The PenOpticon

If you think about it, information technology — particularly word processing and PowerPoint — has had a tremendous effect on the way governments communicate with their citizens. Yesterday we saw a provincial plan for nuclear development and just a day later, the Ontario government released a brand new "Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe". The 54-page document, entitled Places to Grow: Better choices. Brighter future outlines the Province's intentions for the north shore of Lake Ontario. As I read it, much of this document appears to be a cut and paste job, a collection of abstract, touchy feely ideas and political talking points — a vision statement, if you will. The crux of the matter is that over the next 25 years, the area's population is expected — if not encouraged — to grow by close to 4 million people. To accommodate this growth, the plan calls for a series of connected areas of high-density housing and commercial activity. It will also attempt to protect Ontario farmland by using a system of economic rewards and penalties to favour urban intensification instead of sprawl. The grand plan also provides practical information for local governments such as the following advice on the kinds of infrastructure that will be needed:

"Investment in community infrastructure — such as hospitals, long-term care facilities, schools, and affordable housing — should be planned to keep pace with changing needs and to promote more complete communities."

The report's generous use of italics is ironically appropriate, because presumably it will be up to the community to pay for all of this infrastructure. Conveniently, the Places to Grow document makes no mention of the police, fire-fighting and ambulance services that will be required to meet the needs of 4-million additional bodies. It also makes no mention of daycare, mental healthcare and other costly social services. It should also be noted that the word "taxes" is no where to be found in this document. No, this generic, highly abstract, flight of fancy is more concerned with logistical issues such as housing, "moving people" and "moving goods". Ok, so it's a "Vision statement", not a "Growth plan". They had to start somewhere, right? The trouble is, as a vision, Places to Grow provides no indication that growth must also be limited by what the land can bear. It needs to account for the fact that large tracts of land are needed for forests and wildlife that contribute to the overall health of the land. Whatever Places to Grow really is, we have seen similar kinds of announcements in the past. On June 5th, 1973, Premier Bill Davis "boldly" announced the Ontario government would "freeze" development to curb urban sprawl and protect 1.3 million acres of land in order to create a "green strip all around Toronto". In fact, Bill Davis’s “Green Belt” has become a grey belt of industrial complexes which surround highway 407 and the marching lines of power transmission towers which are omnipresent in the north end of Toronto. Today, the reality on the ground is that thousands of acres of agricultural land within Vaughan, Richmond Hill and Markham are being carved up for "traditional" low-density housing. Those suburaban residents will primarily be commuters — as indicated by the number of new homes with 2 and 3-car garages. To pave the way for this kind of development, York Region has begun to widen a number of outlying arteries, including a stretch of Dufferin street and Major Mackenzie Drive. Dufferin Street between 16th Avenue and Major Mackenzie Dr, Richmond Hill Up until a year ago, this stretch of Dufferin was a tree-lined two-lane road that included bicycle lanes which had been used by commuting and recreational cyclists for many years. To prepare for the sprawling subdivisions which will soon pack both sides of this road, Dufferin has now been widened and the bike lanes have disappeared. West side of Dufferin, south of Major Mackenzie Dr, Richmond Hill The topsoil has long been scraped off. Gas and water mains and a few roads have been installed in preparation for the rapid development of low-density housing that will soon fill this tract of former farmland. Formatting the future As a product of the modern information technology era, the Ontario Plan can be commended for its typography and overall graphical treatment. That's about the best one can say about it. Although it conveys some pretty feelings about preserving farmland and a handful of good ideas, such as tying the development of housing with the creation of local jobs, this plan — if it is actually followed — will acomplish too little too late. Our children are suffering from poor air quality and diminishing water quality now. Too much farmland and natural habitat are being destroyed now. This document is based on the illusion that an ever-growing population can be shoehorned into a finite patch of land — with finite resources — in a way that is sustainable.

I happen to live a few kilometres north of Toronto in a town that has grown from 12,000 to 160,000 people since I moved here in 1972. It is astounding to think how much we have been able to alter the landscape in such a short span. In the late 70′s people in these parts tried but failed to stop the opening of the Keele Valley Landfill– a facility that “grew up” to become a 28-million ton mountain of waste. Now that the site has been capped with clay, it is being turned into “passive recreational land”, replete with soccer fields and an 18-hole golf course. As thousands of new home owners pour in, I wonder if they are aware of the environmental history of the area. A huge swath of houses is slated to be built just south of the former dump site. Last winter I took a few pictures of the heavy machinery that has now scraped off millions of tons of top soil, sand and clay from what used to be fields of corn and woodlots. What took glaciers thousands of years to create has been undone in a matter of months. And some people doubt that humans could be causing global climate change?

So what are the real costs of this development? Over the past 35 years, the air quality has gotten steadily worse as the Greater Toronto Area became a snarling mess of vehicles huffing poison. We are told that rates of asthma and resperatory diseases have increased dramatically in recent decades. Last summer a single rainstorm caused unprecedented road damage and flooding because the GTA is so built up there is no where for run-off water to go. A week ago, another sinkhole opened up, swallowing a major intersection. Meanwhile, York Region continues to build the BIG PIPE, a sewage project that has involved pumping out billions of litres of ground water from the Oak Ridges Morraine aquifer. If completed, this pipe will encourage even more sprawl, accelerating the region’s ecological death spiral.

It is sad and appalling to watch politicians and developers work together to commit teracide in the name of free enterprise. Future generations (should they survive) will look back upon this age of “development” with bemusement. This meandering scribble is not a protest — I am just as guilty for watching all of this take place and have not put up much of a real fight. It is amazing how we gaze with upon ancient pyramids and tombs and wonder how the ancients could build such massive structures. It is easy to forget that every day we create our own giant pyramids of waste spread out over entire countries, scrape millions of acres bare of vegetation and soil in order to choke our own planet. Perhaps only a 50-year, time-lapse movie, shot from space could show these activities for what they appear to be: a form of cancer, or madness, or both.