Escape to the suburbs

With over half the Canadian population now living in the suburbs, Jill Grant says it’s an obvious time to study this increasingly popular living option – one that remains a bane to urban planners and downtown boosters.

Are people drawn to the concept of perfectly matching houses throughout a neighbourhood, the “little boxes” as the Weeds theme song goes, or is it the slightly sterile lack of urban energy often associated, fairly or not, with life in the ‘burbs? More likely it’s a desire for living space inside and out that’s roomy—and that’s tough find in the downtown core of most Canadian cities.

As costs associated with living in an urban environment continue to rise, more and more Canadians are pushing outward toward these readymade neighbourhoods-in-a-box. And, Dr. Grant, professor with Dalhousie’s School of Planning in the Faculty of Architecture and Planning, is casting her gaze to the ‘burbs too. Her research project, “Trends in Residential Environments: Planning and Inhabiting the Suburbs,” recently received just over $101,000 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Standard Research Grants program.

The 'burbs, a history Suburbs, which are essentially small communities surrounding cities, grew throughout the mid-20th century as a result of improved road and rail transportation systems, and particularly as a result of an increased embrace of commuting. In the period immediately following Second World War, population booms saw North Americans gravitate to so-called “bedroom communities”—so named because people slept in their suburb but did much of their "living" in the urban centre. Suburbs tended to grow around cities with an abundance of flat land in the surrounding areas, extending as far as the countryside. Dr. Grant notes that one of the downsides of suburban communities is the rich, valuable farmland they consume—a resource increasingly in short supply.

So, what are the impacts of such an “outward” migration? Dr. Grant has a number of theories on the effects on our cities and towns. “The suburbs and the core are affected by the same kinds of pressures and processes, but in different ways,” she says. “Since ownership of the car became quite common, living in the suburbs or in the countryside and commuting to the city has been easy. Developers looking for places to build new commercial spaces looked to the periphery to find relatively inexpensive land that would accessible to those in cars. Consequently, people and commerce drained from downtown.”

The fate of our nation’s downtowns is directly tied to the trends in the Wisteria Lanes across the country, though it isn’t all in the direction of more or better ‘burbs.

“In recent years, we see new attitudes about downtown that are renewing interest in living, working and shopping downtown,” notes Dr. Grant. “Developers are reacting to that with new projects downtown. (Halifax) is reacting with new policies like HRMbyDesign.

“At the same time, development trends in the suburbs are changing somewhat—lots are getting smaller, homes are getting closer to the street; some suburbs are developing a bit of an urban feel.”

Dr. Grant further suggests the suburban life may be getting a bit of a re-think, that the longer commuting time isn’t worth the extra square footage. “In many cities the costs (in time and money) of commuting are getting so high that people are rethinking suburban life … We’re seeing more interest in rapid transit because people want to reduce their commuting time. But rapid transit is expensive in cities that sprawl too much. The current fiscal crisis is slowing down the development a bit, but it probably won't stop suburban development. In the larger cities we are seeing suburban-urban nodes developing: ‘town centres’ that increase densities and mix uses outside of the major urban cores. That is increasing the numbers of people working outside the city cores, so it may affect commuting times and patterns.”

Dr. Grant, who has been studying trends in planning for residential development planning in Canada and around the world since 1999, will use her newest study to fill gaps in existing knowledge including learning more about the perspectives of residents of the region’s suburbs. She’ll talk to the denizens of HRM’s Ridgevales, Clayton Parks or Portland Hills to find out what attracted them to their neighbourhoods.

So the next time you’re parking the minivan in the two-car garage, rolling out the barbeque or watering your already green lawn, give some thought to why you may have chosen to become a suburbanite. Those thoughts may just end up going a long way toward answering the big questions dogging city planners everywhere.

Charles Crosby of Dalhousie’s Communications and Marketing Office lives in the suburban neighbourhood Kidston Estates.