Smart growth, Canadian style

The town of Markham shows why Canada is way ahead of the U.S. when it comes to “smart growth,” i.e. compact, incremental development. While innovative programs in states like Maryland try to rein in leapfrog sprawl, Markham simply opens up a new growth area that builds on existing infrastructure. The development is relatively dense, by U.S. standards. After another 20 years of growth, Markham will add 150,000 people — all of whom will live within 30 minutes of downtown Toronto, an easy commute. At that time, large portions of the municipality will remain farmland. Markham’s orderly growth is facilitated by the Canadian system of planning and permitting. Power is in the hands of the provincial government, which evaluates growth according to broad, regional criteria. The neotraditional pattern of Markham’s current development mostly is due to the municipality’s own initiative. Planners and public officials were bold enough to adopt a new urbanist philosophy in the early 1990s, as thousands of new acres were about to open up for development. In the next two decades, many new walkable, mixed-use, human-scale neighborhoods will emerge throughout Markham, allowing the town to develop a character that it never had before.