Canada's Ready for Urban Shift

"Having remade the face of North America, the tide now seems to be turning against the 'burbs. The downfall won't be quick, but already the unthinkable is starting to happen."

"As Christopher Leinberger argues in an article in the current Atlantic, 'a structural change is underway in the housing market.'"

"Canada has not experienced a subprime catastrophe, so perhaps we are an even better example of the city's new popularity. There are objective reasons – escalating cost of gasoline, heating oil and natural gas – but there's more."

"Looking back at the postwar conditions that unleashed the explosion of suburbia, it's clear the growth was inspired as much as anything by a desire to escape from the city. Density, associated with danger, disease and decay, was the enemy."

"Sixty years later, beset by gridlock, shoddy construction and environmental degradation that can no longer be ignored, density has started to look good again."

"The response has been to make the suburban more urban."