(Host) Commentator Ruth Page visits a “perfect,” serene, beautiful, non-sprawl town in Canada – and notes its one big drawback.
(Page) Oakville, Ontario is a large suburb of Toronto. We recently spent a week there visiting our son and his family, and I got familiar with the community in my preferred way – I walked miles of its streets.
What I saw was beauty everywhere. The homes were lovely, and all had flower gardens impeccably planned and cared for, with lawns matched so well as to color and length, they looked as if they’d all just been fed nitrogen and had an expert haircut. I found no little neighborhood stores, but small and large shopping centers here and there. While the homes were large, and a few were even mansions, I was pleased to see none with more than two garages, unlike the showy houses we see here with three or four garages eating up space.
One very large collection of shops was typical. It was at an important intersection, and directly across from its hot paving was a beautiful park: cool, green, and with a variety of flowers and trees worthy of a botanical garden. I wandered along its winding path; it was backed by woods and offered a perfect escape from paving and heat.
On any residential street there were paths through large wooded areas. When homes were built, many acres of forest were saved, so any family could get to the woods within minutes. The paths either followed small streams, or threaded their courses among evergreens and handsome deciduous maples, oak, beech, and hardhack. Wild-flowers abounded. At home I got out my flower ID book and realized I’d seen at least 15 species unfamiliar to me, along with the buttercups, violets, purple vetch and wild grape (plus the ubiquitous burdock).
There were parks everywhere, some huge, empty and mown, ready for the many folks who played soccer; many public tennis courts, and other playing fields for baseball, softball, and what-have-you. IT WAS A COMMUNITY WITHOUT SPRAWL. It had saved all the amenities families look for. I’d never before seen such a town, though there must be others in the U.S. and Canada.
Were there any drawbacks? Of course. As the phone company once declared in explaining its occasional mistake, “nobody’s prefect.” One drawback was that you had to be rich, or at least very well off, to live there. And your home had to be handsome, your lawn weed-free (I saw a few “Stay Off; Pesticides” notices here and there), and the miles and miles of grass around homes and across the many parks were obviously mown frequently, doing the atmosphere no good whatever.
What this means to me is that if we want towns like that, with all the outdoor amenities of woodlands, parks, playing fields and so on, we’d better not only plan far ahead but be sure that government is ready to put plenty of money into the effort; otherwise, taxes will be out-of-sight, and only the well-to-do need apply.
This is Ruth Page in Shelburne.