The magnitude of climate change is overwhelming. Recent news indicates that emissions from major polluters, like the oil and gas industry, are heading to record levels, even as the profound danger of climate change becomes increasingly apparent.
In the face of this, individual citizens are told that they can help, by, for example, shortening the length of the showers they take, idling their cars less, offsetting emissions from their flights, or using cloth bags for groceries.
Do you think individual actions can make a meaningful impact in the fight against climate change, or do you think they are a distraction from the larger changes needed?
A monthly newsletter full of information on what’s happening in Simcoe County and beyond, including information on how you can take action to protect the health of your community, and in-depth dives into key topics.
February’s question addressed political will, and whether there is enough of it in Canada to do what’s necessary to achieve net-zero emission goals.
The vast majority thought that we are not doing nearly enough, with one stating that even net-zero isn’t enough, and that we need negative emissions to get back on track, and few were unsure
Being unsure about this question is itself interesting, and may indicate the lay of the land, currently with respect to where we are with efforts to achieve net-zero, as opposed to simply not knowing how to answer. There certainly is ambiguity regarding the goal, since it’s been clearly communicated as something we will meet, yet there’s increasing concern regarding whether we are, in fact, doing enough to do that.
Finally, Ric took the time to share his concern that we might starve or freeze first, and so what’s the point? He is also under the impression that “BUBBLE advocates don’t have any day to day bills to meets/survive.” I’m not sure who he’s referring to as bubble advocates. My best guess would be small children, and in that case I suppose I’d agree with him, since they don’t have the primary responsibility for paying bills. And so it all makes sense.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone!
We had a great response to this month’s poll.
In addition to answering the provided questions, a number of people added comments, noting what they are seeing and what they are most concerned about.
Fires, in particular forest fires, and the impacts they have on air quality, featured prominently. Larry noted that they had to stay inside a number of days this past summer, which many of us can relate to.
Flooding was another major concern, with s.hirst commenting on damage experienced to their house.
Brent, Mirjana, and George all noted that climate change is likely to cause increased political instability. (This is an issue on our radar for an upcoming Issue In Brief.)
And, the very Canadian concern of the loss of ice surfaces (connecting to the loss of traditional experiences and the deep cultural impact that has) was raised by Kevin.
In what time-frame do you think climate impacts will directly affect you?
Some examples of what directly affected means: damage to your property, or an increase in the price of a product that requires you to make a hard choice (to buy it means to not buy something else).
Results
You’ve probably heard of sprawl. Largely residential areas that are characterized by roads, single family homes with front lawns and backyards, a garage, elementary schools located nearby, parks with playgrounds in them.
In its most extreme form, sprawl features cul-de-sacs and ‘monster’ homes – dead end roads that provide no use to anyone but those who live there, and houses characterized by ostentation, by outward appearance rather than craftsmanship or construction quality.
Sprawl, thanks in large part to the power of marketing, represents the modern version of the American dream. Bigger is better. Appearance matters more than substance. Fake it ’till you make it.
These are places where cars are needed to access basic amenities, such as grocery stores, pharmacies, doctors offices… The standard definition of urban sprawl, in keeping with the scene described above, is “the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centres) on undeveloped land near a city.”
This isn’t to say that the feature of appearance over substance isn’t based on a cold calculus, that it is absent a substantive rationale. For developers, sprawl is attractive for a reason.
Farmland surrounding built-up areas can be purchased relatively cheaply. Once it is brought within the urban boundary and approved for a subdivision, the value of that land skyrockets. And there’s a perverse incentive built into this system, which is the more land that is developed, the less land there is to build upon. As the supply of available land is constrained, the value of it grows.
There is a historical rationale for sprawl, too. Post World War II, housing development was a key economic stimulus program. Building homes provided income, which in turn went towards purchasing homes, and all of this helped to support the massive increase of the middle class.
But this was the ‘golden age’ of modernity. A time when there seemed to be no limits on what humanity was capable of.
An ad from the 1950s. Lots of lawn and green spaces held promise for those looking for a contrast from the concrete jungles of downtown.
In the aftermath of the war the vision of a utopia, with peaceful neighbourhoods, open spaces, privacy, and the ability to do as you like, carried powerful appeal.
To those living in the 1950s, building in a way that spread outward, as opposed to the more compact form of city downtowns, was a no-brainer. More space meant freedom, and in particular freedom from the noise and smells and traffic – and difference, specifically racial differences – of downtowns. Suburbia meant privilege, and meant white.
The costs associated with building, and then maintaining these spread-out communities were a feature, not a bug – government largess meant jobs, and the economy was booming.
But, as we’ve since discovered, there are problems that arise when we do too much of something and don’t account for the impacts.
Fossil fuels and our heavy reliance on cars have led to the ever-growing problem of climate change, for example. With regard to sprawl, the car-centric design has made it difficult to move beyond our reliance on fossil fuels.
