On a snowy evening in Cranbrook...



Jeremy Sturgess

 Over 80 people gathered at the College of the Rockies last night to hear architect Jeremy Sturgess speak about sustainable development and architecture. Jeremy is familiar with the East Kootenays and he enjoyed being able to see  parts of Cranbrook including our charming downtown, some of the heritage neighbourhoods, and Slaterville. (Look for more ideas from Jeremy on Slaterville in a later blog post) Jeremy believes that sprawl is no longer sustainable for cities. This does not mean cities will not "grow", in fact sustainability helps create growth. Many cities have 100 years of usable land if they would increase density and use fallow land within the cities boundaries.  Higher density housing does not necessarily mean high rise apartments and he showed us many examples of his work  It means beautiful well designed units which can follow people through their entire life cycles. It's time to rethink the suburb and our car centric urban planning to start creating urban villages where people can work within their neighbourhoods. Cranbrook has an amazing opportunity to be a leader in this sort of planning and development.   Thanks to Jeremy Sturgess for sharing his inspirational vision and  providing us with ideas for our future here in Cranbrook.