Sunday, April 15, 2007

Stopping Urban Sprawl - putting people before cars

It is being recognised that Urban Sprawl is the buzzword of
Architectural Planners. What this means to the uninitiated is putting
people in high-rise, high density buildings instead of chewing up large
swathes of land building low-density housing and the necessary
infrastructure (roads, water, power, sewage etc.) to support it.
So, at a moments notice, off we go increasing the density of the
population, hoping that the developers will at least give us something
smart.
In Oakville we have an official town plan, that requires the higher
density buildings to be built "around" retail and commercial sites, and
"adjacent to" good public transit systems. This is smart-development
policy.

So why is it, that whilst we are shoveling people into smaller,
high-rise, higher density accommodation, we do not apply the same rules
to the vehicles they drive.

Every day, those who live in medium density II, and high density housing
extract themselves from their small accommodation, trsuting the elevator
hasn't broken (again) to get to the ground level, so that the can get in
their cars and drive to the shops, because they are not actually
adjacent to their buildings after-all, or to the GO station, which is
also not adjacent to their building, nor easily accessible in a timely
fashion other than driving to it, and they park their car. They then
travel on a cramped and aging public transit system, to go to their
cramped cubes, in a super high-density office to work. Doing the
reverse journey home in a cramped public transit system they arrive to
find their vehicle, completely free of stress because it has been
lounging around in a nice open area free from the cramped conditions we
as humans have put ourselves through.

And why do we do this? Probably because we a re too stupid to realise
that our pride and joy actually doesn't have any feelings after all. He
or She does have a brain, and it only has a name because we try to
humanise it. Face it people, it's a CAR.

Why is it, every time we build a shopping Mall, the Cars get more floor
space than the people? Why is it at every GO station the cars are
spread out like fat bathers on sunbeds, lounging around all day whilst
we are continually shoved into shoe boxes?

Have none of the developers in Canada heard of Multi-storey car parks?
Of course they have! They are just not as profitable as pouring asphalt
(very often badly) onto swathes of farmland and painting lines on it.

In the footprint used for car parking at the Oakville and Bronte GO
Stations, with a bit of sensible planning we could have 4 times the
amount of cars, AND a Medium Density Residential Unit, AND Shops, yet in
the villages we are still having our low-density residential properties
demolished to put up Sequoia size buildings to cram the Sardine people
into, blocking off the light and views to all around.

This may sound like a rant of negativity, but if you look deeply into
this, you'll see that there is a positive point being put. Put the cars
into secure high-rise buildings, and let the people have the space to
meet, greet and communicate, and you will develop the communities
positively. Put the cars in large open, asphalted and paved spaces, and
you will end up putting us into our little solitary confinement cells
staring across at other cell blocks, whilst the car parking spaces are
giving off enough heat from Solar absorption to power generators to run
most of Oakville!

And for those who say Car Parks are not safe when they are multi storey,
so people wont use them, I suggest you look around. Ever Car park space
in the multi-storey car park at Oakville Place, Square One, and Sherway
Gardens is completely full every time it rains or snows, leaving the
outside ones until there is no space in the mutli-storey.

So does this mean that people put their hairstyles and fashion higher on
the list than their safety?

Interesting thought for a priority list, first the Car, then the hair,
then the style, then the people. I would have thought we should be
reversing that particular list, and then maybe, just maybe we might
start to create rules for developers to Develop communities, rather than
just build profit centres.

So we want to stop urban sprawl? My suggestion is to stop giving our
cars large footprints of paved land, and utilise the land properly for
us, the people, and our needs. Maybe then the land we recover from our
metal buddies could be used to provide yet more and better public
transit systems that we can use, and yet more and better organised
spaces in which to park our cars to use them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well written article.