Additional problems, or impacts that weren’t accounted for in the decades past, have also cropped up.
Land that otherwise provides a great deal of value to the public, providing food when used for agriculture or ecosystem services, including air and water filtration and carbon sequestration, when allowed to remain in its natural state, is destroyed for a built form that is extremely expensive to maintain. The public loses the value of the services that nature provides and also has to pay for infrastructure, including roads and wastewater, which is stretched too far between houses for the tax base to sustain. Sprawl is always heavily subsidized.
The issues outlined above are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the costs of sprawl, leading many to advocate for changing the built form from sprawling outwards to one that focuses on increased density within already built-up areas.
High rises offer the promise of greatly increasing the number of people located on a given plot of land. More people equal more densely located tax revenue, which, in turn, supports greater public services, such as transit, parks, libraries and community centres.
On the surface, more high-rise buildings are a good thing. But, as is often the case, there are caveats and trade-offs that need to be understood so that we don’t repeat the mistakes of sprawl. With intensification, there can also be what is known as vertical sprawl.
Vertical sprawl refers to buildings that are, for the most part, taller than several storeys.
One of the authorities in the area, Brendan Gleeson, of the University of Melbourne in Australia, defines vertical sprawl as “the poor-quality, high-density buildings that are increasingly compacting our cities.” In other words, these are the high rises that you’ve most likely seen in cities around the world.
Vertical sprawl has a number of problems, some of which it shares with the more conventionally understood horizontal sprawl. Below we take a look at some of them.
To answer the question of what a proper urban density should be, Jane Jacobs noted that it is more a matter of performance than of abstractions about quantities of land and people. She, rightly we believe, focuses on what the purpose of the built environment should be directed towards, arguing that “densities are too low or too high when they frustrate city diversity instead of abetting it.”1Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities: Orig. Publ. 1961. Vintage Books, 1992
But why is diversity such an important thing to cities?
In horizontal sprawl, diversity is reduced by reliance on the car, primarily.
Due to the greater distance between houses, the length of roadway connecting them, as well as neighbourhood to neighbourhood, a car is needed just to access most neighbourhoods. While there are often transit options in the suburbs, these tend to be minimal, the use of which carries a degree of friction that represents a barrier to access rather than a preferred alternative to car transportation.
Further reduction in diversity occurs when cars are used as the primary mode of transportation simply due to the fact that, when inside are car, there is a greater degree of separation from the outside world. Travelling in this isolated state from the house to the grocery store and then back again removes a significant portion of interactions that could occur between those two locations.
These graphics show the possibilities for social interactions in a car dependant suburb, and a walkable community.
In the suburb, interactions are greatly reduced due to the primary role that cars play in transportation, while in a walkable community they are greatly increased due to the amount of time people spend in proximity to one another.
In a walkable community, these interactions take place in the public sphere, and can occur as happenstance. Unpredictable meetings like these present opportunities to meet and get to know people you might not otherwise come into contact with. This helps to build a sense of community by strengthening connections and shared experiences among those within it.
Furthermore, the unpredictable or happenstance nature of the meetings that occur in these settings help to ‘cross-pollinate’ experiences between different communities, leading to the creation of overarching ‘inter-communities’ that increase diversity of understandings, experiences, and opportunities. These inter-communities are particularly fertile soil for the creative and innovative activities that are so crucial to flourishing cities.
High-rises can contribute to a greater number of people within a space, increasing the interactions that occur, but there are also drawbacks that are inherent in the tall built form that can actually reduce the diversity of experience in the shared spaces surrounding them.
Above several floors, construction costs increase rapidly. This is due to simple factors, such as the increase in time that it takes for workers and materials to get to the construction site. Taller buildings require more complex engineering solutions, as well. High rises are notoriously bad at retaining energy, requiring a large amount of air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter. These factors, and more, lead to an increase in cost for units built above several floors, making them more expensive to purchase. (We will pick up on this point and how it relates to resilience and security a little later on.)
This raises obvious concerns regarding the role of high rises in addressing the lack of affordable housing.
By limiting residency to those above a higher income than what could be met with the mid-rise form, this also acts in as an exclusionary filtering process that is similar to that observed in horizontal sprawl outlined above, albeit absent reliance (for the most part) on a car to access basic amenities. Those most likely to frequent areas surrounding the high rise, namely the residents of it, will tend to fall within a more narrowly defined social category.
The greater costs associated with high rises tend to drive rent up in surrounding areas, contributing to gentrification, which results, first, in economic exclusion and then, second, in the corollary social exclusion.
In 2020 the Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale experienced a take-over of sorts. A struggling neighbourhood for a long time, it had become something of a success story as residents co-created solutions to address issues associated with poverty and addictions.
