limits to urban growth: who benefits, who pays, who
TRANSCRIPT
LIMITS TO URBAN GROWTH: WHO BENEFITS, WHO PAYS, WHO DECIDES?
A Commentary on the Current Planning Climate in Toronto
L.S. Bourne
Research Paper No. 68
Revised draft prepared for:
Conference and Annual Meeting Canadian Council on Urban and Regional Research
Toronto, September 19th, 1975
Centre for Urban and Community Studies
University of Toronto
August 1975
Preface
This paper represents a strictly personal interpretation of,
or more appropriately a reaction to, the current planning situation
and political climate in Toronto. It does not represent a position
taken by the Centre for Urban and Connnunity Studies, nor by any
of the projects or programs associated with the Centre.
The paper's concern is simple and certainly not original: de
spite the considerable and obvious benefits achieved through the
evolution of the planning process in Toronto over the last two de
cades, there has also been an increase in the negative side-effects
of that process. ~lost of these effects appear as higher costs for
those sectors of society least able to afford them; and most have
not been duly acknowledged. In the last few years as rigid physical
controls on urban growth - limiting suburb development and ceneral
area redevelopment in particular - have proliferated, these nega
tive effects have in turn multiplied. This increase is unnecessary,
inequitable and regressive.
The central argument in the paper is, first, that we should
openly debate the redistribution of benefits and costs resulting from
limits on development, and second, that we should not introduce such
limits until that debate is satisfactorily resolved. Otherwise we
could inherit the worst of both urban worlds - the planned and the
unplanned. There is, as one reference to this paper notes, a cer
tain viciousness to easy solutions which can and should be avoided.
LIMITS TO URBAN GROWTH: WHO BENEFITS, WHO PAYS, WHO DECIDES*
A Commentary on the Current Planning Climate in Toronto
L.S. Bourne University of Toronto
A great deal has been written both in Canada and abroad on the
management and control of growth in large metropolitan centres. One
example of this literature, and of the differing views on limiting urban
growth, is a three volume collection of papers released by the Urban
Institute in Washington (Scott, 1975). Everywhere the issues seem the
same: how to prevent or at least reduce the negative consequence of rapid
urban growth.
Much of the discussion in the Canadian context generally, and in
Toronto in particular, has, however, been superficial and, in many
instances, misleading. In part it is misleading because of a confusion
of concepts and goals. In part it is misleading and superficial
because it fails to account for the distribution of costs of alternative
solutions to the problems of growth. One result is that a number of
important questions, on what alternative futures for our cities are
feasible and/or desirable, which should be entering the growth debate,
are assigned low priority or are completely ignored. Another conse-
quence, evident in our newspapers, and in radio and television commen-
taries, is an increasing polarization of public opinion on what futures
are preferred and what policy actions are needed to achieve these
futures.
This concern is not new, and the author is by no means the first
or last to speak out on the subject. Nor is it intended here to create,
with the stroke of a pen, a single and widely acceptable perspective.
Instead, this paper simply attempts to clarify some basic but misused
concepts underlying the current debate, and to raise a number of diffi
cult but essential questions relating to limits on urban growth. What
purposes are limits to growth designed to achieve? Who benefits (and
loses) from such limits. Who should decide if, when and how they are
to be applied?
All of the specific examples chosen for discussion relate to re
cent events in Toronto, but most should be equally applicable to other
cities. The author's personal bias, as will be immediately evident to
the reader, is to oppose severe limits on growth (exch1ding obv.i.ous
abuses) until we can answer three basic questions: 1) what are the pur
poses of such limits; 2) what are the consequences, intended and unin
tended, of the application of these limits for different areas of the
city and for different sectors of society; and, 3) where should that
growth be redirected? I would be willing to argue that if responses to
these questions were obtained from many of the current advocates of
growth limits they would turn out to be, under close scrutiny, contra
dictory. Of course we need to re-evaluate our attitudes to and
policies for urban and economic growth, and then if appropriate apply
limits to that growth. But only after we have effectively answered the
above questions and clarified what we believe the problem to be.
2
3
DEFINING GROWTH
First, what is urban growth and why is it a problem? Clearly, in
the Alice-in-Wonderland context of planning in Metro Toronto, the term
means whatever the individual writer or commentator wishes it to mean.
A quick content analysis of our daily newspapers reveals an almost
endless list of definitions and interpretations: the spread (or sprawl)
of urban land uses into the rural countryside, the construction of more
high-rises, more expressways, increased congestion, immigration, or
higher taxes; in other words, more people crowding in on your neighbour-
hood and preferred style of life.
One advantage of this multiplicity of interpretations is obvious.
Special interest groups with very diverse objectives can find agreement
on the need to introduce greater limits on growth without ever having
to specify exactly what and to whom they are to be applied. Politicians
can claim to be doing something for one group while actually assisting
another group. Many of these groups, in fact, are not even talking about
the same issues. Without a set of common premises from which to begin,
it is not surprising that the recent debate thus far has been largely un-
productive. That debate has awakened a renewed interest in the growth
issue, and in the quality of urban life generally. That interest must be
encouraged not confused and thwarted.
Is it possible to define terms such as growth more explicitly?
Growth is not one but a complex set of processes. To retreat into
theoretical terms for the moment, three basic types of growth, which
Kenneth Boulding (1953, 1970) has titled population, demographic and
1 structural growth, can be differentiated. The first, population growth
represents an absolute increase in the physical size of the body (or
system) under study, such as a geographic increase in the area or pop
ulation size of a city. The second, demographic growth refers to
changes in the vertical or hierarchical ordering of elements in that
system. The term demographic growth is traditionally used in this con
text because the most obvious example is the orderly movement of a popu
lation over time through the sequence of age cohorts. Third, structural
growth, includes all changes in the relationships between parts or
elements of that same system.
