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The following article
is reprinted courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator, McMaster University’s
partner in the Science in the City Lecture Series.
News, Monday, June 9, 2003
The path to sustainable cities
Meredith Macleod
The Hamilton Spectator
Hamilton is at a crossroads.
In one direction lies
urban sprawl, soaring property taxes, gridlock, choking pollution
and a crumbling downtown.
Take the other path and
you come to a vibrant, active core, thriving commerce and streets
bustling with bikers and walkers.
That's the assessment
of Brian Baetz, a civil engineering professor at McMaster who will
deliver a Science in the City lecture
tomorrow in The Spectator auditorium.
The series is jointly
sponsored by McMaster and The Spectator.
Baetz and colleague Cameron
Churchill will present Sustainable Communities: What Would Make
Hamilton a Truly Sustainable City?
"A community is sustainable
if it meets the needs of the present generation without compromising
the interests of future generations," Baetz said.
The idea is to plan, design
and maintain communities so that "we really minimize the environmental
footprint of what we do," he said.
Sustainable communities
have a mix of housing, commercial and industrial uses so that people
are close to their jobs.
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Development is tightly
packed so that the cost of providing hard services like water,
sewers and garbage collection is reduced. Soft services, such
as policing and recreation, are also cheaper.
Sustainable communities
aren't slaves to cars. Rather, they make it easier and more
enjoyable to walk, cycle or take public transit. That cuts
down on emissions that lead to smog and leads to a healthier
population.
These healthy cities
have extensive parks and natural areas and carefully preserve
historical and cultural landmarks.
Sustainable communities are
active, diverse and fun. Hamilton has most of the necessary
ingredients to lead it there, said Baetz.
The most important
one is that residents are tiring of traffic gridlock, dirty
air and decaying water and sewer pipes in the core while subdivisions
get built on farm land miles away.
"People have
woken up ... What we need now is the leadership at the upper
levels," Baetz said.
There are already
positive signs of that, he says. Provincial money to urban
transit and city grants that encourage the redevelopment of
derelict downtown buildings and vacant lots are a big step.
But other developments,
including the Red Hill Creek Expressway and residential subdivisions
that push beyond the urban boundaries cast a gloom over Baetz's
optimism.
"We're at a
crossroads. If we build on the things that have been done
right, we will go someplace. If we keep up this '60s-type
thinking, we'll be in big trouble," he said.
Part of the lecture
tomorrow will include a photo montage of the best and worst
of Hamilton and demonstrations of the virtual reality software
Mac researchers have developed to help plan sustainable communities.
The lecture is free
of charge and open to the public. To register, call 905-525-9140,
ext. 24934 or e-mail sciencecity@mcmaster.ca.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the session begins at 7 p.m.
mmacleod@thespec.com
or 905-526-3408.
© 2003 The
Hamilton Spectator. All rights reserved.
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