Media Clipping — October 19, 2004, The Halifax Herald

What kind of healthy economy do we want?

By David Aalders, Ecology Action Centre

TWO SEEMINGLY unrelated topics have been in the news lately: a) Nova Scotia's unacceptably high rates of physical inactivity, as outlined in a recent study by the Heart and Stroke Foundation; and b) demands by Canadian municipalities for a portion of federal fuel taxes, allowing them to fix decaying urban infrastructure, especially transportation. The Heart and Stroke Foundation study, which stressed the linkages between physical inactivity and the design of our communities, found that 50 per cent of Nova Scotians and 48 per cent of Halifax Regional Municipality residents are inactive.

We often think the easiest way to become more active is to join a gym. We fail to realize that daily trips on foot (or bike) to grocery, department and hardware stores in our own neighbourhoods could be opportunities to stay in shape.

Increasingly, however, retail developments have been permitted on the city fringe, often without adequate transportation planning. An example of this has been the development of the Bayers Lake Business Park primarily as a big-box retail centre. Such poor urban planning forces more people to drive to the shops, increases road congestion, and further degrades our air quality. Shoppers have less opportunity for exercise as they spend more time behind the wheel. Taxpayers, meanwhile, have had to foot the infrastructure bill and to extend transit services so that residents without vehicles have at least some opportunity, however inconvenient, to access these retail services.

Often left behind are abandoned storefronts and virtual ghost towns where once stood thriving malls and street-scapes. As shoppers leave their communities to buy necessities no longer available locally, or available only at older, dilapidated stores, scarce dollars are siphoned off to big-box centres instead. Those without access to a car, the disabled, seniors and youth, have to make do with the handful of shops that remain.

Bayers Lake Business Park is just one example of the implications of poor city planning for the quality of life in our neighbourhoods and for our physical and environmental health. More and more national chains are gradually pulling their investments out of existing communities to be where other chains have invested - in shopping malls at the fringe of the community. This scenario is being played out across the province, in towns like Amherst and Truro, with devastating consequences for local shopping districts and the physical health of our communities.

Nova Scotia is facing a challenge on several fronts. Our population is aging. We need to increase our levels of activity to reduce demands on our already strained health care system. To make the situation even more challenging, our cities and towns are faced with growing infrastructure demands as existing stock continues to deteriorate. We must also reduce carbon dioxide emissions as part of Canada's commitment to the Kyoto accord.

Given these challenges, municipalities and the province need to take a more active role in how our communities are designed. They must encourage vibrant neighbourhoods where residents can satisfy many of their daily needs within a few minutes' walk of their home or workplace or a short bus ride away. As cities grow, more and more of these community centres could be developed, all interconnected by bikeways and transit.

If this means removing the right of property owners to build commercial projects away from existing communities, then so be it. The question is not whether we want a vibrant economy - it's what kind of healthy economy do we want? The collective bottom lines of many active neighbourhoods can exceed the economies of so-called big-box power centres.

Plans to redevelop the "Whebby" quarry off Highway 118 in Dartmouth for commercial and retail tenants were recently announced. This project must not become another Bayers Lake. If this happens, then all the efforts and taxpayer money spent to create a new regional plan for HRM might well be wasted. The abandoned stores that we have seen in Halifax will be repeated in Dartmouth as shops move away from existing malls. This is hardly the smart thinking that taxpayers demand from councillors and MLAs.

It has been observed that Nova Scotia is one of the last places in North America to pick up on trends. Many other jurisdictions across the continent have embraced the concept of "Smart Growth," in which new developments are encouraged or channelled into areas with existing services such as transit, roads and schools. National chains like Wal-Mart and Home Depot are finally catching on, and have begun to build stores like the new Home Depot in downtown Toronto. These offer the same products and price, but in a store that is accessible to pedestrians and transit riders, not just to people driving cars.

Given the fiscal and demographic challenges this province is facing, we must demand SMARTER thinking from our politicians and bureaucrats.

David Aalders is chair of the urban issues committee at the Ecology Action Centre. He has also been active for several years in the revitalization of Herring Cove Road as the "Main Street" of Spryfield.

Copyright © 2004 The Halifax Herald