Compact or Compaction?

My recent trip to New York made me revisit a question that’s been lingering in the back of my mind ever since I lived in Toronto.  I raised this question in the comments section of Policy Frog’s most recent blog entry:

 

“…to what degree should we seek compact urban living for cities such as Winnipeg or Halifax? Right now there is a sense of community that simply does not exist in a city such as New York. I get the feeling that there is a “tipping point” where if too many humans live together, we artificially create distance by being emotionally removed from our fellow humans.”

 

When I lived in Toronto, I became accustomed to the antics of my neighbours – I referred to said antics as the “Elevator Game”.  The goal of the game was simple – close the elevator doors as fast as you could to preclude anyone else from coming on and causing you great delays of 30 seconds or more.  Getting the better of seniors and people laden with groceries (I unfortunately sometimes fell into the latter category) must have given these boors an elevated (pardon the pun) sense of achievement in saving those precious few seconds.

 

Manhattan and Downtown/Midtown Toronto are arguably perfect examples of compact urban living.  Spending time in such urban centres when you have had the luck of living in Winnipeg and/or Halifax requires quite a cultural adjustment to acclimatize yourself to the ways in which people can be packed so closely together and yet remain so emotionally distant from one another.

 

Human beings have spent hundreds of thousands of years living in small, tight-knit communities.  Major urban centres and the compact urban living associated with same are a relatively new phenomenon for our species.  In short, we’ve spent much more time evolving under a certain societal organization only to fairly recently change the way in which we live.  Imagine the chaos that would ensue if we put disparate packs of wolves, prides of lions, troops of gorillas or even atoms together in overly close quarters.  Are humans any different or does our thin veneer of civility fade when we get too close to one another?

 

Staunch proponents of compact urban living sometimes make the value judgment that urban sprawl is inherently bad.  I think too much of either alternative has adverse effects on an urban centre.  In the blind pursuit of compact urban living, do we run the risk of creating a type of compaction where the human soul and our senses of community and civility are left to wither on the vine?  If so, give me some land in the ‘burbs instead where I can share a cold beer with my neighbours after our yardwork is done – and if there was one nearby, I would promise to hold the elevator door open…