Canadians Should Not Mimic Short-Sighted U.S. Policies

by B. Meredith Burke

"Learning from another's experience" does not come easily to most of us. As children we reject parental preachings. As adults we often reject learning from those we deem our inferiors.

Perhaps this is why Canadians seem hellbent on rejecting a U.S. lesson on sprawl and environmental degradation.

During a 1950s' childhood spent shuttling between Calgary and Los Angeles I found many Canadians felt a moral superiority towards Americans. Canadians regarded themselves as more thoughtful, more attentive to their social fabric, and above all, more far- thinking in their policies than their southern neighbors.

Yet today's Canadians evade long-term demographic planning just as do my countrymen. Western Canadians, like western Americans, are particularly infatuated with perpetual growth. Even those who must contend with the immediate consequences regard growth as inevitable, an uncontrollable "given."

In early December, 1999, John Les, mayor of Chilliwack, found himself quoted in The New York Times: "To think we can stop growth is preposterous, so we must manage it well." Since 1993 this community 65 miles east of Vancouver has grown from 50,000 to 65,000: a 30 percent increase. It projects doubling within twenty-five years. Real estate developer Rick Wellsby explained that like residents of Toronto, Seattle, and Los Angeles, Vancouverites will soon consider an hour a reasonable commute.

Canada has doubled its population in the last half-century. Greater Vancouver has trebled its 1956 population of 665,000. My beloved "cowtown" of Calgary, which had fewer than 200,000 when I saw it framed by a double rainbow in 1950, is approaching 900,000.

In 1993 the Albertan premier and several other high-ranking politicians and economists were unperturbed by my depiction of the ominous implications of the provincial growth path. Yet the growth rates of both Canada and many major cities equal or exceed those in third world countries.

Left unchecked, the dynamic of growth will doom the livability and ecological sustainability of your cities as it has the one- time meccas of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego. In 1950 arid greater Los Angeles had about 3 million persons and led all U.S. counties in agricultural income. Workers relished its cheap housing, uncrowded beaches, and citrus-planted countryside. They could not see the devastation to far-off valleys and regional eco-systems being wrought by their insatiable thirst for water.

Today, greater L.A. has 15 million people (about Canada's entire 1950 population) and extends across five counties. Agriculture is near-extinct. Commuters who drive 3 hours in each direction are not rare.

The San Francisco Bay area is menacing the state's one remaining great farm region. Its population of 8 million extends about 125 kilometers north/south and 100 kilometers east/west. It is leapfrogging into the vulnerable Central Valley, source of half the U.S.'s table fruits and vegetables. By 2040 with unchecked state growth the Valley will be one-third paved; by 2080 two- thirds.

California's maximum sustainable population level of 10 million was surpassed by 1950. Its present population of 35 million is projected to grow by 20 million more by 2020. With looming permanent water shortages and ecological meltdown California may not make it there.

Is this the future that citizens of the great western provinces aspire to? Do you equate growth with "progress" and "well- being"? Do you believe developers, not voters, should determine society's future?

Take heed of the work of University of British Columbia urban planning professor William Rees. He invented the "ecological footprint." This represents the ratio of the extensive hinterland (of global extent) residents of densely-populated industrial cities and nations draw upon to supply the renewable resources they consume and to recycle the wastes they generate, to the land area they physically occupy. Rees and his former student Mathis Wackernagel conservatively calculated Vancouver's footprint as over 20 in the early 1990s. As it grows along with population expansion, the city will be ever more vulnerable to anticipated world resource shortages in the 21st century.

Contrary to what North American politicians now assert, society can purposively craft its demographic course. In 1972 the President's Commission on Population Growth and the American Future urged the U.S. Congress to adopt a population stabilization policy based upon the ideals and values of citizens as well as the environmental capacity. Its goal was optimum, not maximum population. Congress never considered this, unwilling to link immigration and reproductive health policies to a greater goal.

What politicians mean when they consign their societies to a future which is an unintended by-product of unscrutinized policies is that they can see no "pretty solutions."

"Pretty solutions" are socially and politically cost-free. They enable us to do business (pretty much) as usual, avoid making drastic and permanent lifestyle changes, and steer clear of the costs of crafting policy in an arena unaccepting of political compromises. Smart growth is an ultimate (and futile) pretty solution.

Vancouverites can feign indifference to city size and its effect on housing, time use, recreation, agriculture, and the natural landscape--or they can begin a serious debate about what would be an optimum population level. This will unavoidably entail debating ideal provincial and national population goals, and ultimately immigration and foreign aid policies.

The alternative to setting an overt demographic goal is proceeding to a destination you won't want--all the while whining that you had no choice in molding your societal future.

In fact, you will sound remarkably like Americans.

B. Meredith Burke, a Santa Barbara, California-based demographer and economist, is Sr. Fellow, Negative Population Growth, Inc., a Washington, D.C. advocacy organization. This article was published in the Vancouver (British Columbia) Sun on September 5, 2000.

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), September 08, 2000

Answers

K, this article could not be more right on! As a resident of Calgary for the past 20 years, I can attest to the blight the rapid increase in population has brought, especially in regards to lack of concern for the ever-tortured environment. Beyond that, though, is the noticeable increase in animosity people not only appear to feel but to show towards each other--you literally take your life in your hands, now, when you get behind the steering wheel and set-out upon this city's streets. It averages 88 automobile accidents per day, with over half of them involving people deliberately running (racing through) red lights because they are in such a hurry to keep pace with the frantic existence permeating the fabric of this competitive, "dog eat dog" atmosphere. And heaven help the pedestrian who tries to make it across a street--even children are fair game for the bulling-their-way-through drivers! I'm using this example because, while city and provincial governments are more than happy to see the hundreds of thousands of people arrive, they have done no planning and have put no money into expanding the infrastructure one iota to accommodate these numbers, so all the "extras" are being crammed into the same roads the place had 20 years ago. A nightmare.

(rant mode off)

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), September 08, 2000.

I see the same sort of driving in the Northeast U. S.

Human life is becoming a commodity because of overpopulation. Each life is worth less and less. I dread to think about what will happen when we finally run out of food and water.

People are fascinated by the "Survivor" T. V. show. The truly farsighted are paying attention to how the infrastructure around us is collapsing. IMHO, if things keep going the way they are a remote island will be the only place that will be half-way safe!

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), September 08, 2000.