4
While the meanings of the first two types of growth are relatively
straight-forward, that of structural growth is not. The essence of the
concept of structural growth is in the dynamic aspects of the organization
of the system under review. Structural growth is important precisely
because modern systems, such as cities, are dynamic interrelated entities.
A change in one area o~ sector has effects throughout the system. The
point might best be illustrated by referring, briefly, to the most
important of Boulding's principles of structural growth. In short, these
are: 1) that any increase in the size of a system necessitates a change
in the organizational structure of that system; 2) at any point in time
that organizational structure represents the sum of the laws of growth
affecting the system as a whole up to that time; 3) while the laws of
growth may determine the initial form or organization of the system, with
increasing size and complexity that form in turn begins to dominate in
shaping the structure of future growth; and 4) the critical link in
understanding growth is identifying the manner in which the parts of the
system interact.
5
Cities, obviously, display all three types of growth. Moreover
the growth of cities can be shown to follow the principles outlined by
Boulding for systems in general. The interested reader can make the
translation easily. Each of the three types is important in its own
right and each should be approached with appropriately sensitive policy
measures. The complex relationships between the three types are also
significant. For example the third type, structural growth, can occur
without the first two, such as with shifts in government forms or through
the:impact of social or technological change on the mix of housing or
transportation, but the reverse in terms of Boulding's principles is
not possible.
All three types of growth may present problems, but they are not
necessarily the same problems. This simple fact is the source of much
of our confusion. If, for instance, the absolute growth or expansion of
our cities was to be severely limited, structural change would likely
continue apace if not accelerate. In fact most people react to the rate
of demographic and particularly structural change, rather than to an
absolute increase in population size. In Toronto the rate of structural
change has of late been hectic. Sudden and often unanticipated social
changes, massive and frequently ugly developments in both the suburbs
and the city, widespread demolition of familiar landmarks and buildings
through redevelopment, increasing visual chaos, traffic congestion, air
pollution, noise, and excessive demands on social services, housing and
transportation, are obvious examples. Among the many implications of
these changes has been the growing feeling that existing institutions and
the legislative machinery for public policy formulation are inadequate to
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deal with the. complexities of contemporary growth.
These trends are valid concerns for urban planning and must be
dealt with as soon and as intelligently as possible. Where necessary. new
institutional forms must be introduced and new policies devised to meet
these problems. But these policies should not be introduced so as to
create new and potentially larger problems and certainly not at the cost
of introducing new or greater social inequalities. This, unfortunately,
is what in many instances we are presently doing.
Our local politicians have frequently acted to deceive us. The
above growth-related issues, and the suggestions made as solutions, are
not nearly as clear-cut or as strongly polarized, as they often argue
or imply. Instead, we are confronted in discussing problems of urban
growth with what are classic examples of complex and highly inter
dependent "mega problems", which in some instances seem almost intract
able. Some politicians have seen fit to polarize the issues in order,
they say, to add clarity to the alternatives. Instead they have distorted
the real issues and the potential consequences of their actions.
DEFINING THE AREA OF INTEREST
A secondary, but nonetheless significant source of confusion in
mat~hing problems with solutions in the current growth debate, is the
different meanings assigned to the terms of city and urban. The diffi
culty is a common one. In the media reference is made to, say, the
city, or simply Toronto, but seldom with a note on what area or popu
lation is intended. To some it refers only to the core area, to others
it is the political city area, or the metropolitan municipality, while
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to others it means the extended region (i.e. Toronto-centred region) for
which Toronto serves as the central focus.
Although each concept of what is urban area of interest is valid
for particular purposes, none are valid for all purposes. Only one is
suitable as a basis for the debate on growth - the geographic area which
is the economically functioning urban unit that is the organizational
entity through which growth occurs (i.e. the metropolitan area, or the
political unit closest to it). This does not mean that the debate on
growth should not go on at more local levels within. Rather, it argues
that the fundamental context for that debate must be the system ex
periencing growth. Needless to say, confusion in the simple frame of
reference used for discussing policy seriously undermines the potential
utility of those policies.
MYTHS
Canadian thinking on the problems of our cities is also heavily
clouded by the myth of the inevitability of recent trends in urban growth.
One aspect of this myth (using the term broadly) relates to the pre
vailing effect of images of the American "urban model" on our policy think-
ing. We are flooded in the popular media by reports on the deter-
iorating conditions in American cities. Forecasts of our urban fate are
made by drawing parallels with what has or is currently happening to
American urban areas. It is argued, for instance, that if continued high
rise construction is allowed we will eventually have a Manhattan in
central Toronto; and, that if Ne build expressways, or a new airport, or
permit more housing on the fringe of the built-up urban area, then Toronto
8
will become another Los Angeles. Further it seems to be taken for granted
that more people, housing, office buildings and expressways mean more
crime ands:>cial unrest. Why? Because American cities appear to show all
of these properties. Therefore, there must be a cause and effect relation
ship. This is largely nonsense (spurious correlations as the analyst
might say). Such cause-and-effect relationships are very difficult to
substantiate. Clearly limits to physical growth will not prevent crime.
The latter is a far more complex problem. Nor is it apparent that re
lationships identified in U.S. cities will necessarily hold in the
Canadian context. American and Canadian cities may in fact grow less,
not more, alike in the future.
