The intention of the A Place…

The intention of the A Place to Grow: Growth Plan for The Greater Golden Horseshoe (APTG) is sound in principle, but its execution is bound to fail. Sprawl is clearly a problem and densification is clearly part of the solution. However, we believe that the way in which the APTG proposes to prevent sprawl will, in fact, accomplish precisely the opposite. The APTG artificially specifies centres at which densification must occur according to two main criteria. The first priority is districts that have been arbitrarily defined as growth areas. The second priority is areas that currently have municipal infrastructure capacity as defined by the APTG. In our view both of these criteria are fundamentally flawed and the pursuit of these goals will, ironically, lead to both higher costs and greater sprawl.

Arbitrarily drawing settlement boundaries and artificially centralizing growth into a handful of areas ignores the complete, walkable communities that already exist. Municipalities and counties should be encouraged to examine growth at the town/village level, so that appropriate scale is considered and existing complete communities are protected. Village-scale, walkable communities provide a viable alternative to suburbia that should not be dismissed in favour of arbitrary boundaries and arbitrary growth allocation numbers.

By narrowly defining ‘infrastructure’ as one of the key mechanisms by which growth is regulated, the APTG effectively suffocates many existing villages because economic resources are drawn to the creation of artificial hubs. Social, economic, demographic, ecological, and cultural infrastructure is what defines a complete community. Sewers support a healthy community but they can never define it. Specifying growth on the basis of existing sewer infrastructure while ignoring the broader elements that define community is, effectively, urban planning by plumbing diagram.