Vancouver needs to plan for a post-oil world — now

North American cities had better start adapting to a future characterized by climate change and depleting oil. Fewer parking lots. More condominiums. No more big highway upgrades. No further airport expansion. Emergency response and health care systems that can respond to the potential impacts of global warming and energy shocks.

The future is here, declares Bryn Davidson, a Vancouver engineer and architect who, with fellow planners Jonathan Frantz and Tom Lancaster, established the Dynamic Cities Project in 2005.


The project is a non-profit organization aimed at jolting designers and planners out of a torpor that has them carrying out business as usual.

To date, only the municipality of Burnaby has done any formal analysis of trends that are starting to hit North America.

A group of activists calling themselves the Vancouver Peak Oil Executive launched a petition recently urging Vancouver to strike a committee that would address the same issue.

Vancouver Sun