Readers may be as easily annoyed as I, entering a conversation part way through, and not knowing or understanding what the foundations of the conversation are.
Locally, in recent months, smart growth is the latest buzzword. I think you may be as much in the dark about its meaning as I was earlier today. Thank Heaven for Google!
I thought that for smart growth to exist, there must also be un-smart growth, and what would that be? It seems the polite converse of smart growth, it's suggested, is conventional growth. In other words, the way we've been growing 'til now.
Now I like euphemisms as well as the next feller. I would say, though that smart growth has about the same elegance to it as Freedom Fries. I should think that the brighter bulbs in the urban and regional planning profession likely prefer "organic growth," recognizing that if we try hard to emulate God's perfect plan, we can hope to wind up with efficient municipalities and regions which promote happy and orderly communities.
The discipline (urban and regional planning) is a young one in Canada. I read online that only 49 persons practised the discipline (in Canada) in 1949. In 1958, I landed a job as land surveyor (instrumentman) for a young Project Planning Associates Limited in Toronto. The firm was composed of five partners (engineers and architects) who had been employed lead hands in the development from scratch of Don Mills. They brought along as employees a chief draughtsman, a handful of engineers and draughtsmen and a couple of landscape architects. The discipline called itself "town planning" at that time. They had just received their first major commission when I arrived — the planning (again from scratch) of Flemingdon Park (just down the Don River from Don Mills). I'd say my main benefit from that job was an enduring respect for the discipline.
I seem to have wandered off, thinking about the good old days. I wanted to cite for readers the following American pages that I found enlightening (the overview and principles of smart growth — www.smartgrowth.org/about/principles/default.asp>
These pages suggest to me (and I agree) that sprawl equals un-smart growth, but smart growth is much more than sprawl-avoidance.
Deane Doucette, St. Albert
