True sustainability

UniverCity is a sustainable-development community located at the top of Burnaby Mountain (adjacent to Simon Fraser University) outside of Vancouver. Here is what the area looks like from above:


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Two things are apparent from the satellite view: an abundance of green space, and an abundance of parking space.


Here's what it looks like on the ground:


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Good architecture, nice attempt at pedestrianization with the lack of curb and addition of bollards... but the street is still way too wide for a person to feel safe walking across. The building is set back far from the road to buffer against the wide swath of pavement.

Residential area:


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Yikes. The street is approximately 38 feet wide from curb to curb according to the Google Earth measuring tool. The actual distance from building to building is closer to 100 feet, thus the green space "band-aid." This isn't a human-scaled placed-- it is closer to your typical surburbia, though with  taller buildings and nicer looking on-street parking.

The transit hub/bus station:


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Once again, cool looking architecture... but that's a massive amount of pavement. Not a friendly looking place to walk. The big parking lot in the back shows that the car is still the preferred mode of transport in this area.

One of the main roads:


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Much better. The size of the roadway is greatly reduced from our earlier examples, and we have a relatively comfortable environment for pedestrians... but there's nowhere to walk to. Sure, the development isn't completed yet, but even when that plot on the right is filled in, I don't see any reason to walk when the community appears tailor-made for cars.


When I think of sustainability in terms of cities, I think of urban places that have thrived and/or survived for thousands of years with little to no effect on the environment. The Old City of Jerusalem is a fine example:


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People have built traditional cities for millennia. I think it is reasonable to give that fact some weight when we try to create sustainable urbanism today.