They Picked The Wrong City Planner To Quote Out Of Context

(a shorter version of this post appeared as on Op-Ed in the Calgary Herald newspaper on Monday, March 22, 2021. This is the full version.)

Earlier this week, I started getting a bunch of notes from friends and colleagues in Calgary: “Hey, have you SEEN what you’ve been quoted in?“

It seems that an apparently well-funded, anonymous group had purchased a big advertorial in Avenue Magazine, and a similar purchase in the Calgary Herald, to campaign against the City’s proposed new “Guidebook For Great Communities.” It’s going to Calgary City Council today.

I don’t know enough about those calling themselves “Concerned Calgary Communities“ to know if they’re just another group of well positioned “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) interests, but I do know two things — few community groups have the resources to buy that much pricey media space (I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of thing before, actually), and someone in their group made the odd decision to quote me prominently in their Avenue Magazine attack.

Naturally I quickly tracked down the quote in question. Here’s what it said:

“Neighbourhoods have their own personality, says Brent Toderian, an urban planner from Vancouver. A successful neighbourhood is distinguishable from living anywhere else.

Sounds harmless, right?

Stay with me.

First, some context might help. Yes, I’m an urban planner from Vancouver — in fact I was the chief planner for Vancouver for 6 years. Before that, I was a city planning manager for Calgary, first the Chief Subdivision Planner working in every neighbourhood in the city, and then Manager of Centre City Planning and Design. These days, I’m a city planning consultant working in cities across Canada and all over the world. We still have strong roots and relationships in Calgary, so it’s fair to say I know the city pretty well.

So back to that quote. Indeed, I said something close to that in a CBC interview about the “best neighbourhoods in Vancouver” and what makes certain neighbourhoods “great.” But in the advertorial, the anonymous group used my comments as a lead-in to some very scary-sounding mis-information claiming that Calgary communities faced real danger to their character from the Guidebook.

What made it odd to quote me, of all the city planners out there, is that I’m quite vocal about how Canadian cities need to think differently about badly-needed change in their neighbourhoods. Such change is especially needed with the kind of diverse housing choices, what I call “gentle density” and is also referred to as “missing middle housing,” that are often missing from communities.

I frequently talk about how calls to protect “neighbourhood character” (and the typically accompanying call for “more consultation”) can be code for excluding different types of housing, and by extension, different kinds of people.

When I say neighbourhoods can have a “personality,” kind of like a person, it’s true. That can be a good thing, something worth working to keep and evolve in the context of badly needed and responsible change. Sadly though, a community’s personality can also include such traits as selfishness, greed, classism and racism.

If your main definition of neighbourhood character is “only large homes, and the people who can afford them,” that’s not much character at all.

What DOES support local character? Things like local schools and shops having enough kids and customers to not worry about staying open. Things like the ability of aging neighbours to downsize to a smaller home in the same neighbourhood they love, and young parents to raise their kids in the same neighbourhood they grew up in. We often call those choices being able to “age-in-place,’ and they’re really important for neighbourhood resiliency, and quality-of-life too.

The worst thing about that quote is that it ignored its rather important original context. Yes, I talked about great neighbourhoods having their own personality — but only AFTER talking about how neighbourhoods needed to be more complete, diverse, accessible, equitable, healthy, sustainable and walkable/transit friendly. They didn’t quote those parts.

It sounds to me like the Guidebook will consolidate and streamline the long process of community-level plans, making each plan easier and faster to do. That’s important, because the status quo takes too long and costs too much. It also prioritizes important things like green space, local amenities, heritage preservation and more mobility choices. And it sets expectations for what each community will discuss and achieve around things like housing diversity, to do their part in supporting city-wide goals. It doesn’t give the answers or change the rules, but it sets the framework for faster and more responsible local conversations moving forward.

Sounds practical and fair to me.

After almost 30 years of doing this, I know that there are voices out there for which no amount of consultation will ever be enough if they just don’t want the kind of change you’re talking about (it sounds like the evolution of this Guidebook has involved around 5 years of evolving work and public engagement).

11 years ago, in Calgary’s Municipal Development Plan, the City showed real leadership by committing to achieve 50% of all new growth as smart, strategic infill housing. At the time, that big move inspired other cities to make similar commitments. That’s YOUR shared vision, Calgary. But you haven’t come close to actually achieving that, and a lot of valuable time has been lost.

The status quo has real costs and consequences that frankly Calgary can’t afford. NO city can afford them. More and more cities of all political stripes have been rethinking and redoing their approach to city-wide housing diversity, allowing more choices to support “aging in place,” housing affordability, economic and racial equity, and climate change mitigation. It also reduces the crushing infrastructure and service costs that inevitably lead to higher taxes.

It doesn’t matter if your city considers itself to be “progressive” or “conservative,” right or left — this is about being smart or dumb, successful or unsuccessful.

The Guidebook won’t undermine what makes each community unique, but it DOES address what every community has in common, and their shared responsibilities. That’s what fair and responsible planning does.

To be clear, I’m not working for the City of Calgary, and I have no financial interest in all this. I might never have even known about the manufactured controversy if this anonymous group hadn’t chosen to use me in their advertorial, clearly trying to anger and scare Calgarians so they would pressure politicians.

Right about now, those folks might be thinking they probably picked the wrong city planner to quote.

I’m particularly known for telling cities and leaders the blunt truth, and the truth about your city is this — Calgary needs to do a lot better, a lot faster, to meet your own vision and address your big challenges. The question is, will you continue to let well-positioned voices scare you out of doing that?

Brent Toderian is a city planner & urbanist with TODERIAN UrbanWORKS, and a leading national and international advisor for more successful cities. You can find him on Twitter at @BrentToderian.