When a large corporation bought up much of the housing stock, things began to change.
There are caveats to this dynamic.
First, condos can be built in such a way as to provide lower cost, more affordable housing. The Jane-Finch area in Toronto is an example of this, as are a number of apartment complexes in Barrie, and any number of cities across North America.
That said, unit size tends to be small, so that as many as possible can be packed into the floor space. Small unit size is a major reason why condos are not seen as a viable alternative to a detached or semi-detached house for many families.
Second, the gentrification effect that condos may have, even luxury ones, one surrounding rents can be ameliorated by the increase in housing supply the condo brings to the market. This, of course, is in dynamic relationship to the business case for building – demand justifies the development. If rents in the area surrounding the building offer a more attractive alternative to those offered by the building itself, the development will be in trouble. That said, there is at least short-term evidence showing that rents surrounding developments of high-rise buildings do, in certain circumstances, go down.
What these caveats suggest, however, is that, if the goal is reasonably priced, family-sized units, high-rises are unlikely to be the best option.
We tackled the issue of tall sprawl on a recent episode of our Tree Planters podcast.
It’s a great companion listen to this article, so queue it up for your next walk!
As the value of land surrounding high rises goes up, mom-and-pop stores and locally owned businesses find it increasingly difficult to maintain a presence. This is particularly true for businesses that offer unique goods. As their margins are often razor-thin, and any lag in revenue can be catastrophic.
The brittleness of this dynamic takes a few steps to understand.
As with shopping plazas associated with horizontal sprawl, it is primarily corporate businesses that have pockets deep enough to be able to afford the higher rates associated with high rises. Corporate retail is often characterized by what is known as ‘the Walmart effect’, in which employees are paid wages that are closer to the bottom end of the spectrum.
Smaller, more diverse land ownership, can help increase competition for rent, maintaining some degree of downward pressure, helping smaller businesses gain a foothold that is otherwise far more difficult for them to find. By pricing out competition, large landowners, such as those who build and operate malls or corporate plazas, are better able to monopolize rent demands.
This quote, from the excellent book, “The Gardens of Democracy”, by Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer, pushes home the point:
The market is the first force that has led to the shriveling of citizenship. The classic case is the Wal-Mart effect. A town has a Main Street of small businesses and mom-and-pop shops. The shopkeepers and their customers have relationships that are not just about economic transactions but are set in a context of family, neighborhood, people, and place. Then Wal-Mart comes to town. It offers lower prices. It offers convenience. Because of its scale and might in the marketplace, it can compensate its workers stingily and drive out competition.
The presence of Wal-Mart leads the townspeople to think of themselves primarily as consumers, and to shed other aspects of their identities, like being neighbors or parishioners or friends. As consumers first, they gravitate to the place with the lowest prices. Wal-Mart thrives. The small businesses struggle and lay off workers. They cut back on their sponsorship of tee ball, their support of the food bank. As the mom-and-pops give way to the big box, and commutes become necessary, lives become more frenetic and stressful. People see each other less often. The sense of mutual obligation that townsfolk once shared starts to evaporate. Microhabits of caring and sociability fall away. In this tableau of libertarian citizenship, market forces triumph and everyone gets better deals – yet everyone is now in many senses poorer.2Hanauer, Nick; Liu, Eric. The Gardens of Democracy. Sasquatch Books, 2011.
The Gardens of Democracy is, hands down, one of the best books addressing the problems of our democratic society today.
You can purchase it using our affiliate link by clicking on the image, below.
High rises function similarly, both with respect to residential units and associated commercial units, and, albeit in a less direct way, with respect to surrounding residential and commercial property.
Just over a month has passed since Russia invaded Ukraine. Gas prices have shot up, due to the interconnectedness of global energy markets, Russia’s large role therein, and sanctions, as well as other moves, against Russian oil.
Drivers and a man pushing a lawnmower line up at gas station in San Jose, Calif., on March 15, 1974. (AP)
Taken from NPR this article under fair-use guidelines for educational purposes.
We’ve been here before, a few times. In the 1970s, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, reduced exports in protest of the United States’ support for Israel in the Yom Kipper War, prompting shortages and lineups at gas stations.
There’s a through-line in thinking about how to address these crises, stretching from at least the 70s to today, which is that energy security, and accordingly economic security, is best ensured by increasing domestic supply and diversifying international supply.
There is little attention paid, however, to reducing the need for supply in the first place, yet this is one of the best bang-for-buck solutions available.
You will note, illustrated in the picture above, that one of the aspects of our economy that is most exposed to oil price fluctuations are internal combustion engine (ICE) automobiles, and you may be already making the connection between our reliance on automobiles and horizontal, car dependant sprawl.
Only about 12 – 30% of the energy that we put into an ICE vehicle results in movement. The rest is lost to engine and driveline inefficiencies (thermal or heat loss, for instance), as well as used for accessory purposes.
