Can Waterloo Region become a hip and vibrant community? One filled with people merrily tackling their commutes, shopping trips and leisure pursuits by foot, bicycle or public transit? Not likely, but that won’t stop municipal officials from trying.

From limiting growth and encouraging intensification, from cycling lanes to an LRT boondoggle, we’re going to see an increasing number of projects designed to make us cool. Or at least inconvenienced, if nothing else.

Most of this will, of course, apply to the region’s cities. The townships will see fewer changes, though the costs will spill over.

The goal is admirable, at least in part.

Who wouldn’t like a vibrant cultural scene, with great entertainment options and a real nightlife in the vein of, say, Montreal or Vancouver? Without, of course, the congestion and demographic nightmares of Toronto and its ilk. Curbing growth, however, is not on the menu.

With walking and cycling, who isn’t captivated by the street life of European centres? It’s great to see people going about their daily business under their own steam. We lack the beautiful old architecture, public spaces and way of life, but on we go.

As for transit, it’s fast and convenient – and sometimes even inexpensive – in other parts of the world. Why not here? Never mind the geographical distances, car culture and premium placed on our time … we’ll plow ahead in a small, makeshift way, spending much in return for little.

OK, none of that pessimism is on display at the official level. Just this week, there was talk of creating a vibrant, cultured and transit-friendly community to rival California as part of the University of Waterloo’s Leadership Innovation Conference.

The region is pressing forward with its transit scheme.

The cities are looking at adding bike lanes.

More highrise buildings are being erected.

Tens of millions are being poured into downtown redevelopment.

This is all driven by an optimism that these moves will bring change. Positive change. Hopefully, that is the case.

Happening, walkable, livable cities would be ideal.

All of this is predicated on ever-more growth, despite the fact constant growth – the Ponzi scheme that is our economy – is not sustainable. It also depends on separating taxpayers from even more of their money, despite spending that outstrips economic growth (there’s that word again) and people’s incomes. Most troubling, it depends on people changing their behaviours in large enough numbers to make any of it work.

The ideal of so-called compact communities puts me in mind of Europe, where densities are higher and people live within an easy walk or bike ride of most of the amenities of daily living. Because most communities developed before the advent of the automobile, they’re very much people-centric as opposed to the car-centric towns and cities of North America.

People actually do walk and cycle as a means of transportation, not just recreation. Public transit is convenient and well used. In short, the antithesis of how we do things here. Living there, you can quite easily do without a car.

Of course, vehicles are more expensive, gas prices astronomical and parking spaces limited, putting a real damper on the kind of automobile enthusiasm seen in North America.

In all the talk of more human-scale communities, there’s no mention of aesthetics. For me, that’s the make-it-or-break-it part of the equation: our ugly built environments foster neither pride of place nor a desire to be out on foot, interacting with the place where we live as something to enjoy in its own right. It’s going to take a monumental effort at creating something better to get us out of the suburban model: Shifting from our box of a house to our box of a car to the box where we shop and the box where we work. The insides may be nice and comfortable, as we shut out the world and the others who happen to live in the same town, but the shared spaces are not conducive to creating the kind of community envisioned by proponents of a livable city.

For decades now, we’ve had a model of suburban sprawl – low-density living that relies on roads to connect our homes to shops and workplaces. In the region, it’s pretty difficult to get around without a car. The transit system is not particularly robust, especially outside of the main transit corridors, which means pretty much the bulk of the area. The townships are beyond the pale. The LRT will not change that one iota.

Living in a large suburb, kilometres away from a mall or massive power centre, we naturally get in our cars to get there. And, when it comes to work, many of us commute great distances. Changing that reality could take decades, even if we opt to do so. That would mean turning a 15-minute jaunt in the car into an hour or two on transit. And then there’s the part of standing around, perhaps in poor weather, before having to share your space with others.

The fact is that car ownership is seen as essential in most communities – few North American cities, such as New York, actually make car ownership more expensive and less convenient than doing without an automobile.

And once someone is invested in a car, most of the costs such as monthly payments and insurance are fixed whether it’s sitting in the driveway or rolling through town. Transit is rarely faster, so people take their cars. While people tend to underestimate the cost of operating their vehicles – gas, wear and tear and the like – they still see it as cheaper than using transit.

The kind of city envisioned by pioneer Jane Jacobs – the international Jane’s Walk is set for next weekend, including events in the region – is an ideal. Can we get there? Maybe. But not any time soon.