The above criticism should not be interpreted as saying that
American cities do not have serious problems, or that we in Canada cannot
learn from their experience in dealing with these problems. They do and
we can. But it does suggest that we must stop importing simplistic
parallels in urban development and correlates of social change from
south of the border, or from abroad. Certainly they should not be used
as a means of defending positions on the kind of cities we want in Canada.
Instead, we should be able to defend these preferences in our own terms.
What we need are our own ideal urban models as guides in the growth
debate, and in selecting alternative urban forms.
Much of the anti-American city feeling implicit in the above
parallels, as well as in the arguments for physical limits on urban growth,
also contains an element of environmental determinism. That is, the po
sition that particular kinds of architecture, housing or site planning or,
more generally, specific physical environments will produce certain types
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of social outcomes. It is said, for example, that some environments in
evitably lead to crime, social alienation and civic disorder. Of course,
physical environments can accommodate, if not stimulate certain types of
behaviour, both social and anti-social, but they generally do not produce
that behaviour. Physical planning clearly should do all that it can to
facilitate and stimulate positive social behaviour, and to encourage a
more sensitive and positive attitude toward environmental considerations
in the planning and developing of our cities. We certainly need a change
in attitudes. But deviant behaviour is a social problem not a physical
or architectural one.
Environment determinism is not just an outdated perspective, it
is potentially dangerous. Using the physical environment, or in the
context of this paper, limits on physical growth, densities, land use
change, etc, to achieve social goals, is doomed to failure. Those goals
should be approached directly, through social rather than physical
policies. Worst still, since we do not adequately understand the complex
relationships between urban environments and human behaviour in cities,
we may simply create new forms of social problems through ill-advised
policies. At a minimum, by arguing that physical limits to growth can
solve social problems, we will raise aspirations which cannot be satis
fied in the short run, and in the process divert attention from the real
social issues. One reason that we hear so much of this line of argument,
based on physical environmental determinism, from local politicians and
planners is because physical planning is essentially all that they
exercise direct control over.
Another catch-phrase, or more appropriately a blatant misuse of
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terms, adding further to the confusion of issues, is urban sprawl.
Everyone is against sprawl, and with good reasons. But in many Canadian
cities these days every new development proposed for the fringe of the
built-up urban area regardless of its need or merit, is classed as
sprawl, and therefore must be stopped. In Toronto at least this inter
pretation is often intentional, designed precisely to polarize public
opinion against new development proposals. Sprawl, in fact, is a highly
loaded term. It means the ugly, discontinuous, largely unplanned and
inefficient spread of urban development into rural areas. Land is
wasted, local services are often poor or non-existent and viable public
transportation is next to impossible. No one supports that kind of
development, but there are other ways and means of preventing it.
As such, urban sprawl is a very different phenomenon from that of
a well-planned, orderly extension of the suburban margin of a growing
city. In most Canadian cities, and certainly in the Toronto region, we
have both sprawl and planned extensions. Unfortunately both are fre
quently lumped together in discussing the options for redistributing new
growth. What we need to do is to identify what quantity and quality of
growth is necessary and then to seek ways of accomodating or redirecting
it in desired directions. Even the latter - suburban extension - is
not desirable if allowed to continue at an excessive rate, or indef~
initely, or if permitted to destroy in the process critical environmental
resources. It is, however, preferable to a rapid escalations in land
costs, and severe housing shortages. To recommend stopping it, period,
as has been suggested in Toronto, before the rate of population growth
and thus the demand for land, slows or-is effectively diverted elsewhere,
11
is irresponsible. How else are we to provide the homes and job locations
for those future generations of households who wish to locate in these
cities?
WHO BENEFITS AND WHO PAYS?
Solutions proposed to the above complex problems of urban growth,
by definition, involve difficult decisions on trade-offs. That is, the
difficult question lies in assessing the relative incidence or distri
bution of benefits and costs from urban growth and planning policies.
Who pays for and who benefits from physical limits imposed on suburban
extension, on densities, on traffic, on the mix of housing provided,
or on urban redevelopment generally? The same concern applies for that
matter to any public action since most have a differential impact on
sectors of the population they are intended to serve.
That there are always some winners and losers in the urban
planning and political game is inevitable. Who these people are is not
always clear, except that is for the usual group of losers: the poor
and the unrepresented. While we may not be able to completely remove
such inequalities, without at least a more equalitarian social system,
we should be willing to acknowledge their existence and seek to reduce
their most serious impacts. Generally, and in my view unacceptably,
our politicians have failed to fully appreciate the substantial and un
equal redistributive effects of their actions. The rush to impose phy
sical limits on urban growth is but one case illustrating the general
point.
Consider a few other examples from Toronto's recent planning
experience. A uniform one-fare transit price was recently introduced
across Metro, replacing the previous two-fare system oriented to the
subway system. Those not living within the central zone (zone one),
and not within walking distance of the subway, paid a double fare. The
argument for uniform pricing was, simply, that people living in the
outer suburbs (zone two) should not pay more to travel downtown than
those in the inner zone. This was, in fact, a remarkably broad pers
pective for an urban community increasingly dominated by local area
interests. And it also has on the surface an equalitarian touch. But
what specific redistributive consequences does it have?