Combine this with the increased travel distance that sprawl induces, and residents are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to their reliance on the car.
This high reliance creates a form of lock-in, a dependency that limits the options of residents when something like a natural disaster happens. (Or a not so natural disaster like the OPEC embargo of the 70s.) This lock-in makes people highly vulnerable to changes that are beyond their control.
For an in-depth discussion of security issues related to energy and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, listen to Ezra Klein speak with economic historian and writer, Daniel Yergin.
This is vulnerability is particularly acute when, to overcome the hazards caused by circumstances beyond their control, such as the flooding of a main road, a high degree of resources, such as energy, is required.
The same dynamic happens with tall buildings. As noted above, the taller a building is, generally, the less energy efficient it is. To overcome this inefficiency we throw energy at it, in the form of air conditioning or heating, in the form of elevators to overcome the height barrier, in the form of increasingly complex engineering solutions for waste and other challenges present.
As this just finished project in Hamilton demonstrates, high-rises can be built with a very high degree of energy efficiency. But, all else being equal, a mid-rise, built to the same specifications, is more energy efficient than a high-rise.
The key point of this dynamic, which is missing, unfortunately from the discussions of most experts, including that on the Ezra Klein Show linked to here (still a highly recommended show and episode), is that we are perfectly capable of building in a far, far more efficient manner, and that by doing so we will greatly improve the resilience of our communities and the security of our nation.
As this just finished project in Hamilton demonstrates, high-rises can be built with a very high degree of energy efficiency.
Vertical sprawl has another characteristic that inhibits the vitality of surrounding public space, which is known as “time to street.” Put simply, this refers to the amount of time that it takes to reach the street from a residence. The higher the residence, or farther away that it is from the street, the longer it takes. This represents a barrier that inhibits propinquity in the public space surrounding the high rise.
Time to street is a characteristic that is, in some respects, shared with more conventional sprawl, though the understanding has to be reframed slightly.
Viewed as the time that it takes residents to access areas meant for public life, such as playgrounds and parks, the time that it takes for residents of horizontal sprawl to access them is clearly longer than is desirable for a vibrant public sphere.
A healthy, vibrant public space is fostered by low barriers to public activity and interaction. Benches and public furniture that encourage people to linger and inhabit a space, a diversity of activity, including walking, running, cycling, busking, eating, options for shopping, all combine to create the bustle that brings life into a space.
Accessibility to public spaces, drawing on multiple transportation options that bring people into it, as well as the function of the space itself being amenable to all, regardless of ability, age, orientation, economic or social situation, or any other attribute, is the lifeblood of a healthy society.
The architect has an opportunity to meet a small business owner, or a restaurant server, or an artist, or someone struggling with addictions, or a student… you get the point.
The value of this is that it helps reinforce and reproduce the dynamism of the public space.
When people meet others who are not from their particular walk of life, their understanding of society at large grows – a greater appreciation is developed for the needs that the student might have, such as for lower tuition rates or better access to apprenticeship opportunities, in the case of post-secondary students, or the life-affirming services associated with harm reduction for the individual struggling with addition.
Contrast this diversity of activity with the more regimented form typical of sprawl – where a walk to get groceries in a livable community comes with the likelihood of meeting a neighbour, the drive to get groceries in a suburban area encloses the individual within a metal box from their house to the store. Once at the store there may be the opportunity for interaction, but this is less than what might otherwise be since those driving to the store are from a much larger catchment area, and so also less likely to share commonalities with each other, such as their children attending the same school.
Screenshot of a streetscape photo included in Barrie’s Intensification Area Urban Design Guidelines. Note the many shops and wide pedestrian area.
Here, in Simcoe County, we see far more horizontal sprawl than vertical sprawl. Smaller communities, availability of land, proximity to Toronto for work, and the so-called ‘drive until you qualify’ effect, along with the limiting effect that the Greenbelt has upon sprawl, leading to it ‘leap frogging’ over it, combine to create welcoming conditions for urban boundary expansion.
In Barrie, however, which is the largest city in the area (and, as a single tier municipality, not formerly a part of Simcoe County) there has been recognition recently of the need for intensification.
The City of Barrie’s Intensification Area Urban Design Guidelines document shows renderings with buildings no more than several storeys tall, lining streetscapes with wide pedestrian walks, shops, and lots of greenery. The guidelines state that the maximum allowable height of new buildings should be set at 8-storeys, (i) going on to note:
“generally, new buildings should have a mid-rise scale (4 to 8-storeys that promotes human- scaled development, minimizes adverse impacts on adjacent streetscapes, and provides appropriate transitions to nearby residential neighbourhoods.” (67)
Allowable heights may be increased at “Key Opportunity Sites”, but only up to at height that is equal to a 1:1 ratio with the right-of-way width, or 11 storeys, whichever is less.
