Dear London,
This I think is part 1 in an ongoing series of posts/articles about London Ontario and its development patterns, public spaces and the community in general. Perhaps this will grow into a more significant undertaking but that has more to do with my own personal search for meaningful employment (perhaps self-employment.)
Love sometimes means being tough. It means looking at truths square in the face and confronting them. It means telling it like it is and letting the consequences fall as they will.
I love my hometown. When I grew up, I remember watching the population gradually climb through the 200,000-300,000 plus mark. I left when I was 27, freshly graduated from Western and ready to tackle Toronto. I returned almost exactly a decade after I left it at the age of 37 - 2 weeks shy of a 10-year love affair with that big "Center of the Universe", Toronto. My time in Toronto included a 7 year stint working for a City Councillor (and being paid more than any sitting member of London City Council I might add.)
I love being back here save for one big fat factor (well, maybe 3.) The big fat factor is that I currently reside in Westmount. About a block away from Southdale Road and 5 away from Wonderland near Farnham Road. When I say blocks, I mean typical city blocks, not sets of traffic lights which in this case would be 1.
Moving from Toronto's west-end, High Park area has made for a significant cultural change. But its also made me quite angry about the way this City has been managed. More specifically, I'm angry at the way London has grown and continues to grow in the face of global trends.
Its often been said that cities grow organically. That is to say that they are naturally occurring phenomena and that density occurs quite naturally over time. However, the growth of the post-war period has been skewed by inexpensive gas, a change in farming techniques and food production and of course through globalization. Recently traditional types of employment, from manufacturing to book-selling to service jobs, such as those in banks have been moved around the globe, out-sourced or made redundant through technology.
A bigger, more potentially dangerous trend to our way of life comes from the loss of cheap, abundant non-renewable energy sources and our growing awareness to its damaging effects. We've become obese, in some cases isolated and in short, the 'Canadian dream' is not turning out the way many had hoped. Our taxes are high, our public debt is growing and our infrastructure is crumbling. In the face of these pressing problems we can chose two courses. We can continue to grow as we have or, we can make a decision to be smart about the way we use resources. From gas to water, from sidewalks to land, the choice is ours to continue to be wasters, the second largest consumers of energy in the world, and threaten our own sustainability, or we can learn from mistakes of the past and vow to change them through vision and action.
Our city covers an immense amount of Land. Threatened by greedy development practices and pro-development review, our city leaders have chosen in the past to gobble up surrounding communities through annexation. This practice, while topping-up current revenues through development charges, has created a vast city with very low densities.
It doesn't take a Jane Jacobs to understand the consequences of our growth patterns. At the same time as we've grown out, we've lost chances to increase the value of inner-City property and already-developed land. We now see city planners scrambling to intensify downtown through massive tower developments, suitable in a city like Toronto. This all-at-once development style threatens to create its own new problems.
The problems associated with London's post-war development patterns are apparent all over and not just in the residential sector of development. Residential sprawl has gone hand-in-hand with commercial sprawl, with a majority of London's arterial roads lined with low density housing and commercial development. In many cases, Londoners have little choice but to use their cars. However, the choices we make, about shopping, about where we new businesses are located, about the people we elect are everyone's responsibility; we can all make a difference as individuals.
Wharnecliffe and Wellington Roads in the south end are prime examples of how problematic poor development can be. The most obvious sign to us should be the number of curb-cuts providing access from properties fronting on these roads. This causes the need for further widening where possible or the need to simply learn how to live with traffic tie-ups and the resultant smog.
These types of low-density development, particularly on major arterial roads create the need for increased subsidies for public transit and worse, make us all car dependent. Low density has lead to unsafe neighbourhoods, including the downtown area and in the suburbs. News of muggings,'jumpings' and fights seem to be frequent leading City Council to consider closing public walkways in some cases or to install more cameras.
Another prime example of the unseen cost of sprawl is the vacant strip-plazas and malls, like Westmount which now are being re-purposed or changed to be more like their 'power' or 'smart' center cousins. If ever there were a reason for a law against misleading commercial nomenclature, its the 'smart center', possibly the dumbest style of commercial design we've yet to come up with.
But the big problems are right in front of your eyes anytime you get a property tax or water bill in your mailbox. Often people will complain about incompetence at City Hall without taking a look at where they live, how the shop, the problems we face as a city and the level of service we desire and need. We seem not to want to ask ourselves the tough questions, like 'how did we get here' or 'why are there problems when my taxes are as high as a Toronto homeowners on way less assessment?"
London's population density is somewhere in the low-to-mid 800's/km sq. Toronto's is about 5 times that number, just under 4,000 people per square kilometre. While in some instances, the number and cost of services will increase with density, the vast majority of a City's costs are related to hard infrastructure like roads and sidewalks, water and sewers, and costs that can increase by geography such as policing, garbage and fire services.
In the municipal context, sustainability is not just about the environment, though it's a nice and beneficial side-effect. In this context, it's about social, economic and fiscal responsibility and stewardship.
Put it in your own personal context to get a simpler understanding; If you own a home and can't afford to heat it, would you then build an addition to it?
So...who's with me to start making a more sustainable city by increasing the amount of information and providing voters, residents and consumers with the power of ideas.
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