12
One obvious question is to again ask, who benefits? Clearly a
shift in the burden of costs of public transit usage has taken place~ _For
instance, the relatively less affluent of the inner-city(who, on
average make short transit trips and because of their more central
locations pay more for their housing per square: foot), now face an in
crease in the subsidy they effectively pay to the more affluent resi
dents in the outer part of the city and in the suburbs (who tend to make
longer trips to work and who initially at least paid less for their land
and housing). In fact the choice of higher transit costs (in both money
and time) to obtain lower house prices was a major consideration affecting
the decisions these people made to live in outlying locations. Another
obvious consequence of this change in transit pricing has been to add
substantially to the rapidly rising deficits of the public transit system
and thus to contribute to the recent substantial increase in fares.
Higher fares, of course, again penalize the frequent short-distance
riders most severely, and are thus essentially a regressive tax. Further,
13
a lower fare from the suburbs to downtown has the effect of encouraging
longer commuting trips, particularly to the central core - a result
which conflicts with other stated policy goals, such as the reduction
of long-distance commuting and the decentralization of employment.
People will be encouraged to live further out from downtown and house
prices will rise. The only uniform fare structure which makes much
sense is free public transit. That policy at least has less obvious re
distributive effects. 2
Or, think of some of the consequences of recent pressures to in-
crease residential densities. At present zoning policies encourage a
distinct polarization of opportunities for new households to purchase
housing: into those groups who can afford housing on 50 to 60 foot-
wide lots, and those in ro~ housing on 20 to 25 foot lots (or in apart-
ments). This is obviously discriminatory. A much wider range of
zoned lot sizes is appropriate and financially necessary. Without that
greater range pressures to increase densities will, simply and directly,
increase land costs.3
Again, the benefits of higher land prices will
be received primarily by existing landowners and landlords. The costs
will be paid by ~enters and by future generations.
Investment in urban parks provides another illustration. Pres-
sures for improving the quality of local residential environments have
increased, and appropriately so. One direction these arguments have
taken is for the provision of new parkland and for the expansion of
existing parks within heavily built-up areas. No one could possibly
oppose such objectives. The problem again is one of allocating costs
and benefits. First, there are always alternative uses for scarce re-
14
sources in the public sector, and so more parks has to be justified
against other priorities. Assuming we can make this justification, the
second problem is to decide how these resources are to be allocated to
different special interest groups and to different areas of the city,
both of which have a tremendous impact on patterns of social welfare in
our cities. Which groups and areas receive most of these resources?
Obviously it is those who scream the loudest, those who are well
organized, and those who haunt the corridors of municipal power. In
other words, the wealthy and professional classes, those who already
control most of the resources.
In Toronto recently we have seen major extensions to several
existing urban parks, at a cost of several million dollars. Most of the
additions are needed, and can easily be justified in total. Many,
however, as in the recent example of Ramsden Park in the northcentral
part of the city, are located in relatively prosperous neighbourhoods.
As a result of park expansions adjacent houses secure a net positive
capital gain, at no cost to them (except taxes, which everyone pays).
They gain through substantially increased housing prices, yet do not pay
the costs. Meanwhile those areas initially poorly endowed with parks,
but who also pay taxes, are still without parks. This is not to question
the need for parks, but the inequitable distribution of benefits which
can result from public decisions on park location.
Numerous other examples of the problem could be cited. The first
subway in Toronto along Yonge Street was built through predominately
high-income residential and commercial areas. The substantial land
value increments which resulted from its construction went primarily
15
to those who already owned land or had purchased homes in such areas.
This is the well-known conflict between public costs and private gains.
Returning to the central point of this paper, politicians sel
dom publicly evaluate the balance and distribution of costs and benefits.
Some argue for limiting the spread of the suburbs without asking whose
future homes and job opportunities they are reducing by doing so. New
density and height by-laws are introduced in the central core to pro
vide two years for planners to work out new development controls and
planning objectives. Aside from the inherent difficulty of using phy-
sical controls to achieve non-physical objectives, such time delays are
a luxury only some can afford. The demand for housing and jobs cannot
sit out for two years while new objectives are sought.4
If the impression is coming through to the reader from the above
arguments that much of the recent anti-growth debate in my view smacks
of elitism and self-interest, the impression is correct. There are
no doubt good reasons for each of the above policies. But good reasons
for whom? In the specific example of political pressures to limit
urban growth, without providing alternative locations for that growth,
before such limits are imposed, the social costs are clearly too high.
Moreover the costs are generally placed, as previously noted, on those
sectors of society who can least afford them. In each case cited one
of the obvious results is to redistribute wealth within the city -
largely, as noted above, to those who already have houses or land, or
professional status. The actual redistribution of real wealth may be
less than that which our capitalistic system inevitably achieves in the
normal course of events. But why should the public sector add to it?
16
THE OPTIONS
What are some of the options for redirecting growth at the local
level? One of the points the author has made elsewhere (Globe and Mail,
November 30, 1974; Toronto Star, February 5, 1975), is that a single
municipality cannot determine its future growth path alone. Certainly,
in the case of Toronto, the central city cannot. To attempt to do so,
as is so often the case, in splendid isolation, may seriously distort
patterns ofvelfare and the distribution of social opportunities within
the urban area. It could do so by adding to the cost and difficulty
of building the homes, workplaces, schools and services which we so ob-
viously need, and by assigning higher net positive benefits (external~
ities) through public actions to specific groups ( and areas ) without
a corresponding increase in the social costs these groups must bear.
Physical limits to urban growth as such may be counter-produc-
tive for other reasons. First, there are few examples of situations in
which they have worked as anticipated. Often, where their application
has heen.ma~estly successful, as in England, many of the old problems
have simply arisen in other locations, and new problems have appeared
5 in place of the old. And to be even modestly successful such limits
generally require vast expenditures to encourage that growth to locate
elsewhere. Debates on whether the results have justified the costs con-
tinue (Rose, 1974). Physical limits also focus attention on artifacts
(i.e. buildings) rather than people. While one can freeze land uses,
or densities, or housing, one cannot freeze-in the occupants.