This screenshot of an artistic rendering of a streetscape is taken from Barrie’s Intensification Area Urban Design Guidelines.
By far the majority of imagery used in this document highlight mid-rise development, street-level stores, and dynamic pedestrian spaces.
While there has been far more of this type of development occurring in Barrie recently, there is also a seeming disconnect between what is advocated in the guidelines, noted above, and what is occurring in the downtown area. This 3D rendering, shown by a developer during a community information session, with building storeys highlighted by Reddit user “throwawaybarrie”, shows proposals that are currently underway or that will be soon.
Rendering of the proposed developments in Barrie’s downtown, shared by a developer at a public meeting. The image has been marked up to show building heights, in floors, by Reddit user “throwawaybarrie”.
A side-note: the nearest grocery store to these buildings is an 18-minute walk.
Admittedly, guidelines are guidelines, not mandates, and council is not required to adhere to them. But the seeming divergence from a document, created by staff to help guide how the City grows, should be questioned.
Developers seek to build in a form that best maximizes their profit. For land that is cheaper, this tends to mean houses that are more spread out, with a higher premium placed on the sale of the land and associated building. With land that is more costly, such as that in more built-up areas that is closer to existing amenities, there is a need to increase the amount that the resulting building can bring in. Accordingly, a developer will want to maximize the number of units they are able to sell on the plot of land. There is a limiting factor to this, however, which is that, as noted above, the costs associated with building a high-rise increase dramatically beyond several floors.
The type of building that a developer wants in a given location, in other words, will tend to match their ability to extract a degree of profit from it. For an extremely tall building, such as those lining Billionaire’s Row in New York, the units can be sold of exorbitant prices, while in downtown Barrie, a more modest height reflects the premium a developer is able to charge for the units in the building.
If anything, the gap between low-rise and high-rise – the so-called “missing middle” – is an indication of a top-heavy market, wherein a relatively small number of developers, who are able to access financing for larger developments, have far more sway than smaller, more locally rooted, developers.
Funding and other tools, including target permitting changes, should be made available to help those seeking to build mid-rise developments, those who want to do the type of construction that mirrors what Barrie’s intensification guidelines set out.
The missing middle, in other words, is more about livability maximization than profit maximization.
In most of the discourse surrounding housing and affordability in Ontario, let alone Canada, much of the emphasis is on built form, with proponents arguing in favour of increased density, calling those who oppose high-rises in their neighbourhoods NIMBYs, short for “not in my backyard”, framed as a pejorative.
Those who want to keep their neighbourhood the same are, thus, against more affordable housing, and, as a recent article by a prominent planner argues, consequently also blocking progress towards a more just society.
What accusations of NIMBYism fail to adequately address, however, is a history of planning and development that has created a certain type of community. This is a community that has certain characteristics that also acts as barriers to change, and in particular to the type of change advocated by proponents of increased density. Large-scale planned development, whether horizontal or vertical, is extremely difficult to change, it is brittle in many respects, and the sociality of those inhabiting it reflects this.
It should surprise no one, then, that a built form based on single homeownership, wherein that home is the primary means of economic security and those inhabiting it see themselves mirrored in those around them, that this is a form resistant to change. What is it that the people inhabiting these spaces care for? How to conceive of and experience their ‘backyard”? What shapes and constrains a community, in other words, and how do we help an established community feel confident and safe about becoming something very different?
The key point here is that the built form enables certain types of community. Accordingly, if you want community that enhances civic spirit, that contributes to a sense of shared purpose and common goals, that helps people cut across social and economic divisions to foster greater social understands and cohesion, you need to building spaces that welcome those type of experiences. Furthermore, and continuing from the above, if you want a community that is more open to change, you need to reflect that in the built form. Allow for modularity, for creativity, for re-purposing to suit changing needs. The dynamism of such spaces has exponential returns.
One thing that needs to be addressed here is whether and how building more mid-rise than high-rise will limit urban expansion. As argued above, mid-rise development, and missing middle development generally, is more conducive to a strengthened middle class, such that there is greater social and economic equity through society.
Alternately, sprawl, both horizontal and vertical, with its higher degree of private capital, increases social and economic polarization.
It is well known that the most powerful factor in reducing population growth, a key driver behind urban expansion, is greater equity and, in particular, empowerment of women. By building spaces that prioritize equity, diversity, and inclusion, we and setting the foundations for a future that is more sustainable.
If you are to draw one conclusion or take-away from this piece – the TL;DR – it is that building, and the built environment, should reflect the needs and aspirations of a community, rather than the needs of an individual or small subset of a community.
By building spaces that prioritize equity, diversity, and inclusion, we are setting the foundations for a future that is more sustainable. Sprawl, including vertical sprawl, is not the right way to do this.
