Canadian Urban Issues: Sprawl in the Golden Horseshoe

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Historic background and Expectations
Sprawl Consequences
Anti sprawl movements
Arguments for sprawl
Personal Comment
The Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

The urbanization in the modern world is the expected consequence of the overall industrialization. The unprecedented rates and the scales of urbanization in the second-half of the XX century which could be called “urban revolution”, and the strengthening of its effect to the transformation of the society resulted in the significant deepening in the studies of this global process in different countries of the world. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the process of the urban sprawl and the traditional urban development in the Golden Horseshoe region in Canada, along with providing a historical background of these processes, consequences and an overall view of the attempts being made to deal with that urban development. The paper is organized as follows:

Historic background and Expectations
Sprawl Consequences
Anti-Sprawl movements
Arguments for Sprawl
Personal Comment.
Conclusion.

Historic background and Expectations

During the years of the Second World War and into the first postwar decade Canada confidently occupied its place among several of developed capitalist countries. In the beginning of the 60’s its gross national product exceeded 36 billion$ (in 1939 – 5.7 billion $). By the total volume of industrial production Canada occupied at that time the 6th place in the world. Industrial development was accompanied by a growing increase in urbanization, and population. Between 1941 and 1961 the population of the country increased from 11.5 million to 18.2million. That process occurred, first of all, because of the intensive waves of immigrations.

In the years between1946-1969 more than three million of immigrants arrived to the country, and according to census data of 1961 almost 60% of Canada’s population lived in the cities. Following the previous excursion, Toronto region which is also known as Greater Golden Horseshoe is a perfect demonstration of the urbanization as it is the most urbanized and populous region in Canada. More than 8.1 million people reside in that region, which is estimated as two-thirds of Ontarians and one-quarter of all Canadians.

The predominant post–World War II land-use trend in the U.S. has been a major shift from high-density urban areas to low-density suburban and rural areas, known as “sprawl.” Sprawl is characterized by low-density residential development; automobile dependency; scattered rural subdivisions; high cost of utility expansion/extension; strip residential development along country roads; reduced retail shopping opportunities downtown; strip commercial development at the edges of town; loss of unique character; energy inefficiency; high ratio of road surface to development served; and high land consumption.

For example, since 1980, almost 60 % of all Greater Toronto Area housing has consisted of low-density urban sprawl. Even worse, much of the high-density development was set in sprawl communities that still required use of the private automobile to commute to work, to shop and for recreation—a kind of higher density urban sprawl. The population of the Greater Toronto Area more than doubled over the 30 years from 1961 to 1991, and total of 60% of that growth occurred as urban sprawl in the suburbs outside the already expansive Metro boundaries.

Even then, much of the development that took place was urban sprawl on some of the last remaining green fields in that municipality.

The best farmland was urbanized during the past 3 decades. Almost 60.000 hectares of farmland was used in urbanization in the area of the Greater Toronto in the period between 1976 and 1996, which is estimated approximately to the size of post-amalgamation Toronto. Fast population growth, intensive industrial and agricultural activity, resulted in near shore waters to be polluted, and sprawling urban development has resulted in significant stress to the near shore ecosystem. This was mainly due to sanitary sewage, industrial toxic substances, and urban and agricultural runoff that the water became severely polluted.

The shift in the high density urbanization to the suburban urbanization might have occurred initially to escape the pollution of the large megalopolises. However, the situation has turned into a problem that only dislocated its source.

The future expectations are not bright as well, as the possibilities of the changes and increases until the year 2031, (if the pattern of the development will stay the same) are sad. If taking in consideration the city of Toronto, the region’s population will grow 10.5 million in 2031 along with urbanizing about 1,070 square kilometers of land of which 92% will be Class 1, 2, or 3 agricultural lands as classified by the Canada Land Inventory; 69% will be Class 1 land. Expected increasing in the vehicle ownership is 50% as of 2000, and the distance traveled in the region will increase by 64%. Emissions of transportation-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are estimated to increase by 42% and in new suburban areas are estimated to increase 526% relative to their current levels. $33 billion in new investments will be needed in water and wastewater treatment infrastructure. $43.8 billion in investments in transportation infrastructure are projected of which 68% are projected to be in roads and highways. (Winfield, 3).

