Reconfiguring the edge city: The use of ecological design parameters in defining the form of community

Suburban development in the Greater Vancouver Region of British Columbia, as with edge-city development elsewhere in North America, continues to erode forest and farm, disrupt hydrological patterns, and weaken the overall ecological integrity of the region. Fragmented landscapes and equally fragmented communities isolate citizens from nature as well as from one another. Alternative approaches and models for creating sustainable communities are urgently required. This paper presents one such model, using criteria developed from a wide range of exemplary sustainable community approaches employed elsewhere in North America and Europe. It compares this model sustainable community with an existing edge community in the region and concludes with the assertion that a high level of sustainability is not only attainable but also can improve a communityʹs sense of the civic and sense of place