There are a lot of misconceptions, myths, and misunderstandings regarding the role that highways and cars play in our economy, and the impact they have on our environment and communities. Many of these are coming to the fore with the Bradford Bypass. Here we address some of them.
We can no longer treat land use as its own issue, nor can we always assume that growth is always a net benefit to our communities. This is simply not true. We can grow our communities in ways that provide affordable housing, protect our natural spaces and water and aspire to create healthy, vibrant centres where people can live and work.
I didn’t know what I was in for, but I knew that helping youth get engaged through a grassroots organization was something I couldn’t pass up. This is exactly what I was looking for – a chance to do something in my community.
After graduating from grad school into a pandemic, I had risk of contact on the top of my mind when looking for work, in addition to the usual imposter syndrome.
I had already decided that I wanted to get involved in my community and direct my career (whatever a ‘career’ is now) towards climate justice. We’re in a Climate Emergency and ‘all hands on deck’ includes my own.
The thing is, for those of us who aren’t very extroverted, getting out there and acting is intimidating, (add climate anxiety and/or mental health issues to that and it’s downright immobilizing).
Then I found an opening at a local organization, SCGC. I didn’t know what I was in for, but I knew that helping youth get engaged through a grassroots organization was something I couldn’t pass up. This is exactly what I was looking for – a chance to do something in my community.
I had studied place-based education and similar ideas, so I knew the local level was important and where I wanted to direct my energies. But local advocacy can be hard to break in to.
Some things I’ve learned from my time with SCGC is the impact of municipal decisions on the climate and environment, largely through land-use planning. It’s so important for us to get involved and influence these local decisions, because collectively, they impact about half of our domestic carbon emissions – not to mention the social impacts. Local politics and planning are hugely underestimated.
But this means that mobilizing and advocating locally can have a massive impact on those decisions too – in emissions reduction and environmental protections, but also in housing, transportation, public health, Indigenous rights, social justice, and ultimately, what our communities are going to look like in the future. This is especially important to young people.
I also learned how critical it is to get out and find people that you can be in community with.
When you’re feeling all of the feelings that come with being in an emergency that most people in your life aren’t even acknowledging, finding others who care is one of the best things for your wellbeing and your ability to start doing the work.
We need major relationship building happening across all parts of our communities to create that foundation for the social capacity to change.
Find people who support you and your learning.
Find people who do their best to model the changes we need to make.
Find people who make you feel more confident in your ability to do this work, in whatever capacity you find yourself doing it in – because you can do it.
There’s a lot of work to be done, and it has to be done together.
It’s not always easy to find an ‘in’ to local advocacy, but it’s worth it.
There are barriers for young people, but organizations can work to address and dismantle them. It might take a while to find a space that’s a good fit for you, and what advocacy looks like for you will likely change over time.
The point is that there’s a role for every one of us in this story.
The Climate Emergency is here, now; we have to act as though this is an emergency.
If you feel climate anxiety, harness that to get out of your comfort zone and do something. Find your place(s) in this climate story.
Becoming in relation to others is a good way to find this. I will be continually finding my place in this story, with my role changing as the narrative changes.
Start small, follow local organizations on social media to see the work being done in your community, then see how you can help with your skills, or just as an extra set of hands.
Read up on local issues, on local news websites. How do your interests intersect with climate? I guarantee you they do, even if it’s not obvious at first.
How can you, in your work, school or hobby, create a space for climate action and for dialogue about possibilities for a different future?
In a neoliberal, individualistic society, simply building reciprocal, caring relationships with one another, the plants and animals, is activism. Relating to the world in a non-extractive, equitable way is transformative.
When we can bring these other ways of existing into the world and advocate for doing things differently – because what our society has been doing isn’t working and never did – we can start building something different.
Making connections to others and between parts of our lives paint a clear picture of what we’re doing wrong. From these connections, we can reimagine and rebuild something better. A different vision of the future that isn’t a dystopia, but a future where we changed our priorities, our systems and our values. Issues are interconnected – we need collaboration across issues, sectors and people so that we can work together to envision and advocate for just, sustainable communities, and indeed, build them.
Building community, building the future.
Thank you to everyone involved with SCGC.
Kelly, signing off.
SCGCs Youth Engagement Lead
…the changes in Bill 23 do not address the housing affordability crisis, rather they will simply put more money into the pockets of billionaire developers at the expense of Ontarians and the natural resources we depend on.
Very soon, the federal government will be deciding whether the Holland Marsh Highway (aka Bradford Bypass) poses enough risk to the health of our environment and communities to designate it for a federal impact assessment. The 25-year-old studies the province is using are woefully out of date and must be updated before work proceeds. The Holland Marsh Highway poses significant risk to the environment, Lake Simcoe, and our communities.