Sprawl Consequences

The uncontrolled increased value of sprawl as urban development leads to many consequences of which some of them need deeper analysis. Most of these consequences are connected to each other as they are being health related. When addressing the direct and indirect impact of sprawl on human health, many factors could be outlined. According to the research carried in “Report on Public Health and Urban Sprawl in Ontario.”(Bray, Vakil, and Elliot) the main factors are:

Air Pollution – The distancing between places of work and homes resulted in the increased number of vehicles, which play major role in air pollution whether it is local or regional, along with it affecting climate change. “Sprawl, with its attendant increase in vehicle kilometers driven, will contribute to increased CO2”.(19)
Lack of Physical Activity – According to the researches there are a connection between living in low density areas and the decrease in physical activity which result in occurrence of many health problems such as obesity and subsequent consequences such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease.(20).
Injuries and Death from raising traffic – One of the outcomes of suburban expansion is the necessity of a much greater distances to drive and as a result multiple lanes, higher speeds, conflicting drivers, multiple access points and exits on both sides of the road, and distracting advertisements and signs. As a result the inevitable consequences are more road fatalities and injuries.(25-28)
Mental Health Impacts of Sprawl – By the mental health impacts the emphasis is on the stress the residents of suburban areas have to face. Although the direct impact of factors associated with sprawl and mental health are debatable, some of them should be mentioned as they can result in indirect influence. Some of these factors are: Loss of sense of community, driver’s stress, and loss of green space.(33,35)
Effects on Water Quality – These factor is also indirect as directly connected to the large areas of paved roads and the disability of water to be filtered while reaching ground reservoirs. In addition the water could be polluted by the toxins resulted of the large number vehicle in built parking lots.

Anti sprawl movements

A lot of movements and directions have been established to limit and stop the continuous urbanization and sprawl. The degree of opposition involves pointing the obvious consequences to ongoing sprawl along with providing means to oppose or in other words avoid this process.

One of these movements is the Green belt movement, which is protecting the area that is extended 325 km from Rice Lake in the East to Niagara in the West and Tobermory in the North. This area is estimated as nearly 1.2 million acres of farmland out of 1.8 million acres in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. The program of the green belt works through various directions. One direction is by promoting good planning in Golden Horseshoe and the cities surrounding it. They also oppose wasteful, sprawling developments that use greenbelt lands in development, and encourage projects that provide development for high density housing units instead of single residents. This movement is based in its principles, along with the protection of the green belt by restriction of usage of Greenfield areas; they implement a plan called “Smart Growth”. Smart Growth is implementing of strategic plan in managing the urban development. One of the steps in that direction is the development of the brown fields sites which could reduce the pressure for the green fields sites to be developed. Redeveloped brown fields represent opportunities to make urban areas more efficient by utilizing existing infrastructure. Impact fees and development charges, by which developers pay for the costs of new infrastructure for development, may also serve as stimulus for the redevelopment of brown fields. This approach is expected to stop sprawl and development in rural areas encourages greater use of metropolitan sites.

Arguments for sprawl

The anti-sprawl movements created wave of objections that usually refer to the opposition of urban sprawl as “anti-growth”. It is necessary to mention that this opposition has claimed the doubts of the arguments against sprawl. The debatable arguments were countered with other “evidences”, which should be mentioned for neutrality.

It takes ages for urbanization to consume the agricultural belt, and even after that small part is going to be used compared to the overall area.
The raised efficiency of agriculture is responsible for the decreased farm land, rather than the lack of available space.
The open space resulted from productive agriculture, saves more open space than the urbanization consumes, and the therefore the argument of wasting that open space is nullified.
The traffic pollution in high density cities is far higher than the pollution resulted from the increased traffic and the raised amount of vehicles. Therefore the idea in moving to suburban areas is reducing the pollution in modern cities.
The excessive usage of cars consequent to the raised distances to travel, is the only efficient way to move through the modern cities, as there has not been affordable substitutes proposed. In addition it is impossible to make the transit more competitive by achieving high densities in urban cities.
The disbalance consequent to the house and job locations is mythical, as the people tend to travel far more distances searching for jobs and it is a matter of choice rather than forced circumstance.
The cost of moving and living in less dense areas is less expensive for the government than the costs spent in high density areas.
There is no relation between obesity and moving to suburban areas, and lower population densities do not encourage physical inactivity. While the reason of obesity could be simply in the increased consumption of food, and the obesity occurred after the sprawl movements. On the contrary living in low density areas encourages physical activities.

