house that is 25 kilometres from the core of the city? What’s the real cost of degrading roads elsewhere? The real cost should include those kinds of things."
The Sierra Club’s goal isn’t to facilitate a sharp jump in housing prices – Pincott simply says he wants to make people aware of the issue. He partly blames inertia for the current growth model – "the sprawl model is the path of least resistance" – and thinks that things will never change without educating people.
That brings up another tough opponent – more than 100 years of urban growth. Calgary already takes up as much land as New York City with only a 10th of its population, which is a tough thing to go back and undo. In fact, one of the group's first debates was whether or not fighting urban sprawl was worth the effort, considering the size Calgary has already ballooned to, but the debate was settled by optimism.
"I don’t think it’s too late," says Pincott, who is heartened by inner-city projects like Garrison Woods and successful urban redevelopments in other cities.
He adds that there is not short-term solution, and it will likely take about 10 years to start making significant changes.
"That’s the challenge because it requires a larger vision. You can’t fix the disease in two years with an interchange. It’s going to start with getting people to identify what the real problems are."
The group's arguments may sound familiar to some, but as long as urban sprawl continues to be denied and ignored by those with the power to do something about it, there is a need to increase awareness about the concerns. At this point, the group isn’t specifically targeting politicians – Pincott admits they don’t know what to do about Bronconnier’s "blunt ignorance or blunt denial of the problem" – but is hoping to plant the seeds that will grow into change.
"Our politicians, when they get people screaming in their ward (about gridlock), it’s the easist to say ‘Here’s $100 million for an interchange.’ But that, at best, is a short-term solution," he says. "We need some brave politicians to start looking at what the real problem is. I don’t know if we have that in this council. I don’t know if we have it in the populace, even though that’s where we come from.
"Ultimately, it’s getting people to wake up and start thinking about what kind of city they want." |
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