WRT placement of new neighborhoods. It is actually a very complex decision related more to geology than to demographics. If you read the city master plan, there is recognition that development should be balanced East West as much as possible, but the actual building of neighborhoods must take into acount water tables, subsoils, viability of the land for farming, cost of running services etc. This is what they base the decisions on.
WRT Saskatoon not needing to think about density, sprawl generally looks ok when the city is relatively small. Unfortunately. like cancer causing agents, the problems sprawl causes don't often become aparent until it is already far gone. Has anyone noticed all the soul searching in the Calgary planning community about how they might salvage a liveable city from the mess created by sprawl. Even the most hardcore, "I want my piece of land, even rats go crazy if they are crowded" ranters there are starting to talk about the need for density in order to manage traffic problems and reign in ballooning infrastructure costs. Of course many of the calls for density still resound with NIMBYism.
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