Canadians ponder where the future lies

Toronto documentary maker Gregory Greene explores whether to reconsider the 3,000 square foot house and big cars in his documentary The End of Suburbia and its follow-up, The Resilient City.

The Globe and Mail says Greene will present The End of Suburbia at New York’s BMW Guggenheim Lab in early October. The film is devoted to studying all aspects of urban density—and its antithesis, suburban sprawl—as part of a mobile lab that will travel to nine major cities in six years, the paper reports. 

Greene asserts that "if the suburbs are to survive, they will need to run as self-sufficient communities with excellent transit, instead of the old car-dependent subdivision," according to the newspaper report. One Canadian example of New Urbanism and sustainable design is Garrison Crossing in Chilliwack, British Columbia.

A contrary point of view animates a new HGTV Canada show, Urban Suburban, which premiered Sept. 14. Its hosts, real estate brokers Sarah Daniels and Philip DuMoulin, cheer on the idea that consumers will continue to demand "more space for their dollar" and move farther away from the urban core.

As of now, both of those phenomena—suburban expansion and walkable, mixed-use development—are conspicuous in Canada. A big question is whether the march outward can continue with much velocity during an era that faces rising fuel costs and environmental threats.