Second, and perhaps the most important reason why such limits
may be increasingly counter-productive, is that the conditions which
17
generated the need for such limits are changing and changing rapidly.
Absolute growth is declining. Birth rates have reached their lowest
level since the 1930's. Economic growth is increasingly uncertain.
Unemployment is up and labour mobility is down. Migration patterns are
changing. The trend is away from the major metropolises toward medium
and small urban centres. Toronto (the 1971 census metropolitan area),
for instance, is now sending more migrants to other metropolitan areas
inOmada (except to Montreal and cities in the Maritimes) than it re
ceives. This trend may well accelerate if the differential in the cost
of living between cities expands. In Toronto this differential is due
in part to continued political uncertainty and ad hoc limits on develop
ment. Toronto's population is still growing relatively rapidly because
of foreign in-migration.
The options then, in terms of redirecting absolute growth, are
severely limited and are decreasing. There is also a great deal of
inertia in the locational decisions of households and firms. While all
three levels ofg>vernment in Canada, in twenty years, may be able to
achieve some redistribution of population growth away from the main
metropolitan areas, it is more likely that external events will con
tinue to overtake such policies. A further decline in birth rates,
reduced rates of rural out-migration, possibly lower immigration levels,
continued economic difficulties and inflation - will combine to produce
slower overall growth rates, and some redistribution of that growth,
without government intervention.
The point is that conditions external to an individual city will
largely determine the future course of population growth and change in
that city. This does not imply that local urban planning is irrelevant.
18
Much can and should be done by local authorities to improve the quality
of the local urban environment. Specifically, they can act to shape or
to allocate that externally-derived growth between areas within the
city and between the central city, the suburbs and the rural fringe.
Rather, the argument is that we must have co-ordinated (rather than con
tradictory) planning at the three levels of government to achieve what
ever overall rate and distribution of urban growth that is desired
and appropriate.
One popular option which can be immediately dismissed is to
freeze development generally or to fix an optimal size for a city.
Numerous observers have pointed out that no such optimum exists (Rich
ardson, 1972). Even if it did exist we could not get there, nor
could we stay there once we arrived. The same applies to local areas
within the city. Neighbourhood stability, for example long a pet
policy objective of our politicians and planners, cannot mean a fixed
population or housing stock, although this is the impression they often
seem to give, unless the neighbourhood becomes a prison. Instead it
means the absence of abrupt and unexpected changes. There will in
evitably be a steady throughput of population,and gradual environ
mental change, in any neighbourhood. Stability then means change
which is ordered and balanced and which leads to (or allows for)
evolutionary rather than revolutionary social change.
What may be more appropriate for policy-makers is to search for
optimal rates of urban change - in terms of population, demographic and
structural growth as previously defined - for neighbourhoods, larger
areas, and for cities as a whole. To do so, however, requires full co-
operation from all parties involved. A complete or selective growth
freeze, as argued above, without well thought out alternatives, simply
freezes the opportunities available to some members of society but not
others.
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There is little evidence in the urban growth literature that the
size of a city is strongly correlated with any of our major policy
problems, at least not on a statistically consistent basis. There are
large cities in Canada which are ugly, polluted, congested, costly-to
live-in and saddled with serious social problems. There are also small
cities with the same problems ~ttributes) or with others equally serious.
The origin of these urban problems lies elsewhere - in social inequities,
inadequate income and tax policies, limited imagination in urban design,
governmental inertia, the lack of pollution controls, and in social
attitudes. Such problems should be tackled directly, not indirectly
through limits on city size.
It should be emphasized, however, that excessively high rates of
population growth and structural change render solutions to such problems
and the attainment of other social goals, all that more difficult.
Rapid growth increases uncertainty and telescopes planning activities
on predominantly short-term problems. Longer term perspectives become
less relevant and more difficult to sustain.
MISUSE OF URBAN LAND
One partial solution to the problem of improving urban environ
ments without severe limits on growth is through the more rationale
use of existing urban land. Hundreds of vacant sites within our
20
cities could be used for homes or small parks, offices and industries.
There are also many marginally used and under-used areas, particularly
in connnercial, industrial, warehousing and railroad districts, for
which redevelopment to higher densities would be a welcome environmental
improvement. Granted, some are already scheduled for future redevelop
ment, and others are held in speculation of future development. But
most are likely to continue to be marginally used because the property
tax system allows them to continue in that situation (by taxing actual
improvements rather than development potential), ·and because our out
moded zoning system discourages a mixture of different activities within
small areas and slows the process of space rationalization through land
use change.
Selective redevelopments in such areas, for mixed or purely resi
dential use, using tax incentives or public acquisition if necessary,
would expand housing and job opportunities available throughout our
urban areas. Redevelopment can increase the population within easy
reach of public transit, augment the municipal property tax base and
generally improve the visual texture and quality of the built environ
ment; all without the widespread destruction of existing and viable
neighbourhoods or without severely limiting the opportunities for new
developments on the margins of the urban area.
