With a federal election on the horizon, Canada’s political elite are frantically beating their chests and sniping at one another. This time ‘round, all are trying to prove that it is, in fact, their party that has the greatest environmental zeal.
The prime minister is being lambasted for his less-than-green past. In Ottawa Centre, Green Party nominee David Chernushenko is accusing all other parties of being environmental “imposters.”
With all of our politicians’ hot air being expended on such blustery rhetoric, little is left to discuss solutions to environmental issues such as climate change. To fill the gap, here is one strategy for the consideration of the chattering classes.
To make meaningful advances on the environment front, we need to look at the way our cities are laid out. Large environmental gains could be realized by restructuring the inefficient and car-dependent suburbs. By developing more dense, mixed-use neighborhoods Canadians could save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save money and enjoy all the health and social benefits of living in a walkable world.
Modern suburbanites are trapped in their cars. By choosing to live in isolated suburbs suburbanites doom themselves to hours of driving per week, or as in many cases, hours per day.
To find out why, we need to look back a few years. Until the 1950s, the cores of North American cities were densely populated. City cores were diverse spaces where people lived, worked, went to school, shopped and found entertainment.
The ‘50s saw a new model of urban development – one wholly dependent on the car. Mixed-use neighbourhoods were abandoned in favour of amply-spaced and segregated zones of commercial, residential and industrial development. The suburb was born.
In a time of cheap oil, environmental ignorance and limited suburban sprawl, this model seemed ideal. How times have changed.
Climate change is perhaps the gravest global issue that we have yet faced. It is, most agree, is caused by carbon dioxide emissions. These greenhouse gases are released by every burned drop of gasoline.
And how, one must ask, can we meaningfully reduce emissions when suburbanites must drive their SUVs several kilometers to the closest “big box” store just to buy some milk or toilet paper?
The sustainability of the suburbs is also threatened by constantly rising oil prices. Many experts theorize that we have now reached the peak of the entire planet’s oil production. This means that from now on oil will become ever scarcer and more expensive until it is no longer available. This coming unavailability of cheap oil threatens the very premise of the suburb. Canada must look at restructuring its cities. More mixed-use neighbourhoods would conserve energy and curb the unnecessary emission of greenhouse gases.
Furthermore, by moving back to mixed-use neighbourhoods, suburbanites could once again benefit from the intangible social riches of city life. After all, spending time getting to know local business people, chatting with neighbours or spending more time with the kids is surely more human than wasting hours per day cooped up in a car.
–Jeffrey Davis