Frank Palermo: A Vision for Urban Growth in Halifax Regional Municipality

Forces Propelling Change in Urban Form

1. Globalization

Jobs are moving to where labour is cheapest. Cities can no longer rely on industry

2. Environmental Awareness

Resources are now thought to be limited. Stewardship is the new concept: how we treat the environment will affect us and succeeding generations. This affects how we build cities.

3. New Technology

New communications has brought a profound change in how work is done. This allows international collaboration; one could be anywhere and work on a project.

This affects the importance of geography and how we think of cities. Changing retail patterns resulting from e-commerce will affect settlement, social existence and the need for a central business district.

4. Social Inequity

Income disparity is increasing; the social safety net is disappearing. This is result of a market-driven outlook, of individuals doing things for themselves.

Where lies the responsibility for housing the homeless ? The community must take a position on caring for the homeless and the poor.

5. Demographics

Ageing of baby boomers is well-known. Lean companies are prompting early retirement. Retirees may have large interest in community affairs, but also demand new leisure opportunities. Communities will have to know how to relate to this group.

6. Diversity

Beliefs in a single solution for every problem and that "bigger is better" are now under challenge. There is a realization that big enterprises create dependent communities, and make decisions that are not based on or responding to the community, but will pull out when profits decline.

The alternative concept of ecological diversity allows a large number of small initiatives, each creative and flowering in its own way. This doesn’t allow problems to become big, but can deal with them when they are still small. "Small is beautiful" is now being recognized.

Changed Thinking towards Urban Growth

1. There is movement towards "smart growth"; i.e. direct growth, don’t try to stop it.

2. Communities are looking for ways to cross boundaries in dealing with growth issues, even if there is no amalgamation.

In the case of Halifax Regional Municipality, amalgamation provides a fresh opportunity to look at growth issues in a new light.

How Should We Do Regional Planning ?

1. Be Inclusive

In the past, we have done economic, land use and transportation planning each by themselves. Now we should integrate these. Don’t even have chapter titles for each issue, but look at all of them together, at the same time.

2. Use a Team Approach

Traditionally, one Department in City Hall spearheads the regional plan, other Departments are represented on the team but people return to their old Departmental thinking when the exercise is completed. It is detrimental and time consuming to include all Departments on their own terms.

The alternative is to put together a talented, imaginative team with members not representing individual Departments but charged with coming up with the best plan they can as a group.

3. Be Community Based

Based on partnership, done by a whole range of people, both inside and outside City Hall, including the private sector and universities. Not a plan done in City Hall only, even if public consultation is included.

4. Appropriation of Plan by Public

The current Halifax plan is complex, interwoven, ambiguous. Ordinary citizens should know what the plan is. It should be visible and tangible, a part of their lives. We need to move people, who will fight for the plan. Otherwise, it is only a document that changes nothing. A successful example is the Philadelphia downtown plan, that received popular acclaim.

5. Less Planning and More Action

There has been too much shelving of glossy plans. We need to be more concerned with action and implementation. The plan should be short and concise. It should deal only with what needs to be done today.

6. Don’t Do Mid-Range (5 year) Plans

Five year plans do not get looked at. The short and the long term are more compelling. We just need a few sets of principles, components that are so important that they have no time horizon. We need a long-range vision of where we want to go, and what is the first, action-based step to take.

Vision for Halifax Regional Municipality

In the industrial revolution model, industry was messy and polluting. Work had to separated from home, and zoning had to be used to force separation of uses. Work followed resources (materials and transportation), and people followed jobs. Concentration and intensity followed. Face-to-face contact was important and resulted in high density and land use - transportation issues.

The new economy is knowledge-based, adds design or idea to a product, uses imagination to apply to resources. Old locational geographies don’t apply. Emphasis is on home, not work: work follows home. Corporations choose quality of life factors more and more. Communities should not chase economic development but rather emphasize quality of life, based on:

- the local environment. HRM could become a showcase for environmental awareness.

- the education system. Emphasize the life-long educational opportunities already available in HRM

- arts and culture, as basic to the quality of life.

Education and arts and culture lead to innovation, and economic development will follow.

What Form Should Growth in HRM Take ?

1. Decentralized

There will be more homes in the CBD and more work elsewhere. A whole series of centres will each shine in its own way.

We need to diminish expectations in increasing land values in the CBD. We need not a concentration of office towers but a concentration of life on the street. The view of a concentration of big towers in the center is 15 to 20 years old.

2. Public Transit

If the region grows in growth corridors tying together centres, a sustained order could arise. This may mean a new bus concept, para transit, water transit.

3. Environment

Protect open space and use as the backbone of where new development goes.

4. Enterprise Zones

Provide public infrastructure encouraging innovation; e.g. educational opportunities, low rental space for incubating businesses. Relax tight rules there.

5. Community and Neighbourhood

New neighbourhoods will have a work/home mix. The new communications will be the means. They will be based on a new environmental awareness.

We do not need to build huge subdivisions and call them neighbourhoods. We do not need the "new urbanism" of front porches and back lanes.

We could be a model for the new neighbourhood and of what public investment is needed, rather than letting the private developer lead and public services such as parks then follow.

Civic quality must come first. This is a defining moment for HRM.

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This document was last modified on March 16, 1999.