A simple fact commonly overlooked in the current growth debate
is that the city, to quote a well-known phrase, is an interrelated
system. Limits on development in one area or sector, usually result in
increased pressures in other areas or sectors. Conversely, since the
demand for urban space is, in the short term at least, finite, develop-
ment incentives applied in one area or sector can act to relieve press-
6 ures elsewhere. In particular, development on the fringe of a city and
redevelopment of the central core are interrelated. In other words,
the reuse of existing urban land can take the heat off older neighbour-
hoods and provide new housing, while at the same time achieving other
secondary goals (i.e. more transit riders, environmental conservation,
7 But who do we preserve old neighbourhoods for? etc.).
It is also possible through redevelopment to increase gross
residential densities (based on the proportion of land in housing
21
relative to all other uses) without necessarily increasing net densities
(the amount of residential land per person of household). This dis-
tinction is seldom made explicit. It is not clear that a reduction in
the amount of residential land (or housing space) in our cities is
socially warranted. At least we do not know the consequences of such
a reduction. On the other hand, it is clear that gross residential
densities can be increased, with apparently positive consequences in
large part.
WHO DECIDES?
Who determines what these goals should be? How are priorities
to be set? Who is to decide on the options? In the current debate
on limits to urban growth, in Toronto at least, there are many who
assume that they have the insight and the right, to specify the goals
and to select the options. In some instances these options are, as
noted in the introduction, polar opposites and in most cases they are
clearly elitist. 8
Some argue that we should substantially increase densities in
housing construction. Some say flatly that no more single-family
homes should be built in Toronto because they consume too much land;
22
or that all new growth should be redirected elsewhere, anywhere but
here. Others say the automobile and the high-capacity road are dead;
public transit is the only hope. Some argue for freezing employment
growth in the central core of our cities and the redistribution of
those jobs to suburban mini-downtowns and to outlying centres.9 Still
others want to build residential units into downtown high-rise office
buildings to achieve some mysterious "balance" of land uses in the core.
But whose preferences do these proposals reflect? How is land
to be valued? By whom? Whose jobs are to be decentralized? What is
this balance of land uses? Whether the above preferences derive from
the relevant subset of the general public is not known. At least the
proplonents of such policies do not likely know. The point here is not
that any of these positions or proposals are in themselves wrong, but
that we do not know whose views they represent. Clearly the problem is
one of free public choice.
People simply have not in most instances been presented with the
alternatives and asked to choose between them (i.e. loss of rural land
to obtain single-family homes), given a set of possible consequences from
each choice. Public hearings on development proposals, and the organi
zation of local (territorial) special interest groups do not solve the
problem. The former are artificial and non-participatory. The latter
are dominated by self-interest, by a desire to preserve the status-quo
and are usually non-representative of the groups they affect. As special
interest groups, almost by definition, they cannot raise or resolve
23
questions of trade-offs in public choice.
Somehow the planning process must facilitate if not encourage a
diversity of input to the setting of development goals and in the choice
of alternative policies. These should reflect the diversity of preferen
ces, opinions and needs represented in any large city. The purpose is
to achieve a more balanced set of future options than we are receiving
in the current polarized world of urban planning in Toronto. Equally
important, the needs of those not usually represented in the debate (i.e.
those not yet of voting age, potential migrants, non-participants and
the disenfranchised), must also be considered.
Possibly we need a reorganized governmental structure in the larger
Canadian cities fo facilitate this expression of opinions. (Golden, 1975).
Not more levels of government, but different levels in which the dis
tribution of responsibilities for planning and urban development more
closely approximates the realities of a changing urban environment.
Some decision-making responsibilities clearly need to be decentralized,
others centralized.
The political municipality of Metro Toronto, as was true of the
City of Toronto in 1953, is currently too small for many planning pur
poses; if for no other reason than the obvious fact that most suburban
extensions are now taking place outside its present boundaries. Within
the next decade virtually all suburban growth will be outside Metro.
That is, Metro will become the central city of an even larger urban
mass.10 But Metro is also too large at present for other purposes.
Similarly, thelnroughs are too large to represent cohesive communities
in any sense of the word. On the other hand, neighbourhood groups are often
small, and too provincial, to carry responsibilities for all but very
local planning activities. Are we seriously looking for solutions in
government structure, or are we masking the important questions on
social responsibility with trivial debates on physical limits to urban
growth?
THE WORST OF BOTH WORLDS?
Present trends in urban planning in many Canadian cities, cer-
tainly in Toronto, leave one with the impression that we may be
heading for some of the worst results (or costs) of both the planned
and the unplanned urban worlds. Compare our present situation with
that in Britain and the U.S. for instance. In the former planning and
local development controls are both elaborate and rigid, while in the
latterruch controls are generally inconsistent, weak and in many in-
stances, simply non-existent. Again taking Toronto as an example, we
have witnessed many of the same negative consequences (or social costs)
as have occurred through stricter planning measures in Britain, where
constraints on urban development and land use, particularly around
London, have been operating since before WWII;1
It should not surprise
24
us to find that there are costs attributable to British planning measures
or that some sectors of society have lost and others have benefitted
handsomely from development controls such as green-belts, rural land
preservation and the like. Hall and Clawson (1973) have documented a
number of these consequences in a recent comparison of British and
American planning experience.
On the other hand we seem to have few of the benefits of British
25
urban planning: such as the relative absence of urban sprawl, a more
rationale use of urban land, the stricter preservation of historical
landmarks, and the conservation of rural environments and valuable agri
cultural land; combined with an on-going program to stimulate housing
construction while decentralizing population into new towns and alter
native growth centres. Such benefits can to some extent be balanced
off against the social costs of strict growth limits in other locations
(i.e. London). In Toronto, as in London, these costs have included
very high land and housing prices (Toronto and Vancouver, for example,
now have about the highest housing prices on this continent), high
commercial rents, a declining choice in housing through limits on the
amount of housing and service land provided, higher overall (net)
densities, and increased traffic congestion. These conditions, notably
increased costs, have a tendency to sort out the populations of urban
areas by income and occupation, and to redistribute income from
renters to owners. Donnison and Eversley (1973) have argued this case
in London.
