Speakers
Description
In the years and decades following WWII, global energy and resource consumption were unleased on a hitherto unseen scale. The fields of earth system science, history, and planetary health continue to grapple with the causes and consequences of this ‘Great Acceleration’ – a proposed entry point into the Anthropocene. For its part, the profession of planning is yet struggling to put into an appropriate context its distinct and historically contingent contributions to this transformative period of planetary socio-ecological change. As a result, the profession also continues to misunderstand its present role in the spread of climate catastrophes, the collapse of global biodiversity, and the sharpening of wealth and health inequities.
This paper takes its cue from recent trends in research that are ‘globalizing’ perspectives on the processes of suburbanization and the distinct suburbanisms these processes produce. We explore spatial and temporal scale as necessary, conjoint lenses for articulating key contributions of planning to the Great Acceleration. Moving beyond the prototypical model of the metropolitan North American city, we present a story that links the industrial structure of a burgeoning hinterland region to the reproduction of a northern suburbanism tailor built for Canada’s resource dependent communities during the Great Acceleration.
Taking Prince George, British Columbia, Canada as an illustrative case, we draw on archival sources and spatial analysis of historical subdivision data. These streams of analysis allow us to track and explicate how dominant planning theories were deployed between 1946 and 1981 to both rationalize and accommodate urban expansion within British Columbia’s northern capital.
Through the application of Garden City planning and the Neighbourhood Unit, Prince George took on a spatial and built form not unlike those seen in suburbanisms across North America. This included the use of these planning norms to expedite the preparation and sale of lands by the most economically efficient means available. As early as the 1950s the efficiency of the Neighbourhood Unit underpinned a massive expansion of suburban growth into previously undeveloped areas. In the 1970s, a Garden City inspired growth plan rationalized a municipal boundary expansion that all but ensured an unsustainable future for the city.
Unlike regions established earlier in Eastern Canada, the northern suburbanism pursued in Prince George served additional, distinct rhetorical purpose. As part of Canada’s ongoing settler colonial project, civic boosterism drew from planning theory the concepts of safety, orderliness, and domesticity to sell a suburban ideal that would help attract the labour needs of a booming forest economy. Well beyond the footprint of the city proper, suburbanization propagated widespread ecological destruction across a region larger than France by ensuring the labour needs of an expanding extractive industry were in rich supply.
By exploring municipal-state coalitions in the use of Crown Land Grants to finance the outward expansion of development, our work illustrates novel financial mechanisms underpinning processes of suburbanization. Beyond this, we illustrate how a northern suburbanism that was used to attract westward European settlement became an enduring contribution to the Great Acceleration. During this era, planning theory, planning practice, and planning practitioners were active champions of the unquestioned pro-growth ideology the fueled the global expansion of energy and resource use. The social-ecological consequences of this pursuit are now apparent at all scales.
References
Belisle, D. 2011. Retail Nation: Department Stores and the Making of Modern Canada. Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press.
Castree, N. 2017. "Speaking for the ‘People Disciplines’: Global Change Science and its Human Dimensions." The Anthropocene Review 4 (3): 160-182.
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Leonard, F. 1984. "Grand Trunk Pacific and the Establishment of the City of Prince George, 1911-1915." BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly (63): 29-54.
McNeill, J. R., and P. Engelke. 2016. The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene Since 1945. Cambridge, USA: Harvard University Press.
Steffen, W., W. Broadgate, L. Deutsch, O. Gaffney, and C. Ludwig. 2015. "The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration." The Anthropocene Review 2 (1): 81-98.
Talen, E. 2017. "Social Science and the Planned Neighbourhood." Town Planning Review 88 (3): 349-373.
Vogt, D., and D. A. Gamble. 2010. "" You Don't Suppose the Dominion Government Wants to Cheat the Indians?": The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and the Fort George Reserve, 1908-12." BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly (166): 55-72.
| Keywords | Great acceleration; Growth ideology; Hinterland planning |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
