March 11, 2009

Developers or government - Who should control Calgary's growth?

Professor says the relationship between local government and land developers is to blame for Calgary's urban sprawl

Max Foran.

In a groundbreaking study of urban sprawl in Calgary, Max Foran, professor of Canadian Studies in the Faculty of Communication and Culture, analyzes the relationship between land developers and the local government between 1945 and 1978, implicating both in a pattern of policy and decision-making that has resulted in the urban sprawl Calgary experiences today.

As early as 1954, local government burdened by rising costs and heavy demand for new housing, turned over the responsibility for installing roads and utilities in new subdivisions to the developers.  

“The costs for these expenses were recuperated by developers who simply incorporated them into the price of homes. Previously, the new homeowner had paid these costs to the city via taxation,” says Foran. “By abrogating the responsibility for where, when, and how utilities and roads were installed in new subdivisions, the City of Calgary in effect lost the real power to direct residential growth.”

Foran says both developers and the city wanted the same thing – to annex land – but for different reasons. As a result the city did not offer alternatives to single family dwelling and did not create high density residential communities. Today, the implications are experienced by Calgarians in traffic congestion, environmental concerns, and lack of community diversification, among others.

“Cities with greater densities take a more diverse form,” he says. “Instead of sprawling subdivisions that all look the same, if we had incorporated mixed densities in new subdivisions in different ways, we likely would have produced a more vibrant urban form. However, given like philosophies about housing held by both municipal authorities and the developers, what occurred was probably inevitable.”

Foran is the author of Expansive Discourses: The City of Calgary, the Land Developers and Residential Urban Sprawl, 1945-1978. The book is available in bookstores now and as an e-book free download from Athabasca University Press at www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120152