A supportive distribution of residential density is perceived to be an essential component of strategies aimed at increasing the use of public transit. To alter substantially land use-transport dynamics in a fashion that favours public transit patronage, residential density policies must be...

The paper portrays three aspects of urban dispersion: urban structure, residents' location and land-use preferences, and social ecology. To explain the dynamic inherent in this form of urbanisation, it suggests an explanatory model concentrating on shifts in the respective importance of space,...

There is a lack of knowledge about effective implementation of intensification policies. The paper concentrates on the intensification experience of Sydney, Australia, and Toronto, Canada. Historical narratives, which document intensification efforts and outcomes since the 1950s, paint different...

In a context of growing car dependency and suburban sprawl, planners search for ways of intensifying urban development and reducing reliance on the automobile. The creation of planned mixed-use centres intended to become hubs of transit and pedestrian movement within the dispersed suburban...

To what extent does the evolution of 20th-century residential area planning and development reflect the profound changes that have affected society over this period? How much was this evolution shaped by successive planning models formulated over the last century? The paper reports on an...

Although the Toronto metropolitan region performs well relative to its North American counterparts in terms of density and public-transit use, it does not derive as much walking and public-transit patronage benefit from its high-residential-density areas as it could. The impact of residential...

By North American standards Toronto is a concentrated agglomeration. Its downtown has enjoyed spectacular growth since the 1960s; most inner-city neighbourhoods are perceived as desirable; and public transit patronage is high relative to that of same-size North American metropolitan regions....

The paper centres on the content of metropolitan-scale plans of the six largest Canadian urban regions. Plans in all these regions promote intensification and alternatives to automobile use, and thus adhere to smart growth and sustainability principles. In all cases save one, reliance on nodal...

There is a growing sense that the North American low-density and automobile-dependent urban form is unsustainable from the perspectives of quality of life, economics and the environment. Yet for all the calls for a transformation of development patterns, trends inherited from the post-second...