Raise the Hammer

I can't remember the proper name of the theory, planning School was a long time ago however, there is a population growth/cost of servicing relationship curve that seems to hold true even today.

Generally for a city with Canadian,American, Australian and New Zealand like urban sprawl development and a centrally located denser old downtown core you have an interesting breakdown along area population size and the costs of servicing them. Keep in mind economy and geography can alter this somewhat.

Generally, if a city/urban area's population is below 750,000, a 1% increase in population will produce a less than 1% increase in the cost to service that growth.

If the city/urban area's population is between 750,000-1,250,000, a 1% increase in population will produce a 1% increase in the cost to service that growth.

If the city/urban area's population is greater than 1,250,000, a 1% increase in population will produce a greater than 1% increase in the cost to service that growth.

This being true, once an area has reached a certain population it is better to alter and or increase the density of standard suburban development and or any new residential and commercial development located throughout the area, as the area's population grows to get a better return for servicing cost of growth. That usually means intensification of existing communities and changing the way you build newer ones. Which is what is slowly happening. Better regular transit and the introduction of rapid transit becomes a must at this point. Even American cities with hard core road only planning have realized that once an urban area has reached a population 4 million it is virtually impossible to handle the majority of new traffic growth with personal car based roads and expressways. Even Texas has admitted to this, transit spending has to greatly increase.

Dallas by the way, has in terms of mileage, the largest LRT system in North America. Almost 160km of LRT ROW has been produced since 1996. Houston which has significantly less LRT mileage but has one of the most heavily used LRT systems in the US (measured by passengers per mile of service). If Dallas and Houston can build LRT, certainly Hamilton has the ability to pass out enough consent among its city councilors to actually support and vote for an LRT system!