Canadian urbanists organize, fight climate change
Years of preparation by Canadian urbanists, including municipal planners, urban design officials, academics, and private practitioners, have culminated in the formation of the Council for Canadian Urbanism (CanU). One of the organization’s initial purposes is to press governments in Canada to address climate change.
CanU President Brent Toderian, who is director of planning for the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, noted that leaders of the organization include Canadians who have participated for many years in the Congress for the New Urbanism. CanU officers include: Chairman Robert Freedman, urban design director for Toronto; Vice President Nancy Shoiry, urban planning director for the Borough of Ville-Marie, Montreal; Treasurer Dan Leeming, principal in The Planning Partnership, Toronto; and Secretary Alex Taranu, manager of urban design and special projects for Brampton, Ontario.
The organization recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper arguing that “cities need new tools and resources,” including flexible fund-raising tools and broader municipal and regional powers, to act aggressively against global warming.
“National and provincial governments need to support sustainable cities by dedicating significantly more funding to meaningful greenhouse gas-reducing actions such as public transit and rail, while limiting or freezing spending on initiatives that contribute to urban and suburban sprawl, fossil-fuel dependency, and increased greenhouse-gas emissions,” the group said.
conference planned for the fall
CanU traces its roots to the National Urban Design Interest Group that was formed several years ago within the Canadian Institute of Planners. CanU held a small conference in October, during which the organization’s birth was officially announced. A larger conference will take place next fall in Montreal.
Freedman said the group considered becoming a chapter of CNU, but concluded that “we may not have the same potential clout up here” if Canadian urbanists went that route. “In many of the larger cities in Canada there is a misperception that New Urbanism is still all about suburban Neo-Traditional design,” he said. “I’m not sure why that still persists, but it’s quite a strongly held belief and unfortunately gets in the way of having meaningful discussions about urban issues.”
Canadian cities differ from those in the US in several respects, Freedman said. These include a “stronger belief in government” in Canada, reflected in the fact that “many urban initiatives are led by municipal governments.” In Canada there is a stronger European planning tradition, he added, and “tall buildings have been (off and on) a more acceptable form of development up here than in the US.” Public transit is also more accepted (though transit has recently been gaining ground in parts of the US that previously venerated automobiles and highways).
