Less Area is More?

This week a guest speaker, Judy Brownoff a Saanich Councillor and CRD director, introduced an interesting policy to me called an urban containment boundary. It is used to stop urban development from invading rural areas and green spaces. The area inside the boundary is urban, high-density development, and the outside is rural, low density. When this boundary is put in place by a municipality, solutions for growth other than expansion must be found. Some solutions are increasing density of developments, and redevelopment of building sites.

Conventional development patterns used tend to separate homes, jobs and shopping from each other; then connecting these by roads; due to the low density. This promotes the common view that outward growth is inevitable and necessary. Problems associated with low-density, single-use pattern include: traffic congestion/pollution; few methods of transportation; loss of working farmland; unaffordable road and infrastructure maintenance costs; and an increase in obesity, asthma, and other health problems related to vehicle dependency.

Healthy, sustainable, communities are dependent on the creation and protection of green space because they provide many services such as; clean air and water, climate moderation (temperature, wind and noise control), and absorption of rain through unpaved areas.

Compact communities have a smaller per capita footprint and help keep costs of services down. Creating well-designed compact neighbourhoods will help communities absorb new residents and jobs without sacrificing the quality of life, environment, or the fiscal health of cities. Benefits of compaction include: increased viability of alternative methods of transportation; mitigation of climate change by providing shopping, schools, and other services in close proximity. This will reduce dependency on vehicles; protection of farmland; maximize the use of existing infrastructure and minimize new infrastructure; diversification of local economy by allowing people to work from mixed-use neighbourhoods that attract and keep residents; less time commuting. All of which in turn allow neighbours to get to know one another better strengthening the social fabric of the community. Overall revitalizing the community and making it more sustainable.

Several Regions and Municipalities have created Urban Containment Boundaries as a part of their growth management strategies: Saanich and Nanaimo http://www.toolkit.bc.ca/creating-urban-containment-boundary

There is currently a proposed amendment to the Regional Growth Strategy to extend the Regional Urban Containment and Servicing Area boundary in the District of Highlands. For more information see http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/defend-the-regional-growth-strategy-and-urban-containment-boundary.html

Why do we, unlike other animals, have trouble building Sustainable Communities?

I thought of this when we were given the definitions of community in one of our first Sustainable and Community Relations classes. The common definitions of community were given first; a group of people living in a particular local area, sharing common ownership, common interests, common goals, or a residential district. But the last definition given was the one that got me thinking, it was; a group of interdependent organisms inhabiting the same region and interacting with each other. This may be the biological and ecological definition but as soon as I heard this one it seemed like the best, most sustainable and most community oriented definition. Humans are not the greatest at interacting and sharing the environment with other organisms, we tend to think of communities as being made up of only one species; humans. But we do rely on other organisms for a variety of things, such as food production and waste removal. This makes them a part of our community and us a part of theirs. We are bound to other species around us by the food web, if nothing else. Humans could learn a lot from communities of organisms as they use their natural strengths collectively to be sustainable and have mastered the art of building sustainable communities over millions of years.

Different organisms such as insects and bacteria have learned to work together so that both populations benefit. An example of a sustainable community is between aphids and ants. Aphids produce nectar that ants want, so the ants herd the aphids and protect them from predators in exchange for providing nectar. This is a sustainable community based on trading of goods and services. I think there are more than a few things that could be learned. One thing that humans share with every organism on earth is the need to care for and protect the earth as we all rely on it to survive.