“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”

Hello everyone,

It’s been awhile, but I needed to rant to some like-minded people about everything I love and loathe about suburbia. I’m not talking about Clayton Park; I’m talking about the endless, life-sucking, soul-destroying suburban sprawl that dominates much of Southern Ontario.

Loathe. Cookie-cutter houses, monotony, boredom, manicured lawns, lawn ornaments, pesticides, sidewalks into nowhere (if there are sidewalks at all), front-loaded double garages, constant road widening, streets named after trees that were cut down for development, lollipop trees, cars, cars, cars, disappearing farmland, curvilinear streets, cul-de-sacs, supersized houses, McMansions, huge setbacks, big box stores, chain stores, fast food, Wal-Mart, strip malls, malls in general, parking lot upon parking lot, cars with single occupants, commutes, traffic, hostile pedestrian realms, gas-guzzling SUVs, gas stations, intermittent bus service, terrible public transportation, utter dependence on the automobile for all of your daily needs, limited mobility without a private vehicle, poor streetscapes, few public spaces, an abundance of private space, Victorian ideals, hyper individualism, consumerism, materialism, conservatism, 400-series highways, limited social capital, apathy, limited economic and cultural diversity, Euclidean zoning, R-1 zones, horribly inefficient land use, cheesy advertisements for new housing developments, teenagers who hang out in the parking lot at Tim Hortons because they have nowhere else to go, isolated senior citizens, cyclists who bike on the sidewalk and almost run you over because they’re not used to pedestrians on the sidewalk, dependence on cheap oil, gated communities, greenfield development, declining downtown cores, sprawl, sprawl, endless suburban sprawl reaching out to an endless periphery.

Love. Family and friends (despite their housing choices), dog-walkers, strong communities that thrive regardless of location and design, women’s groups, playgrounds, protected parks and open spaces with recreational trails, main streets and most of all: how my loathing of suburbia drove me to pursue planning as a career.

-Erika

P.S. Here are some interesting design solutions to suburban sprawl: http://www.re-burbia.com/finalists/