International research suggests that at about this density, transit and walking start to become viable alternatives to the car, at least for some everyday trips. Neighborhoods with such densities also tend to support more local stores and services, allowing residents to drive less in their daily lives. As a result, residents of compact neighborhoods consume less gasoline, and create fewer climate-warming emissions for everyday transportation needs, than do residents of more sprawling locales. Compact development also covers less of the landscape with pavement, and spares farmland, forests, and lowland habitats at the urban fringe from scattered sprawl.
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Vancouver has the best smart-growth record among Cascadian cities. In fact, it has the most compact urban structure of any of the 19 cities Sightline has analyzed to date. (Click to read Sightline's study of sprawl in cities across the US). Compared with its neighbors to the south, greater Vancouver excels both at protecting farmland from low-density sprawl, and at channeling new residents into compact neighborhoods. (Click to read about how the Scorecard works, including how targets are chosen.)
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Sprawl contributes to a panoply of ills. It confines residents in their cars for virtually every trip; increases transportation and infrastructure costs; frays forests; harms streams and wildlife; overruns farmland; and commits the region to exorbitant expenditures on roads, vehicles, and highway fuels. It even undermines health by limiting exercise and increasing car crashes, as the 2006 edition of the Cascadia Scorecard detailed. (Click to read more about the 2006 Cascadia Scorecard.)

In past editions of the Cascadia Scorecard, Sightline analyzed and mapped sprawl in the Northwest's 7 largest cities, as well as in 12 additional cities across the United States. These analyses showed that as major Northwest cities grow in population, they are also making gradual progress in channeling new growth into compact, transit- and pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods. (Click for chart of smart-growth trends in Cascadian cities.) Still, low-density development at the urban fringe remains common throughout Cascadia. Today, nearly two-thirds of the people living in Cascadia's major metropolitan areas reside in a neighborhood where a car is a virtual necessity.
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A combination of factors -- ranging from a topography constrained by water and mountains, to British Columbia's province-wide farmland protection policies, to political leadership committed to preserving a "livable region," to a less extensive highway system than is found in many parts of North America -- has helped channel much of Vancouver's new growth into already-developed areas. (Click for animated map of development trends in greater Vancouver.)

But data from the 2006 Canadian Census revealed a surprise: Greater Vancouver's leadership in compact growth slipped during the last census period. Compared with the previous decade, the share of new urban and suburban growth that went into compact communities declined, while the amount of land developed to accommodate new residents increased. This slowdown in smart growth took place at a time when overall population growth slowed as well. Those two trends may be linked: slower-growing cities may be less likely to accommodate new residents in higher-density developments.

Despite the disappointing smart-growth news, the cities of Vancouver and North Vancouver did make notable progress in fostering walkable, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods between 2001 and 2006. In Vancouver, neighborhoods with "pedestrian-oriented" densities (at least 40 residents per acre) grew by 27,000 residents. That was about four-fifths of all population growth that occurred within city limits. By 2006, more than one in four city residents, or nearly 160,000 Vancouverites, lived in neighborhoods with pedestrian-oriented densities. (Click to read "Slowing Down," Sightline's report on recent smart growth trends in greater Vancouver.)
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Portland and Clark County, WA

Smart-growth records, Northwest cities

Animated map of Vancouver sprawl