Compared to most U.S. cities, in contrast, we fortunately do not
have many of their same severe social and fiscal problems. But we also
now seem to be missing many of the benefits deriving from their weaker
planning controls (yes, there still are such benefits). These benefits
include relatively more abundant and substantially lower-cost housing,
lower net residential densities and,although open to argument, a some
what greater variety-in the choice of places to live and work. Yet we
still have many of the disadvantages typically equated with the lack of
planning in American cities - discontinuous, ugly and often inefficiently
serviced suburban areas, the destruction of viable communities, the loss
of historical and architectural heritage, poor public transit, and the
growing destruction of our rural countryside - the characteristics of
urban sprawl and unplanned redevelopment cited above.
On the whole most Canadian cities, even Toronto, are still
relatively pleasant places to live. Some of their advantages over
American cities are a direct result of planning and political action.
But most are fortunate outcomes or factors (accidents) of timing and
circumstances. These factors include the relative absence in the inner
cities~f large concentrations of distinctively disadvantaged minorities;
the absence of a massive highway building fund, at the same time as
expressway construction was popular, as existed during the 1950's and
1960's in the U.S.; our relatively late arrival (except for Montreal) in
the competition to build large civic monuments; and somewhat more inno
vative attempts at local government reorganization to improve the pro
vision of urban services.
26
Our cities can be better, but only through a co-ordination of
government activities within and between different levels of Government,
and on the basis of a full and honest debate of the pros and cons of
alternative development strategies. Growth can be the vehicle to achieve
desired alternatives. Growth limits, without positive directives for re
distributing or reshaping that growth, are both a waste of effort and
likely a very costly proposition. Why not seek the best of both
worlds?
WHAT AND WHOSE FUTURE?
The assertion "our city (neighbourhood, ward, block etc.) should
27
determine its own future", is frequently heard in the current debate
as a rationale for limiting growth at specific locations. But such
assertions are not very helpful and may in fact be misleading. Of
course everyone should determine his or her our future. The more
appropriate and difficult questions, however, are: to what degree can
an individual city or community determine its future rate of growth?
What effect will this have on other cities or communities? How should
the desire to alter growth patterns at one level in the urban hierarchy
(i.e. the municipal city) be integrated with other desires at other
levels (i.e. the urban region or the nation). How might this balance of
objectives be determined? What types of growth can be accommodated and
what types need to be altered? What (and whose) future opportunities
are we thinking of? What we must continually ask is the question: who
benefits and who pays?
CONCLUSIONS
Many of the above criticisms may seem to be basically conservative.
Others may appear to reject outright controls on urban growth and govern
ment intervention in urban development generally. They are not meant to
do so. Rather, the reverse is true. The author would in fact argue for
much tighter controls on development, and specifically for greater public
sector ownership and participation in the land market, but only in a
responsible and open manner. This paper is not the place to go into such
details of personal preferences and biases.
The preceding criticisms are directed against the ad hoc and un
even application of ~igid planning controls. That is, controls which are
28
often designed to serve particular vested interest groups, and which are
applied with little or no thought to those negatively affected by the
controls. What is particularly annoying to this observer is the use of
one set of quite valid controls (i.e. historic building preservation) to
12 justify another set (i.e. density)~. The examples picked for discussion
in the paper are intentionally those which are in principle easily
justified and widely acceptable, i.e. more urban parks, improved public
transit and environmental quality, but in which current policies can and
do produce inequitable results.
Four conclusions, none of which are particularly novel, should
stick in the reader's mind. First, urban growth is an inherently complex
and multifaceted phenomena. It incorporates different but parallel pro-
cesses, each of which is reflected in variable forms of urban change,
and all of which are interdependent. Second, limits to urban growth
are essentially conservative measures, which seldom work as intended, are
often contradictory and which, without corresponding ideas and incentives
to redirect growth elsewhere, are largely a waste of effort. Third,
physical planning instruments are crude and inappropriate means of
achieving what are primarily social goals (i.e. social stability, housing
quality, etc.) Fourth, and most important, the application of such
limits, as presently conceived, generally results in a redistribution of
wealth and social opportunities within an urban area, largely in socially-
regressive directions. This redistribution may in many instances be
greate~ for those who can least afford it, than the practice of doing
nothing. In a capitalistic urban society in which land is held in-private
ownership, by a few, it may not be possible to avoid these negative con-
29
sequences of planning. We should at least debate the issue. In Toronto
there has been plenty of debate on growth, but as noted, little of that
debate has been concerned with questions of distributing costs and
benefits.
We need to dispense with our preoccupation with limits as such.
Instead our attention should shift to more basic concerns of defining
human needs and goals in the context of our future cities, and then of
actually creating the processes necessary to attain these goals. In
other words, we should design the future through goal-oriented planning
rather than back into the future with increasing limits on the present
urban form.
FOOTNOTES
1. There are,of course, numerous classifications of growth processes. The follow-up report to the Club of Rome on "Limits to Growth" (see M. Hesarovic and E. Pestel, Mankind at the Turning Point, Hutchinson, London, 1975), argues that absolute growth is not itself the major problem. Rather, difficulties arise because of the present distribution or pattern of what it calls "undifferentiated" growth. The latter i::; contrasted with "organic" growth, which. is stable and in harmony with global constraints.
