Our very own Rick Balfour scores again in the Vancouver Sun! Does he ever sleep?
City of Swiss-style hill villages envisioned here
Doug Ward, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, May 06, 2008
METRO VANCOUVER - Sky-high fuel and food prices will eventually make Metro Vancouver’s current planning model of suburban communities linked by gas-guzzling highways economically obsolete.
So says Vancouver architect Richard Balfour who believes the region’s future should resemble Switzerland rather than Los Angeles.
Summary
- Metro Vancouver should begin creating Swiss-style hill villages linked by rail rather than towns on flood plains and valleys connected by pavement.
- strategic sustainable planning to achieve a new workable pattern of community for a post-oil age
- oil prices are going to soar to the point where it will become too expensive for Metro Vancouver to import food from southern regions.
- Southwest B.C.’s low-lying farmland needs to be protected and turned into a “green commons” for food production to serve nearby urban areas
- clawback of Agricultural Land Reserve land lost in the past two decades to urban development or industry
- migration and population shifts mean that southwest B.C. and Washington state will have to absorb about another 20 million people
