Jacobs’ theories became the backbone of today’s “smart” urban planning. Mixed residential and commercial spaces, pedestrian-friendly public space and efficient transportation networks are things that many centres of commerce, from Paris to Curitiba, Brazil, are already doing. Yet almost 50 years after Jacobs’ landmark book, we’re still struggling to realize her visions.
“Unfortunately, when cities are young it doesn’t seem like there’s anything to plan,” says Richard Levy, an environmental planning professor at the University of Calgary. “After the fact it’s too late.” That rapid expansion is what got us into a traffic-ensnared mess in the first place. No surprise that automobile-enabled sprawl is largely to blame for many of the problems cities and their workers now face. In Calgary, an Ipsos Reid survey found that 61 percent of residents said their quality of life had declined from 2004 to 2007, with transportation and rapid expansion – both linked to the economic boom – as major factors.
If efforts aren’t made to attract people and businesses back to the city centre, the exodus to the exurbs beyond the suburbs – you know, Whitby, Brampton, Leduc, Peterborough, Abbotsford – will continue. Business is already migrating away from the core. From 1981 to 2001, the number of workers in suburban municipalities grew by 63 per cent, compared with only seven per cent in urban municipalities. With the recession, Levy suggests, more businesses may abandon expensive central locations for outlying areas, leaving workers little choice but to work and live in a suburban environment.
For established cities where the mould is already cast that means greater ingenuity is needed to remain sustainable. Converting a few warehouses into lofts and making pretty parks isn’t enough. As Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz put it, “You have to attract workers by making sure there are quality opportunities not just for a good job but a good life.”
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