In the days before the automobile, Europe's city planners perfected a design formula that produced compact, people-focused communities where citizens could live, work and play within a tight radius. When renowned urban critic Roberta Brandes Gratz spoke to the Heritage Canada Foundation's annual conference in Edmonton last October, she referenced some of those tried-and-true design principles.

By increasing city density, providing people-friendly public spaces and public transport, rejuvenating downtown cores and reducing dependency upon cars, planners could both reduce urban sprawl and help residents lead healthier, happier, more productive lives. So why is Edmonton, like most North American cities, developing in mostly the opposite direction?

Built on cheap, plentiful oil and low automobile prices, North American cities have spent most of the last 60 years expanding their city limits, forcing residents, for the most part, to drive anywhere they need to go. A recent Stats Canada study reports that Edmonton and Calgary are the country's most car-dependant cities. Research by environmental groups such as the Sierra Club shows that residents in sprawling communities drive three to four times as much as those living in compact, accessible and well-planned urban areas.

Alberta's staggering population growth in these tar sands boom years and a pursuit of affordable housing has only exacerbated this trend. According to Canada's 2006 census, the province's unprecedented economic boom increased municipal growth around Edmonton and Calgary by 29.2 per cent between 2001 and 2006.

In the Capital Region, the rapid development of new neighbourhoods within city limits is straining traffic volumes. Within 40 years, it's estimated these developments will house more than 65,000 residents, while the access provided by Anthony Henday Drive to these newly sprawling neighbourhoods has only ratcheted up the demand for housing in far-flung suburbs.

Edmonton and Calgary are ranked as the most wasteful cities in Canada in terms of land use, and growing ever more so annually. Between 2003 and 2005, Calgary's urban expanse grew by some 800 hectares a year and now equals New York City in terms of land mass, yet with just one-eighth of its population. The city of Edmonton now encompasses 70,000 hectares (700 square kilometres).

The province's poorly planned and unbridled development is burdening communities with immense social and economic costs, boosting taxes and increasing traffic and environmental pollution while devouring sensitive wetlands, farmlands and forests. Each year in Canada, more than 40,000 hectares of wetland are destroyed, largely due to residential development. And since wetlands remove up to 90 per cent of the pollutants in water, their destruction increases polluted waters, notes the Worldwatch Institute.

"Obviously urban sprawl and its dependence on the automobile is a lifestyle that can't be sustained," says Stephen Hazell, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada. He notes that if a new way of thinking doesn't catch hold, Edmonton and Calgary are on a path clouded by smog and a pile of infrastructure debt.

“If everybody in the world lived like us, we’d need five planets right now,” says Jesse Row, director of the Pembina Institute’s sustainable communities group. "We're seeing major traffic congestion, we've got an infrastructure deficit of $123 billion across the country and, in Alberta, our environmental footprint is the highest in Canada.”

Yet there are signs that the public is ready for change and that a shift in government planning priorities is underway. "Canadians are ahead of the politicians when it comes to many of these ideas, and they are demanding change," says Noel Keough, senior researcher at the Sustainable Calgary Society and assistant professor of sustainable design at the University of Calgary.

As a result, dozens of North American municipalities, including Edmonton and Calgary, are now researching the steps they must take to curb urban sprawl, including "Smart Growth" policies that set urban growth boundaries, preserve farmland and green space, invest in alternative modes of transportation and produce compact, pedestrian-friendly neighbourhoods.

Smart Growth BC reports that those who live in more compact communities are more fit and less likely to be overweight or hurt or killed in a traffic collision. The poster child for the movement, Portland, Oregon, grew in population by 50 per cent between 1970 and 1990 but expanded its land use by just two per cent. (Over the same period, the population of Los Angeles grew 45 per cent and gobbled up 200 per cent more land).

In Edmonton, this shift in thinking has resulted in an update of the city's 1999 Transportation Master Plan. The Implementation Status Report, released in June 2007, identifies several 10-year priorities, including major arterial corridors, public transit initiatives, high-speed transit schemes and the rehabilitation of existing infrastructure.

"It starts from the ground up. When you put that first road in, you're dictating the travel patterns for what could be a century or longer," says Row. "More compact development can enhance quality of life because of the savings on transportation, less time spent commuting and preservation of the environment."

How cities grow also has a significant influence on greenhouse (GHG) emissions. Currently, about 30 per cent of GHGs in Alberta are produced by transportation. However, according to the Pembina Institute, another 25 per cent are produced by housing, and "the single most efficient way to reduce those emissions is through smarter urban design," says Row. "More compact neighbourhoods reduce automobile use, and every vehicle off the road means the elimination of emissions from that vehicle."

All of which makes a compelling argument for instituting Smart Growth policies province-wide. The question is, are we ready - both personally and politically - to move away from the consumptive and unsustainable development practices of the last half of the 20th century?

Learn more about Smart Growth at:
$ www.movingedmonton.ca
$ www.edmonton.ca/smartchoices
$ www.sustainablecalgary.ca
$ www.creatingcalgary.ca
$ http://communities.pembina.org
$ http://www.sierraclub.ca/prairie/smart_growth.htm
$ www.smartgrowth.bc.ca
$ www.climatechangecentral.com