Quote:
Originally Posted by Doady
You seriously think Toronto and Edmonton are as sprawly as Atlanta, Detroit...?
US doesn't have only one definition of metropolitan area. People confuse CSA and MSA. MSAs in US are comparable to CMAs in Canada. CSAs are not. There is no way that that the entire GGH would be considered one MSA. That's ridiculous. But even entire GGH as a CSA would be unrealistic.
I'm not sure what "hamlets" has to do with sprawl. Sprawl by definition refers to urban areas, not rural areas. Isolated hamlets surrounded by farmland are not part of US definition of sprawl or urban areas either.
|
For its size, metro Edmonton is easily the most sprawly of the four.... and that's why it has by far the lowest density at only 123 per sq. km.
For the reason I gave in my posts above, US MSAs are generally not comparable to CMAs in Canada....how can they be when the definitions are very different in the 2 countries. You can't compare the unemployment rates to the 2 countries either.... for the same reason.... the definitions are not the same.
You can drive 50 miles out from the nearest city in southern Ontario and suddenly come across a mansion. What is it doing there? It's people from the city deciding they wanted to be away from the hustle of the city.... But if not for the city, they wouldn't be there in the first place. The influence of the cities extend way out in southern Ontario, and that is why the government of Ontario came up with their "Places to Grow" policies for the "Greater Golden Horseshoe". They decided they had to stop the massive sprawl that was going on in the more rural areas. The hamlets I referred to are not as "isolated" as you may think.... Many are starting to boom... Why? People from the city are looking for less costly land.
"The Growth Plan introduced a variety of mechanisms for managing growth in the GGH region, including population and employment intensification targets, settlement area restrictions, and designated urban growth centres. The complementary Greenbelt Plan restricts development in more than 700,000 hectares of “protected countryside” surrounding the “inner ring” of built up area in the GGH. It includes areas previously covered in the Niagara Escarpment Plan, 2005 and Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Plan, 2002, as well as prime agricultural areas, natural heritage areas, and rural countryside areas, each with varying degrees of permissions for non-urban uses. The two plans work together—the former restricting areas where development can occur, and the latter dictating where and how growth shall occur in the GGH region."