Personal Comment

There should be a distinguishable difference between the concept of anti-sprawl and anti-growth as they provide diverse emphasis. The principal concept of sprawl implicates in its definition that it is the urbanization development which exceeds the natural population growth in particular area. The main point in opposition was the urbanization that lacks planning. However, the long absence of strategy of urbanization, clear isolation the basic concepts of urban development led to negative results. The tendency simultaneously “to develop all together” (large, and small, and medium-size cities) and to create hundreds of new (sometimes very large) cities in the weakly mastered territory, in the substantial part practically did not allow to solve at the contemporary level any of these tasks. The same in many respects relates also to the regional development. Therefore it is so important now to maintain the selectivity and priority in the development of cities, and regions. Considering the development as the connection between the city and the countryside—not only in terms of more houses, but also in terms of industry and service businesses, which have been decentralizing from built-up city locales to suburban-exurban fringe areas and connecting corridors between metropolitan areas. Continued urban sprawl will mean that eventually the ecology of the city will transfer to the suburban areas and gradually change the farmland to industrialized zones. The idea of moving to the country side to reduce the pollution in the city is correct at first sight, but in another examination it means that this pollution will transfer to another green area and spread its effect in new places. The restoring of ecology takes more time, far more than destroying the eco system of green field areas. The vehicles factor still unconvincing as the raise of the vehicles is enormous especially with such facts as several vehicles for one family. Once the suburbanization and the sprawl was an answer to the increasing densities in southern Ontario, and the Golden Horseshoe region but now it is a threat.

From the analysis of world experience it should be added that: the development of metropolitan areas (as an entire system of settling) passes a number of sequential stages, to each of which corresponds its strategy of control. For Southern Ontario the passage from the extensive urban increase to the sub-urbanization is not such stage.

The stage should be the control of the development along with reviewing the strategies, and awareness to the consequences of the spreading sprawl to the ecology and nature.

The Conclusion

As shown in the paper the reasons of the urban development and sprawl made the consequences and results inevitable. Through analyzing the current effects and the future expectations, the division of the support and the opposition is logical although in addressing each other they evaluate different issues. What was the solution of a previous generation became the problem of the current. While it seems that now the promotion of the sub urban settlement became more of marketing move rather than a necessity which makes the direction of protecting the environment has more support of non profit organization. The arguments shown in the paper has its logic in points, but the emphasis on the economical part is not suitable as the recent trends concerning the ecological issues emphasize that there must be total interaction and total involvement of society and government even if it costs more.

Therefore no matter how the debates settle, the growth will continue as long as it is thoroughly planned and do not affect the green space.

The Green Belt and the Smart Growth is goon way to develop in that direction. While the government level is progressing in that direction, it is optimistic to encourage the individual effort of each person.

Works Cited

Winfield, Mark. “Submission to the Standing Committee on General Government Regarding Bill 27, the Greenbelt Protection Act” (2004).

Thorp, Steve, Rivers Ray and Pebbles Victoria. “IMPACTS OF CHANGING LAND USE”, (1997).

Hess, Paul, Sorensen André and Parizeau Kate. “Urban Density in the Greater Golden Horseshoe” (2007). University of Toronto. Web.

“Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe “. (2007). Web.

Winfield, Mark (prep).“ Submission to the Standing Committee on General Government Regarding Bill 27, the Greenbelt Protection Act “ (2004). Web.

Bray, Riina, Vakil Catherine and Elliott David. “Report on Public Health and Urban Sprawl in Ontario” (2005). Web.

Cox, Wendell. “Myths about Urban Growth and the Toronto “Greenbelt” (2004). Fraser Institute Digital Publication. Web.

O’Donoghue, Sarah “Southern Ontario’s Thriving Greenbelt”.(n.d.a) 2008. Journalism.ryerson. Wen.

“Ontario Greenbelt Facts”.(n.d.a). 2008. Ontario Green belt Alliance. Web.

“Portrait of the Canadian Population in 2006: Subprovincial population dynamics”.(n.d.a.). 2008. Statistics Canada. Web.

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