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Originally Posted by nec209
Does Canada protect green belts more so than the US or does the US lack lot of green belts in lot of cities? What cities in the US have a lot of green belts?
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I'll leave the U.S. side of the equation to folks like MHays who can speak to it more authoritatively than I.
There are 'green belts' and/or 'agricultural preserves' that limit sprawl in some measure, in Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. Other cities may have other forms of limitation, based on servicing, regulatory floodplains or the like as well.
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I hear greater Toronto area can’t sprawl out any more because of the green belts and the same with Vancouver the farms limiting sprawl.
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This is Toronto Greenbelt map.
https://ontario-mma.maps.arcgis.com/...a8d5e25b5fd62e
Its an overlay of 'The Greenbelt'; The Oak Ridges Moraine and the Niagara Escarpment which all limit development.
The grey area south of (below) the green on the Lake Ontario side is mostly built out, but some of the northern fringe is still farmland zoned for development.
However, the area north of the Greenbelt up to Lake Simcoe (in grey) continues to see some ongoing sprawl.
Beyond these types of protections, the Ontario government imposes minimum population density targets on municipalities which tends to have the effect of making newer development a bit more compact.
Economics also drive this with Toronto housing prices have skyrocketed the last few years, few people are in position to buy a home a 1/4 acre lot. So you get smaller lots and more townhomes and midrise mixed in to things.
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Is farmland less of heated debate in the US than Canada. I read comments on other message board Canadians attacking urban sprawl eating up farmland in Canada. In the US is the attitude different? Is that because more of the US land is ripe for farmland than Canada if 80% of the land in Canada is not ripe for farmland.
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Again, I can't speak to the U.S. side much, in respect of Ontario, commutes are long in Toronto, and jobs tend to be concentrated to a greater degree than in many U.S. centres.
People want to preserve farmland, they also want to preserve access to nature and to keep their commute's sane.
In Ontario the southern part of the province is lined w/some of the best quality farm land on the continent. But this is also the same area that is the most populated, and dense in the country. So there is a need to regulate that interaction.
You don't tend to see as much emphasis on that in Canada's prairie provinces, where population overall is much lower,and the amount of farmland higher.