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Places to Grow: What Drives It?

jukebliss

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I’m pretty new to this site, and certainly don’t consider myself an expert on what is posted here. And I hope I am not completely duplicating past posts here.

But I’m trying to understand how some of the larger forces at play in urban planning fit together.. specifically, for now, how the Places to Grow initiative works in conjunction with things like population/immigration and economic growth.

I will post my novice thoughts, and welcome other perspectives on why they do or don’t make any sense whatsoever..

As far as I understand, Places To Grow is intended to curb urban sprawl (presumably a good goal). However, it will do so by substantially increasing population in designated areas. It does appear, in fact, that there are advantages to this. And so, I have seen it's supporters respond to PTG detractors with comments such as “its the only way to go†/ “its inevitable’ / and “get used to itâ€.

Maybe they’re right, but I’m not sure that a lot of Ontarians who otherwise prefer to live in designated / urban environments enjoy being packed in like sardines. I personally also appreciate some of the existing small scale architecture, and in fact, enjoy seeing the sky once in a while, which becomes less and less possible as the scale of development increases.

My perception is that the Places to Grow Act is deemed necessary because population growth is considered a fact of life. If so, I guess this is a result of the dependency of economic growth on population increase (I’m no economic expert, but the existence of such a dependency is what I’ve managed to gather before getting bored and changing the channel / turning the page).

But isn’t population growth considered a cause of significant long term resource and environmental issues? Is it therefore actually sustainable?

Am I right at all in thinking that the inevitability of Places to Grow type density has its basis in economic growth, and that this is currently deemed to be a better option than attempting to actually slow down or curb population growth?

J
 
I think the very short answer is that Places to Grow assumes the growth is inevitable and says that we'll end up with a huge planning and environmental mess unless we change planning and development.

It presumes people will have to adjust their way of thinking (ie "I'll live way out in the suburbs, get 3 cars and take the GO Train into Toronto, where all the jobs are."), developers will have to adjust what they build (ie fewer old-style subdivisions) and the government will have to step up with big infrastructure funding or there won't be enough hospitals, libraries, roads etc.

Some argue people won't go to the burbs to live in condos and townhomes, others argue the 40% target is too low. But, in the end, the important thing about it is that it proposes a new development model for the GTAH. How that comes to pass in reality remains to be seen.
 
Detroit area is very little population grwoth, but is still sprawling like crazy.

So population is not the issue. The issue is how efficiently a population uses resources. And yes, land is a resource.
 
I think places to grow is a positive initiative because it attempts to set some kind of policy goal. In practice it will likely be next to irrelevent much like most macro planning excercises. People act on choice, precedent and incentive. Planning is done by people partitianed into their own silos of expertise, with their own vested interests. Sometimes planning and the people get together and do the same things. The question then becomes which came first the chicken or the egg or was it just coincidence? I think in the GTA the answer is yes. People will continue to sprawl unabated but also densify existing urban centres in sync with planning objectives.
 

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