Christopher Hume delivers a forceful argument for why density is necessary for maintaining a prosperous Toronto in the decades ahead, and why the alternative, sprawl, is environmentally unsustainable and economically ruinous.
Hume identifies a national justification for sprawl "on the basis that there will always be more
empty fields to develop" and a deep bias
against density from the many who feel development "should be stopped after
they have what they want."
Despite scary connotations with "shadowy canyons of bleak
high-rise apartment buildings and over-crowded buses lurching along
congested streets...density also means the museum, art galleries, film festivals,
Nuit Blanche and major league sports," says Hume. "Density generates economic activity, i.e. jobs and wealth. And in the
21st century, as never before, the business of the world is transacted
in large urban centres."
While some criticize Toronto's condo boom, the alternative, sprawl, "has long since reached the point where advantages are outweighed by disadvantages." And it is sprawl, after all, not density, that causes congestion.
"What the car hath taken away," concludes Hume, "density will giveth back."
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