I didn’t know what I was in for, but I knew that helping youth get engaged through a grassroots organization was something I couldn’t pass up. This is exactly what I was looking for – a chance to do something in my community.
How local organizations can help reduce barriers to youth engagement in community organizations, local government, and climate action.
Our ability to create a different vision of the future opens up the paths to create those futures. Our ability to imagine these possibilities opens up what is actually possible, beyond the limits that are put on us.
With so many people experiencing disastrous events it makes sense that psychologists have seen an increase in anxiety, depression and post-traumatic-stress-disorder, especially in places that are feeling the effects of climate change right now. However, even those not directly affected by the disasters climate change is bringing are being psychologically affected by them.
Governments have failed to act to protect our communities and the futures of our children and grandchildren, and they continue to treat our environment as if it’s incidental to life, rather than a foundation for it.
We need strong community organizations to fight for our future, now more than ever.
Please consider donating to support our work. It’s people like you who make us possible.
We send out a once-monthly newsletter full of information on what’s happening in Simcoe County and beyond, including information on how you can take action to protect the health of your community.
The 15-minute community (sometimes also called 15-minute ‘city’ or ‘neighbourhood’) is a vision for development that is human and community oriented.
15-minute communities occur where the basic things we need, like groceries, workplaces, doctor’s offices, community services and childcare, are all available within a 15 minute walk or roll from home.
SCGC, along with other organizations, has been advocating for a move towards establishing 15-minute communities in Simcoe County before development occurs outside of the built-up area.
What this would mean, in practice, is that existing communities would continue to be developed until residents are able to access basic amenities within a 15 minute walk. Only after that condition has been met would development to expand the community outward be allowed.
Read on below for reason why this makes sense, financially, for our health and safety, and for the environment.
The 15-minute community (sometimes also called 15-minute ‘city’ or ‘neighbourhood’) is a vision for development that is human and community oriented. 15-minute communities are communities where the basic things we need, like groceries, workplaces, doctor’s offices, community services and childcare, are all available within a 15 minute walk or roll from home.
Many of us live in suburbs because this has been the norm since urban sprawl was adopted in the 50’s. But more municipalities are realizing that this is a really inefficient way of organizing our communities.
Developers give money to municipalities when they build that is meant to pay for infrastructure, but this up-front cost doesn’t cover repairs and upgrades needed later on.
When infrastructure is built in a way that is spread out, like with sprawl, the tax the municipality is able to collect on a per-person basis is also spread out, resulting in a tax-base that is much smaller, or spread out, in proportion to the larger infrastructure build.
Ontario’s current infrastructure deficit is estimated by the Financial Accountability Officer at $52 billion.
Roads make up the largest share, at $21.1 billion, with buildings and facilities at $9.5 billion, wastewater at $7.3 billion, potable water at $5.3, bridges and culverts at $4.3, storm water at $3.8, and transit at $1 billion.
Click on the image for a larger version, or click through here for the whole report.
By building in a way that brings things closer together, mixing different elements that we all need, such as grocery and clothing stores, cafes and other local shops, into the same neighbourhoods, we maximize that use-value of the land.
This means, because it’s more efficient, that we can do more of what we want, such as funding public services like transit, building more playgrounds and parks, or funding community centres and theatres.
Sprawl hurts us all in ways that are often difficult to see, and the squeeze it puts on the public, the difficult choices municipalities are forced to make between maintaining a road into suburbia or building a childcare centre is just one example.
Canadians spend an average of $10,000 per year on owning a car. Multiply that by the number of cars your household has.
What could you put that money towards if you didn’t have to drive everywhere?
Would you retire early? Help with your child’s education? Take time to explore the world?
These kinds of communities improve quality of life and make the places where people live more, well, livable.
As the places we need to go are brought closer to homes, our commutes and need to drive everywhere shrinks. We spend less time in traffic and more time being out in our community, interacting with neighbours, supporting local businesses, exercising and socializing.
15-minute communities are also good climate policy. Low-rise density development produces the least emissions, while sprawl produces the most (with high-rise development somewhere in the middle). This is because these communities require less car and land use, and attached buildings are much more efficient for infrastructure and servicing (especially if this denser development is occurring in already-serviced areas, rather than undeveloped land). With about half of domestic carbon emissions being under control of municipal land-use planning, this is a pretty big deal for meeting our climate targets.
We’ve seen a huge rise in popularity of the idea of the 15-minute community during the pandemic, as many people stopped having to commute for work and were spending more time in their own neighbourhoods. People are realizing what their neighbourhoods were missing and the potential of what they could be.
15-minute communities have the potential to address so many of our current problems with the same planning approach, largely because of the density they require to make things walkable:
Climate Action
Cost Effective
Transportation
Public Health
Local Economy
Affordable Housing
Aging in Place
Social Health
Child-Friendly Communities
In Simcoe County, we’re not all big cities (Barrie and Orillia aside), but we do have Primary Settlement Areas, which are places where the province is directing a portion of population growth that we need to accommodate here. These are the perfect places to embrace the 15-minute community vision.
