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Originally Posted by someone123
This is the main reason why obstructionism is so bad. When you have NIMBYs adding years of appeals to every new development and effectively eliminating most of the land supply in the core prices get driven up considerably and the suburbs become the more affordable option. The end result is that large numbers of people end up being pushed into less desirable, less efficient, and less environmentally sound developments because of comparatively small special interest groups.
The cities that continue to sprawl are going to be at a disadvantage as gas and municipal servicing costs go up and up. They just won't be attractive places to live and they will tank because skilled workers are mobile -- they will just pick up and find a good place to live. The good places to live will have lots of amenities close by and great transit options.
Halifax is in a relatively good position because it has a big urban core with lots of infill opportunity. As you say areas like the Peninsula would be easy to serve with streetcars/LRT. It is still an open question whether we'll see more emphasis on building a great core with a great supporting transportation system or whether the effort will instead be disproportionately diverted toward unsustainable suburban development as it has been in the past.
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I'm confident that in the case of HRM, the HRM by Design process could create an as-of-right development process that would encourage infilling of the regional core to create more population. I would be shocked if an as-of-right development process wasn't created, especially if a streetcar was built, that didn't push more density around such a system. If they didn't, I suspect the development community would.
There may be a lot of nimby action in HRM, but I suspect that it will begin to decline as those nimbys just get tired of always loosing.