2. For further discussions on the question of transit pricing and subsidies, see A. Altshuler, "Transit Subsidies: By Whom, For Whom?", Journal American Institute of Planners, 35, March, 1969, pp. 84-89.
3. It is also true that policies to increase densities by reducing lot sizes, without a parallel increase in the supply of land available, will also increase land prices.
4. A classic example of the intentional use of time delays (and of the use of non-existent alternatives to justify growth limits) is given by the residential community around Toronto's proposed second airport at Pickering. At a meeting in 1971, this author posed a question to the Minister responsible for housing in Ontario at the time as to where the 50,000 or so net annual additions to Toronto's population would find housing if his government followed through with limits to suburban growth to the north. He replied that one alternative would be the new Pickering community, which could house up to 150,000 persons within five years. At the time of writing, four years later, no houses had been built and the whole project is still in some doubt.
5. An interesting interpretation of this problem is given in B. Hudson and F. Sullivan, "Limited Growth, Problems of Full Employment and the Viciousness of Easy Solutions", Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, June, 1974.
6. In this regard, one could also argue that specific projects such as the vast docklands redevelopment in London (which is going ahead) and Metro Centre in Toronto (which is stalled) should be encouraged by those who favour the retention of low-density neighbourhoods near the commercial city centre. These projects would likely result in lower pressures
30
for redevelopment in other areas and thereby help to preserve existing neighbourhood units near the core. They would do so simply by absorbing a substantial proportion of the demand for central city housing. Further, since their construction does not involve the removal of any existing housing the net gain in new units would equal the number of new units.
7. This is precisely the difficulty with the popular neighbourhood stability argument, at least given the preceding definition of neighbourhoods as dynamic entities. To attempt to freeze inner-city neighbourhood housing in lowdensity use for low-income occupants is virtually impossible in a market economy. It (old housing) will almost certainly become more attractive for higher-income groups who will simply out-bid low-income groups for that housing and for the convenient location it provides. Both the old and new residents may actually benefit through this arrangement, the former through increased equity to buy housing elsewhere and the latter through greater accessibility to the city centre. But the neighbourhoods will change dramatically. The losers again are the renters.
31
8. Most American connnunities which have instituted, or attempted to institute strict growth limits (see Scott, 1974), tend to be relatively high-income and predominately middle class. This is the well-known "lifeboat" principle of limiting the accessibility of others to opportunities. The same concern applies to the conflict between developed and developing nations in the debate on global limits to growth (see footnote 1).
9. The question of physical limits to redevelopment in the central connnercial core in Toronto is debated in a recent and provocative report by W. Code (1975) to the Mayor's Industry and Labour Advisory Committee. That report goes considerably further than this paper in making explicit policy suggestions, which may or may not be justified given the conflicting evidence demonstrated here.
10. Failure to let the Metropolitan municipality expand in line with the geographic growth of the urban area as a physical, economic and social system, is primarily attributable to provincial government policy, and it mirrors government attitudes to growth. Visual the year 2000, Metro proper, with 2.6 to 2.8 million people, will be completely developed, at relatively high densities and under continuous pressures for redevelopment. It will be surrounded by regional (but suburban) municipalities, with a total population of probably 2.0 million, each acting independently and each resisting pressures from the central city to acconnnodate more employ-
32
ment growth, offices, public housing, garbage, or whatever. Will it be 1953 all over again?
11. A thoughtful review of the development approval process in municipal planning in Ontario,by the Ontario Economic Council (Subject to Approval, Toronto, 1973), also acknowledges the enormous costs in land and housing re~ulting from current planning practices in the province. They also stress (p. 145) that such cost increases need not have occurred. They could have been reduced by traditional means: increasing the supply of land in line with, if not ahead of, demand; and by speedingup considerably the presently over-complicated and time-consuming approval process. It is interesting to note in Britain that restrictions have recently been proposed on the planning process - that is, governments must deal with development applications within specified periods of time. Needless to say, these are much shorter periods than those presently connnon in Ontario.
12. Or, the universal argument for encouraging neighbourhood improvement and continuity (of which we all approve), is used to justify almost any form of planning control on residential areas regardless of the unequal consequences (of which I disapprove).
* An earlier and much shorter version of this paper appeared in the Toronto Star, February 5,1975. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author only.
REFERENCES
33
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Boulding, K. (1970) and Development.
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Burchell, R.W. and Listokin, D. eds. (1975) Future Land Use: Environmental and Legal Constraints. New Brunswick, N.J.: University.
Energy, Rutgers
City of Toronto Planning Board (1974). Report of the Core Area Task Force. Toronto
Clawson, M. and Hall, P. (1973) Planning and Urban Growth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Dennison, D. and Eversley D.E.C. eds (1973) London: Urban Patterns, Problems and Policies. London: Heinemann
Golden, A. (1975) "The Form of Local Government: What are the Options for Metro?" Background Paper No. 1, Bureau of Municipal Research Conference "Metro Toronto Under Review".
Harvey, D. (1973) Social Justice in the City London: Edward Arnold.
Listokin, D. ed. (1975) Land Use Controls: Present Problems and Future Reforms New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University
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34
Scott, R.W. (1975) Management and Control of Growth: Techniques, Problems Trends. Volume I, II, III. The Urban Institute.
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34
Scott, R.W. (1975) Management and Control of Growth: Techniques, Problems Trends. Volume I, II, III. The Urban Institute.
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