A lot of Canadians live in suburbs. Conservative estimates suggest that somewhere around 21 million Canadians live in areas characterized by detached homes on large lots serviced primarily by automobiles. This arrangement is our dominant built form and is a powerful force shaping our lives. The pop culture stories we tell ourselves about suburban life are, of course, imported from the US and include themes of housewife desperation, teenage purgatory, complicity in global warming and careless consumption.

Certain critiques imply that the only redemption possible for suburbanites living in such banality is to migrate to a rural area and raise free range chickens - or move downtown, put on hipster shoes and buy a transit pass. But with only a small minority of Canadians currently living in rural or urban core areas it is hard to imagine what such a mass migration would look like. Most of us don’t live in high density areas and are not likely to do so anytime soon. To the extent that our social, economic and environmental challenges are related to land use densities, we are going to have to get much better at devising smart ways to live in suburbs (this is a different discussion if it is about whether we should keep on building suburbs).

There are, in fact, many types of suburban experiences and we need to become more nuanced about what is or is not working across that range. Adopting the idea of suburbanisms (a plurality of suburban form and experience) is essential for rethinking how our urban areas might function better. Changing low density development patterns is a deeply complex puzzle. City planners share in this hand-wringing; as a profession planners notionally voted against sprawl for decades, though with little appreciable change in the pace of low density development (Canada has some very low density cities). Despite offering a wide range of critical services to cities, planners have limited power to confront the deeper structural, cultural and systemic drivers of sprawl.

But there is hope. A project at the University of Waterloo (School of Planning) led by Markus Moos is developing a more nuanced reading of our urban forms. Called The Atlas of Suburbanisms, Moos and company are collaborating with a range of urban researchers to aggregate and display data about our cities that focus on the diversity of suburban types. The project includes examination of suburbs in cities across Canada, detailing census information about the diversity of suburban life. Research approaches like this are key to helping us shift from handwringing about what we’ve built and orient us instead to how we can significantly improve what we’re already committed to.

Planners and, most importantly, citizens of all kinds, need to be diligent in asking the right kinds of questions: is a low density neighbourhood in a Canadian town of 6,000 the same as a low density neighbourhood within a metropolitan area of 5 million? What city sizes are best suited to hi-rise tower living? Can we expect very low density cities like Saskatoon to drive up core densities in a way that stops expansion into the surrounding area? What if citizens (or developers) in particular communities don’t want that? If existing sprawl can’t be reversed, can it be prevented? Can the urban perimeter be limited a way that increases core density so that places like Kitchener-Waterloo become models for future urban transitions or will such experiments become lessons in what not to do? What about so-called post-industrial cities like Hamilton where long cycle drivers of economic fortune radically alter the urban form?

If high density urban core living is the best solution, we have a problem. It is not possible for Canadians currently living in suburban areas to abandon their homes, businesses, schools, community centres, places of worship, ditch their cars and move en masse into our downtowns. We simply wouldn’t have room. Developers and municipal officials are anxiously reading the tea leaves of boomer demographics to try and discern where this massive bulge will settle as they pioneer new frontiers of retirement and senior living. Will they stay in the suburbs where health and social service delivery costs are higher? How will they address transportation issues with dispersed extended families? Does it make sense for people living alone (there are more and more Canadian in that category)? Social isolation is gaining increased attention as a significant health cost driver and we’ll need to understand which suburbanisms are best suited to a thriving social landscape.

Even if complete solutions are impossible, we need to add nuance to our monochromatic ideas of suburbia: there are new shades of colour and possibilities for weaving back what’s missing into the suburban landscape. This re-weaving must extend to our popular and political discussions of suburban life in Canada. Suburban innovation, not abandonment, is a key to our urban future.