Fighting Sprawl

Everyone seems to be talking about sprawl. Now magazine has written recently about what to do with all that open space outside the GTA (turn it into organic farmland growing a diversity of crops). The Star weighed in with this feature on small shops, new urbanism and why sprawl makes for boring cities (anybody who's been to the Dallas Ft. Worth area or any other second rate American city can testify to this). The Globe talked about an idea that's been floating around the Toronto blogosphere, a subway that covers everything in the city and not just the three lines we've got now.

Maybe it was that rather scary winter smog day we got a little while back (it looked pretty disgusting and probably wasn't that healthy) but I'm glad that the public is thinking about this. Sadly our best weapon for fighting sprawl, the TTC just got a little worse with a fare hike ($2.50 for an adult to ride the Rocket! "The Better Way" indeed). So what exactly should we do about sprawl? How can we change the hearts and minds of people who have been indoctrinated by car companies and popular culture to want cars in the driveway, a big fancy house in the burbs with a manicured lawn? How do we get the Joneses to stop wanting the now outdated and constructed fantasy of a "Leave it to Beaver" life?