Toronto Leads Ontario Sustainable Community Index

Toronto emerges as Ontario's most sustainable community in a new study published today by the Pembina Institute. The Ontario Community Sustainability Report - 2007 looks at 33 indicators of sustainability in three broad categories - smart growth, liveability and economic vitality - and develops an overall community sustainability index for each of 27 Ontario municipalities.

Ottawa, Halton Regional Municipality, Stratford and Guelph rounded out the top five ranked municipalities.

Toronto's first place ranking flows from high scores on a host of smart growth and economic vitality indicators including high levels of transit use, a good mix and density of land uses, high employment diversity, tertiary water treatment and even percentage of people not overweight. However, the city's weak scores in number of liveability indicators, stagnant population growth, and the outward movement of economic activity and employment present growing challenges that need to be addressed by the city and province.

The study finds that population growth is increasingly concentrated at the urban periphery of the greater golden horseshoe region, particularly in the '905' municipalities. These communities emerge with high rankings in terms of economic vitality; however, they score very poorly in terms of smart growth, with high levels of automobile use, low densities, poor mixes of land uses, poorly connected street grids and low intensification rates.

"Although economic activity is high in these regions, unsustainable development patterns in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, particularly the 905 region, threaten to undermine the economic vitality of these communities in the long term," says the report's lead author Ray Tomalty. "Long commuting distances, the lack of commuting options, traffic congestion, and low housing diversity and affordability could strangle the long-term prosperity of these regions."

"The overall picture that emerges, particularly the concentration of population growth in areas where unsustainable, urban sprawl dominates, is one of more serious challenges than assumed in the province's recent Greenbelt and Growth Plan initiatives," said York University Environmental Studies professor Mark Winfield who directed the study. "More aggressive interventions by the province to curb sprawl and automobile dependence are needed to ensure the sustainability of communities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe."

The lowest ranked communities in the overall community sustainability index were Belleville, Brantford, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Greater Sudbury. The low rankings of communities outside of the Greater Golden Horseshoe point to another important finding of the study. The study finds relatively high levels of economic vitality in the Greater Golden Horseshoe region, and much weaker economic performance in communities throughout the rest of the province (except Ottawa.)

The indicators employed in the study are based on the most recent available data from a variety of sources including Statistics Canada and the Government of Ontario. The full report and the underlying data tables are available at www.pembina.org.

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For more information contact:

Dr. Mark Winfield, Professor of Environmental Studies
York University
Tel: 416-736-2100 ext. 21078
Cel: 416-434-8130

Cherise Burda, Ontario Policy Director
The Pembina Institute
Tel: 416-644-1016
Cel: 416-434-8130

Dr. Ray Tomalty, Principal
Co-operative Research and Policy Services
Tel: (514) 847-9259

Community Sustainability Index Rankings