Introduction

        In recent years, the concept of sustainability has become increasingly central in planning urban growth and development, informing and influencing policy formation on urban issues to varying degrees. The recognition that transport systems and their relation to land-use patterns exert a powerful influence on the quality of our daily lives, and the conviction that automobiles in urban regions are wrecking global ecosystems and destroying communities, is now widespread. The current focus on sustainability is largely a reaction to the widespread perception that a century of unfettered industrialization, resource extraction, and both environmental and material over-consumption has resulted in environmental crisis. The concept of sustainability has also been adopted to advance concerns surrounding social justice, equity, and general quality of life issues facing rapidly expanding and growing urban regions throughout the world. Although there is considerable debate as to the extent to which past and current growth trends are effecting the environment, social equity, commerce, and general quality of life, there is widespread consensus that all of these are being threatened by past and current development trends. The concept of sustainability has been almost universally embraced alongside an increasing awareness of the need for a meta-strategy that integrates economic, environmental, and social issues to, as stated by the seminal report by the Bruntland Commission, “meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987).
        I n Canada, the principle of sustainable development has been adopted at all levels of policy making, with a major emphasis put on the local and particularly the regional scale as the most appropriate for the formation and delivery of these policies. In the greater Vancouver region of British Columbia, the need for a regional strategy for managing growth sustainabley has been recognized in policy discussion at both municipal, and provincial levels for at least three decades, leading to a series of documents and strategies aimed at integrating the various municipalities that make up the region into a regional planning authority that oversees and guides future growth in the region. The goal of creating a regional body to guide future growth was adopted to mitigate against the negative effects resulting from competition between municipalities for commercial, industrial, and residential development, and to integrate transportation with land-use planning on a regional scale.
        The Lower Mainland’s first regional plan was adopted by the Lower Mainland Regional Planning Board (LMRBP) in 1966, “the result of the increasing awareness of municipal councils and the public regarding the need for regional planning” (GVRD, 1996; 2). In 1967, a single, multi purpose regional authority emerged -The Greater Vancouver Regional District - buttressed by enabling provincial legislation that required that regional planning be undertaken. IN the mid 1970’s, The Liveable Region, 1976-1986 outlined a strategy for managing growth in the region with goals centred around nature, an economy of growth and change, mobility for people goods and services, health and safety, equity, and efficiency. The GVRD’s Official Regional Plan was updated in 1980, focussing on land-use and transportation rather than the coordination of growth and change in jobs, population ad housing.  In 1983, the provincial government eliminated the regional planning authority of regional districts and the legal status of official regional plans with Bill 9, the Municipal Amendment Act, which did away with the GVRD’s official regional plan. Building on earlier initiatives by the LRMP and the GVRD, a regional strategy was re-established in 1990 when the GVRD adopted the Creating Our Future: Steps to a More Liveable Region document, “an action plan providing a regional framework for maintaining and enhancing the liveability of greater Vancouver” (GVRD, 1990). In 1996, the GVRD established a new regional growth strategy for the region called The Liveable Regions Strategic Plan (LRSP), which can be seen to be both a culmination and refinement of strategies and initiatives developed by the various regional authorities up to that point and based on creating an urban form that fosters activity patterns consistent with the regional vision of integrating environmental and social concerns with economic growth and development. The LRSP was adopted by all member municipalities in 1996 and adopted by the GVRD board in that same year, “providing a framework for making regional growth management and transportation decisions in partnership with the GVRD’s member municipalities, the provincial government, the federal government, and other agencies”  (GVRD, 1996; 12).  The vision embraced by the LRSP is based on the premise that a particular urban form, expressed at several different scales, will foster and encourage economic development that limits environmental degradation and land consumption while increasing social equity, access and mobility.
        It is these three themes of environment, equity, and economy that are at the core of most definitions of sustainability, including that embraced by the GVRD (and its member municipalities). However, like the term itself, the path to sustainability is far from clear. In fact, it is often a maze of conflicting and competing needs and wants, effected by government policies, individual consumer choice, and corporate interests at a range of geo-political scales. And although sustainability is often the stated goal, the degree to which it is ever reached is arguably negligible.
        In this paper, I explore how sustainability is being interpreted, implemented, and expressed in the urban form of the lower mainland region at the regional, community, and neighbourhood, scales, focusing on the concepts behind, barriers to and opportunities for, achieving a sustainable urban form in the Greater Vancouver region. To begin, I review some of the main ideas, concepts, and theories behind a large and established body of work premised on creating sustainable communities through a compact and mixed use urban form centred on public transit. I then outline how the GVRD has embraced some of these concepts in various regional initiatives. An analysis of land-use and transportation patterns is conducted to explore causal relationships between land-use, residential densities, transit provision, income, and commuter modes. Further analysis will be conducted using GIS, as well as other statistical information compiled by various organizations, to provide an overview of where sustainability objectives are and aren’t being achieved in the GVRD. I conclude with a more general and broad discussion on barriers to achieving sustainability in the Lower Mainland, focusing on cultural and economic forces operating at a range of geographic scales, and political and institutional barriers and opportunities associated with different scales of intervention. It is hoped that the broad focus of the paper will provide an overview of sustainability in Greater Vancouver by tying together some of the many causal factors and relationships associated with the necessarily complex and encompassing concept of sustainability.

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