Urban Village is an anti-sprawl urban planning and design concept. A good urban village is characterized by a strong urban design, a high level of self-containment (people live, work and play in the same area), use of alternate transportation (transit, walking, biking) and a strong community attachment.
Though there is no perfect urban village in practice, this blog focuses on initiatives that have successfully taken communities closer to the goal. The purpose is to turn my home – Milton, Ontario – into an enviable Urban Village.
Suburbia-driven sprawl is not sustainable. Post WW-II development was driven by single-use zoning that fuelled sprawl by separating residential and manufacturing areas. Urban Villages, on the other hand, bring back traditional neighbourhoods by mixing employment and residential activities, thus allowing people to live near their work rather than relying on long distance commuting.
What can turn Milton into an urban village? For starters:
- Lay out communities in a transit friendly way (do not have to further increase population density for this).
- Employ pedestrianization techniques in neigbhourhood designs to facilitate safe human interaction (Scott Blvd is the exact opposite of this).
- Focus on traffic flow on major arterial roads to reduce pollution and improve air quality (that includes synchronizing and properly timing traffic lights, and adding dedicated right-turn lanes on major intersection).
- Have a hardcore business plan to attract high employers in Milton.
- Make aesthetics a required part of site-planning.
- Increase Milton’s urban forest canopy.
- Aim for a 1:1 ratio between jobs and residents (rather than the current 0.5:1. Mississauga has more jobs than there are people in the work-force. Milton aims for 0.5:1 to begin with, not a high goal at all).
This is just a brief part of a more comprehensive list that can turn Milton into an enviable Urban Village. What would you like to see (it has to be something that can be done as part of urban planning)?
