Urban sprawl remains a vague risk to many young Montrealers, Concordia research finds

The pull of suburbs, with their single-family houses, spacious yards and ample parking, remains powerful for a large segment of young adults. So says a new interdisciplinary Concordia study published in the journal Canadian Geographies.

The allure of denser urban living, with the concurrent emphasis on local communities, environmental sustainability and short commutes, is equally strong.

However, it becomes even stronger when concepts like urban sprawl and intergenerational justice — the idea that we should pass on a world to future generations that is as good, or better, than the one we were born into — become familiar, and factor into their decision-making.

That may take some work: almost a third of the respondents to a survey on housing preferences had never even heard of urban sprawl prior to their participation in the study.

After they were introduced to the concepts of urban sprawl and intergenerational justice, their residential preferences shifted significantly toward denser and less dispersed housing.

According to Jochen Jaeger, an associate professor in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment and the study’s corresponding author, the results reveal there is an urgent need to educate and inform young adults about these concepts.

“There is a huge potential for the media and for educators to inform young people — and others as well — about it,” he says. “If nobody is talking about urban sprawl, how will they find out about it? We need to make them aware.”

Passing on a sustainable city

The 166 Concordia undergraduate respondents to the survey, with a mean age average of 22 years, answered 40 questions relating to urban growth, residential preferences and intergenerational justice.

Participants were asked to rank their preference of housing options on a scale of one to five, one being a large, multibedroom single-family house without public transit options to downtown Montreal, and ascending to a house in the West Island suburbs (#2), an apartment condo in the Town of Mount Royal (#3), an apartment condo on the Plateau (#4) and a one-bedroom condo in the downtown core (#5).

Other questions touched on the importance of living space size, owning a yard or garden, connection to community, commuting time, the environmental effects, their concerns about urban sprawl and whether they were concerned about the makeup of the city in 50 years.

The same questions were posed three times, but the students were asked to imagine making the choice at age 30 and at age 70. They were also asked what they would recommend to a 30-year-old person in 50 years.

At intervals between the question sets, the students were shown two five-minute videos, one explaining the concept of urban sprawl and the history of urban sprawl in Montreal, the other describing key ideas behind intergenerational justice.

“After viewing the videos, we saw that the environmental effects became more important for them as 70-year-olds making recommendations for future 30-year-olds, as they became more knowledgeable about the concept of urban sprawl.”

Most agreed that they should pass down a city to future generations that has less urban sprawl and better public transit than today.

“The most important contribution of this paper is to make people aware that the city we build today will be here for decades or centuries to come, and we need to think about sustainability now,” Jaeger says.

The study is based on an inter-departmental collaboration between members of the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre and faculty from the departments of Geography, Planning and Environment, Philosophy, Psychology and the Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability.

Co-authors include Mirja Reid, BA 22, Matthias Fritsch, a professor in the Department of Philosophy, Rebecca Tittler, part-time faculty at the Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability, Craig Townsend, associate professor and chair of the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, William Bukowski, professor in the Department of Psychology, and Ryan Persram at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Read the cited paper: “Sharing cities with the future: How concerned are young Montrealers today about the implications of their residential choices for future generations?”