We’re # 6.
Peel Region, that is, ranks sixth out of 27 municipalities in Ontario in the “sustainability snapshot” that has just been released by The Pembina Institute, a respected west-coast think thank that keeps a keen eye on things environmental and urban.
The 2007 Ontario Urban Sustainability Report looks at three broad categories, smart growth, liveability and equity and economic vitality based on 33 different indicators. Then it ranks the municipalities, which include Toronto and all of the regional governments around it.
“The objective of the report is to inform and provide a basis of measurement for communities and the province for urban sustainability policies and program development,” says the Institute.
Larger, older municipalities tend to do well when measuring sustainability because they have more concentrated populations, more mature transit systems and more diverse forms of housing. Thus Toronto is number 1 in the rankings and Ottawa is second.
Halton is the only GTA regional municipality ahead of Peel at number three while the medium-sized, highly liveable towns of Stratford and Guelph come next.
Like most of these reports, it tell us mostly what we already know — that the population in Toronto is stabilizing, the population in 905 is skyrocketing without the same community supports Toronto enjoys and, essentially, sprawl is king of all.
“Unsustainable development patterns in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, particularly the 905, threaten to undermine the economic vitality of these communities in the long term,” says lead author Ray Tomalty. “Long commuting distances, the lack of commuting options, traffic congestion, and low housing diversity and affordability could strangle the long-term prosperity of these regions.”
Ontario issued its much-ballyhooed Places To Grow report in Mississauga more than a year ago but the Pembina academics clearly suggest it won’t be enough to stop the hollowing out of Toronto which has already started.
“The overall picture that emerges, particularly the concentration of population growth in areas where unsustainable, urban sprawl dominates, is one of more serious challenges than assumed in the province’s recent Greenbelt and Growth Plan initiatives,” said York University Environmental Studies professor Mark Winfield in the press release issued with the study. “More aggressive interventions by the province to curb sprawl and automobile dependence are needed to ensure the sustainability of communities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe.”
How about more aggressive interventions by the planners and people who are in charge of governing those communities — in other words, the people we elect every four years and the staff they employ?
The only reason that Peel and most of the other GTA regions rank so highly in the poll (York was seventh, Durham 11th) is because of the equal billing for economic vitality with the other two factors. “High economic growth and poor urban form”, they name is 905.
Peel was third in economic vitality (measuring factors such as median income and unemployment) but just 13th in liveability and 15th in the smart growth index.
Some of the indicators for those indices are intriguing. Peel was dead last, 27th, in the heritage homes category which measures the age of the housing stock which is “a proxy for the number of heritage homes and sense of place that a community possesses.”
We were also close to the bottom in providing affordable housing, supplying recreational spaces per 10,000 population and physical activity. On the other hand, we had the lowest crime rate and were third lowest in the number of accidents on our roads.
In the smart growth category, Peel did very poorly in pedestrian-friendly street layout, commuting distances and providing work close to where we live.
But, believe it or not middle of the pack on smart growth was way ahead of Niagara, Halton, York and Durham which were four of the bottom six.
“In general, these rankings reflect poor land use mixes, low levels of intensification and long commuting distances,” says the report, which you can see at www.pembina.org/pub/1512.
When they paved paradise, who knew the parking lot would ever go on so very long?