Smart property institute
While a suburban mortgage may look cheaper, it’s perpetuating a problem for municipalities, businesses, and taxpayers. Canadian municipalities, and their taxpayers, are also faced with billions of dollars in unfunded costs for new suburban developments. Sprawl is one of the major contributors to air pollution, which the World Health Organization had identified as one of the leading causes of cancer, and also contributes to climate change, loss of farmland and nature, vehicle injuries and death, and risk of chronic disease.
Although many municipalities have goals for reducing future sprawl and creating more liveable communities, many unintentionally encourage sprawl with charges and taxes that obscure the real costs. To restrain sprawl, local governments must turn prices around and so that they reward denser, healthier and more liveable development. When we do so, we will reap significant economic and environmental benefits.