In existing neighbourhoods, we can introduce gentle density to complete these neighbourhoods and give residents the nearby services that they deserve, while increasing the walkability and sense of community in these places. This means that less additional land will have to be developed and makes the direct and indirect cost (through taxes) lower for residents because it’s way more efficient for servicing costs.
Where new neighbourhoods need to be built, in Designated Greenfield Areas or where an MZO has been approved, these neighbourhoods should be planned as 15-minute communities to give future residents the best quality of life while being the most affordable they can be – for residents and municipalities. If we absolutely need to use more land, we should use it as efficiently, sustainably and cost effectively as possible. Moving towards 15-minute communities improves livability for current and future residents in these existing communities and because they are compactly built, more people can live in these places, so that less people need to move into the more rural areas of the County.
Local MPPs complicit in $8.3 billion dollar Greenbelt land grab.
It is increasingly clear that policies that promote increased vehicle traffic should be seen as a last resort, and implemented only where no other options are possible.
Recent moves by Ontario’s government seem likely to create conditions for a number of crises in the next few decades that, when combined, are greater than the sum of their parts. This is what’s known as a “polycrisis”, a term popularized by economic historian Adam Tooze.
…value in the context of a community is achieved through livability, which in turn drives economic and social dynamism. Propinquity, or the accessibility of the areas we inhabit, whether that’s for people we socialise with or for consumer good or employment, is the key metric to achieve in this regard. Build communities for people and good things happen.
Highways are the gateway drug for sprawl and the Bypass is a perfect example. Developers own over 3000 acres of land around this highway waiting for the greenlight to destroy more farmland and wetlands.
The 15-minute community (sometimes also called 15-minute ‘city’ or ‘neighbourhood’) is a vision for development that is human and community oriented. 15-minute communities are communities where the basic things we need, like groceries, workplaces, doctor’s offices, community services and childcare, are all available within a 15 minute walk or roll from home.
Community led planning to ensure Innisfil’s natural heritage systems remain strong far into the future.
With the support of the Greenbelt Foundation, the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition analyzed and mapped environmental policies across Simcoe County and the Lake Simcoe watershed landscape.
Following this research, in February 2020 the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition hosted an event at Innisfil’s incredible IdeaLab and Library. This was attended by Innisfil residents, including some members of Council, the MPP for the area, Andrea Khanjin, and members of the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition’s Innisfil member groups, including the Innisfil District Association and Innisfree Ltd.
Participants discussed how to keep Innisfil’s natural heritage strong and connected into the future.
Only 14% of Simcoe County’s landscape fell into our “best protected by environmental policy” category; in the Lake Simcoe watershed, that percentage rose to twenty one. More of the areas’ natural heritage needs strong policy protection in order to create a robust and connected Natural Heritage System. The full reports can be accessed via the “Our Work” page, or by searching for “Reports”.
We need an intact ecosystem complete with forests and wetlands in order to protect biodiversity and good water quality. But a healthy environment also supports healthy people and local economies.
In the Lake Simcoe watershed a quality ecosystem supports the $420 million / year sustainable recreation sector, and delivers millions in ecosystem services like clean water, flood control, climate regulation and water filtration.
The Lake Simcoe Protection Plan includes a target of 40% high quality natural cover (HQNC) in the Lake Simcoe watershed, but no policies specifically support this target. Today, 28% of the Lake Simcoe watershed qualifies as HQNC but only half of that area is well protected by strong natural heritage policies that do not permit land use changes.
Greater efforts at the municipal level can increase the size and protections given to areas of High Quality Natural Cover, and improve on the identification and protection of other natural features that protect our environment and way of life. The 2020 provincial review of the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan is an opportunity to express the need for better protection of High Quality Natural Cover.
In February 2020 the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition hosted an event at Innisfil’s incredible IdeaLab and Library attended by Innisfil residents including some members of Council and the MPP for the area, and members of the Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition’s Innisfil member groups the Innisfil District Association and Innisfree Ltd., for a lively discussion about how to keep Innisfil’s natural heritage strong and connected into the future.
This maps shows the result of the participatory mapping exercise noted above.
Summary of Aims
Due to the significance of patch size, it is of utmost importance to protect and maintain the 25 hectare patches mapped by the province as “High Quality Natural Cover” (HQNC) using the following steps:
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Friends. Online censorship by unaccountable tech companies, combined with an all-out assault on the Greenbelt by Ontario’s developers/government, make this a perilous time for the future of democracy and the power of the people in Ontario.
We need to build new ways of empowering those who believe in accountability, in a healthy environment, and in communities ready to thrive in the economy of tomorrow.
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