DEREK RAYMAKER
JUNE 1, 2007

As a rule, developers and city planners need little encouragement to drop the gloves and mix it up on the philosophical question of what home buyers want.

For the most part, Toronto's residential developers echo the party line espoused by the Greater Toronto Home Builders Association, which unequivocally states that new-home construction must tilt toward detached single-family low-rise housing in the suburban context. Furthermore, they say, urban infrastructure development should be focused on servicing that mould, meaning the expansion of the 400-series highway system and arterial roads.

That vision has come under attack over the last decade by city planners who have been empowered to bring together all community elements -commercial, recreational and institutional - in new blended greenfield developments. With a few exceptions, suburban municipal planners have embraced residential intensification and mixed-use, transit-friendly development under the umbrella concept called New Urbanism.