The town of Markham is at a crossroads. Down one path is urban sprawl. We all know where this well-worn route leads: endless pavement, long commutes and traffic jams, along with high social and infrastructure costs. Continued sprawl threatens the health of our families, our communities and the ecosystems that sustain us.

In the other direction is an extraordinary new path: stopping sprawl for good by establishing one of Canada’s first urban “foodbelts” and limiting all future growth to further development in areas that are already built up. This visionary proposal is aimed at protecting the town’s remaining farms, fields and forests, known as the “white belt,” as a foodbelt that would be out of reach of future development.

Instead of being dug up and paved over, these protected green spaces would ensure that Markham preserves its ability to produce valuable commodities, like locally grown food, and continues to benefit from the critical ecological services these areas provide, such as clean air and water, healthy soil and habitat for wildlife like songbirds and wildflowers.

People often ignore the fact that nature provides an astonishing suite of ecological services for free, such as filtering and storing our drinking water and preventing erosion by ensuring that riverbanks remain stable. Less tangible, yet just as important, are services such as the aesthetic, spiritual and psychological benefits we get from spending time outdoors.

Last year, the David Suzuki Foundation attempted to tally up the economic contribution of the ecological services provided by Ontario’s existing Greenbelt. The Greenbelt’s 1.8 million acres contain hundreds of towns and villages and some 7,000 farms, as well as emerging urban hot spots, like Markham, making it the largest and most diverse greenbelt in the world.

The research report, “Ontario’s Wealth, Canada’s Future: Appreciating the Value of the Greenbelt’s Eco-Services,” conservatively estimated that the Greenbelt provides $2.6 billion in ecological services each year, through pollination, recreational opportunities and capture and storage of carbon in its remnant forests, farmland and rich productive soils.

Freezing further urban expansion onto agricultural lands in Markham will also prove to be one of the most effective actions the town can take to reduce the emissions of heat-trapping greenhouses gases that cause global warming.

Despite being a vast nation of mountains, forests and ice, where wilderness and wildlife feature prominently in our nature-loving, outdoorsy culture, Canada is an urban society. Close to 80 per cent of Canadians live in cities and suburbs, in places just like Markham. As a consequence, most of our massive per capita carbon footprint is directly related to the way we plan our neighbourhoods, including where people live and how far they have to travel to get to work, school and the places where they shop.

By preventing further sprawl onto agricultural lands, the foodbelt proposal will create incentives for the town to develop sustainably, using the principles of “smart growth”:  creating compact, higher-density communities within the current urban boundary that are well serviced by public transit, bike lanes and walking paths.

The carbon footprint of compact communities that are designed according to these principles is far lower than cities built haphazardly through sprawl. 

The Town of Markham must now choose which one of these dramatically different paths to take. We truly hope that the town’s political leaders and citizens will recognize this historic opportunity and demonstrate the courage and foresight to embark on a visionary path and create a legacy that will surely be lauded by future generations.