The fashionable urban fabric

Olivier Niquet studied urban planning before becoming a radio host for Radio-Canada in 2009 on the programs Le Sportnographe and La soiree est (encore) jeune. He is also a columnist, author, speaker, screenwriter and all sorts of other things. He is particularly interested in the media but defines himself as an expert in versatility.

Fifteen years ago, when I was studying urban planning, we regularly discussed urban sprawl in our courses. It seems to me, however, that the subject did not percolate so much in the media as is the case at the moment. At the same time, it’s been 15 years, I don’t really remember what was fashionable at the time.

Because it seems that advocating densification to counter urban sprawl is a fad. This is what the minister of the third link, François Bonnardel, said. Last month, he said: « Who am I to say to a young family: ‘Since fashion is becoming denser, are you going to live in a 12-storey tower?’ This week, he persisted and signed. The fashionable urban fabric would be the densest.

A fashion still quite old, as far as I know. If the cargo pants trend had lasted as long as the densification trend, Levi’s would surely be offering jeans with knee-high pockets. Humans began to group together in cities to share resources and make life easier. It’s been like that since the Fertile Crescent. The minister prefers pancakes, it seems.

But it’s true that urban sprawl is all the rage in the media. This week, a committee of experts tasked with advising the Quebec Minister of the Environment recommended a moratorium on highway projects. However, the discourse around the importance of countering urban sprawl always comes up against that of the freedom of movement offered by the car. I have a small collection of quotes on this topic. Consider former Quebec City mayoral candidate Jean-François Gosselin, who said it was good to protect trees, but not at the expense of parking lots. To Minister Éric Caire, who accused the mayor of Quebec of wanting to wage war on motorists. Environment Minister Benoit Charette went so far as to say that the third link would help curb urban sprawl.

In addition to politicians, I once heard a columnist say that to be against the automobile is to be against human beings. Animators regularly present motorists as victims, a category of people who are ostracized. It must be said that motorists are numerous. It’s good for the ratings.

However, motorway investments are on a scale that has nothing to do with the developments that would make it possible to densify cities and make them more attractive. We make life easier for those who want to get away from urban centres, whether they are small, medium or large (the centres, not the people). That’s correct. Having a big house with a big lot is a certain attraction. This is a legitimate ambition, which is however propelled by the fact that said urban centers are not always attractive.

In Freedom is not a brand of yogurt, Pierre Falardeau talks about a documentary he made about the city of Châteauguay. “I chose Châteauguay simply because I lived part of my life there. I learned there, in a non-theoretical way, what was called “progress”, “development”, “growth”. I saw a Quebec village die and a suburb of Houston come to life. When we talk about making cities denser, that includes the Châteauguays of this world. There is a way to recreate the community spirit of the village with a density that promotes the maintenance of small neighborhood businesses.

But beyond all that, the advantages of following the “fashion” of densification would be numerous for a government that claims to be concerned about public finances. The director of the organization Vivre en Ville, Christian Savard, shared a graphic that describes this reality well. Advocating developments that facilitate densification would have a definite impact on public finances.

Of course, where it stumbles is on the price of houses. This is undoubtedly the main reason why people are ready to go into exile in the suburbs of the suburbs. Quality of life has a price. The price of staying in town is a solid mortgage. The price of walking away is wasting a lot of time in your car. Densification must come with a desire to promote access to housing and property, and it is not easy.

As long as the benefits of distancing are greater than those of clumping together, and regardless of the effects on public finances and the health of citizens, politicians will continue to be out of fashion, and the media that lives car dealership jingles stuck in your head too long will continue to stoke inertia (if that’s said).