Drive north from Toronto on Highway 400 and you can watch a city grow in real time: new subdivisions, cranes and freshly paved roads give way to fields that may be next. Most Canadians now live in cities, and in the 2021 census nearly three in four lived in one of the country's large urban centres. Every new resident needs a home, a way to get to work and school, water, sewers and parks. The big question for planners is not whether a city will grow but how: outward onto farmland, or upward and inward on land that is already built up? The answer shapes the cost of housing, the length of commutes and the future of the farmland and forests around every city.
Sprawl and compact growth
Urban sprawl is low-density growth spreading outward from a city: mostly single-detached houses on large lots, separate zones for homes, shopping and jobs, and streets designed for cars. Compact growth fits more people and jobs onto less land through intensification: building on vacant lots (infill), redeveloping brownfields, adding apartments above stores and allowing more homes per lot. Between the two are other patterns, such as ribbon (strip) development along highways and leapfrog development, where new subdivisions jump past undeveloped land to cheaper sites farther out.
| Effect of sprawl | Natural environment | Built environment and people |
|---|---|---|
| Land | Paves over farmland, wetlands, forests and wildlife corridors at the city's edge | Cheaper land lets people buy larger houses with yards |
| Water | More roofs and pavement mean more runoff, flooding and polluted streams | More kilometres of pipes per household to build and maintain |
| Travel | More driving means more greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution | Long commutes and traffic; hard to run frequent transit at low density; teens, seniors and people who cannot drive depend on rides |
| Cost | Lost natural areas are hard to get back | Roads, pipes, schools and fire halls must be extended outward; that per-household cost is higher at low density |
Who decides? Ontario's planning system
- The Planning Act (Ontario's main planning law) sets the rules for how land-use decisions are made and lists matters of provincial interest, such as protecting farmland, natural areas and water and providing a range of housing.
- The Provincial Planning Statement, 2024 sets the province's land-use policies that municipal decisions must be consistent with. It came into effect on October 20, 2024, replacing the Provincial Policy Statement (2020) and the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe (A Place to Grow).
- An official plan is a municipality's long-term vision: where housing, jobs, parks and roads will go over the next 20 to 30 years.
- A zoning bylaw sets the detailed rules for each property: what uses are allowed, building height, setbacks from the street and how much of the lot can be covered.
- Changing the rules: a property owner can apply for a rezoning (a zoning bylaw amendment) or a small exception called a minor variance. The public can comment at a public meeting, council decides, and decisions can be appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal.
| Force | How it shapes land use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Economic | Land values, construction costs, interest rates and where jobs locate decide what developers can afford to build and where | High land prices near downtown lead to condo towers; cheaper land on the fringe leads to subdivisions |
| Social | Population growth, aging, household size and housing affordability change what kinds of homes are needed | Rising home prices increase demand for rentals, smaller units and multigenerational homes |
| Cultural | Communities shape neighbourhoods to fit their identities and needs | Cultural centres, shops and services in neighbourhoods such as Toronto's Chinatown or Brampton's South Asian commercial plazas; First Nations planning their own reserve lands |
| Political | Laws, provincial policies, council votes and housing targets set the rules | Ontario's target of 1.5 million new homes by 2031; changes to zoning that allow more homes per lot |
Housing debates often get labelled with two acronyms. NIMBY ("not in my backyard") describes residents who oppose a new development near them, for reasons such as traffic, shadows, the look of the street or property values. YIMBY ("yes in my backyard") describes people who support building more homes in existing neighbourhoods to improve affordability and let more people live near jobs and transit. Both groups raise real concerns, and good analysis looks at the evidence for each claim rather than at the label. Governments have recently moved toward allowing more homes in existing neighbourhoods: Ontario's More Homes Built Faster Act (2022) allowed up to three homes on most serviced residential lots, and in May 2023 Toronto City Council permitted multiplexes of up to four units across the city's residential neighbourhoods.
Tools for managing growth
- Greenbelts and settlement boundaries: draw a line that urban development cannot cross, to protect farmland and nature.
- Intensification: infill housing, brownfield redevelopment and taller buildings on main streets and at transit stations.
- Transit-oriented development (TOD): higher-density homes, offices and shops within walking distance (roughly 500 to 800 m) of a rapid-transit station.
- Mixed use: homes above shops and offices in the same building or block, so daily trips are short.
- Missing middle housing: duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhouses and low-rise apartments, the types between single-detached houses and towers that many zoning bylaws had banned (the term was coined by US architect Daniel Parolek in 2010).
- The 15-minute neighbourhood: the idea, popularized by researcher Carlos Moreno in 2016 and by Paris from 2020, that most daily needs should be within a 15-minute walk or bike ride of home. It is a planning goal about what is nearby; it does not restrict where anyone may travel, despite false claims online.