Can smart panels be smart?

• Position: Letter to the Editor

The smart growth panels being set up across Ontario have the potential to become significant forces in creating more livable cities and actually defying gravity if gravity is the way we do things now. The idea that the economic development of any town should be based on someone else's garbage simply perpetuates the cargo cult so prevalent in many parts of rural Canada. When drive-thru coffee shops form the core of any sustainable community's plan for the future, the future is bleak.

Middle-class welfare programs were not conjured up in some star-chamber in Toronto or Ottawa. They reflect what the forces of economic and political power in the community have asked for consistently over the years. Just help us build this arena, industrial park, by-pass or [your favourite project here] and everything will be great -- until the next one.

Cities are pushing hard for new sources of revenues -- note that they never say taxes -- to once again, make everything right in urban Canada. But they haven't yet looked over the silo walls that artificially divide them from their neighbours. Yes, the staggering amounts being spent to bring economic sustainability are massive. The other alternative is to spend new staggering amounts to do something different.

Smart growth is a slogan looking for policies unless someone, somewhere starts to stop this paternalistic...