By letting public spaces and services fail, our cities are breaking a fundamental promise to the people who live there

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Jennifer Keesmaat is chief executive of Collecdev-Markee, a member of the National Taskforce on Housing and Climate, and a former chief planner of the City of Toronto.

For years, transit-oriented development has been framed as a solution to the housing crisis, with the promise that by building more homes near transit, we can create communities where people live without cars, reducing congestion, emissions and the significant financial burden of vehicle ownership.

Yet, this vision relies on some baseline assumptions: that the public realm will support this way of living. That transit-oriented housing will exist within a network of walkable, vibrant streets; that parks and libraries will provide the communal spaces urban residents rely on; that our cities will be clean, safe, and welcoming.

Those assumptions are no longer valid.

Public spaces in many of our cities are failing. Sidewalks that were once sufficient are now too narrow and crumbling. Parks and public squares have become overburdened and undermaintained, instead of growing alongside increasing density. Garbage bins overflow, transit stops are unkempt and the basic elements of a functional, attractive and livable urban environment are being neglected.

We need to acknowledge that we have a problem. If we continue to invest in density without investing in the spaces that make density livable, we are setting our cities up for failure.

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It amounts to a broken promise: We are telling people they don’t need a car, while failing to provide them with clean, safe, and well-designed streets. We are encouraging families to live in smaller spaces, while neglecting the parks, plazas and libraries that make compact living work. We are increasing the demands on our urban fabric while steadily lowering our expectations of what it should deliver. If we continue to do so, families and our young people will give up on our cities.

This is not a secondary issue – it is a core economic concern, too. The vast majority of Canada’s economic output is generated in cities, a strong urban public realm is essential to measures of productivity; if people feel unsafe, if daily commutes and errands are made frustrating by neglected infrastructure, they will leave. The efficiency of an urban work force also depends on the seamless movement of people through well-maintained and well-designed streets and transit networks, and when sidewalks are insufficient for pedestrian volumes or when basic amenities and public spaces are not provided, cities become harder places to live and work, affecting businesses, growth and national economic performance.

Cities also play an essential role in generating strong social bonds. Urban life is built around shared spaces, such as plazas, coffee shops, parks and main streets. These places are where people run into neighbours, where chance encounters foster relationships, where a sense of belonging is created. The beauty of urban living, when it works, is that it creates an ecosystem where people of all backgrounds cross paths, where social networks strengthen and where a collective identity is formed. So the decline of these spaces is not just a matter of inconvenience; if cities are designed without a commitment to shared public spaces, the very fabric of community life is eroded, isolating us rather than bringing us together.

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This feeling of togetherness is especially crucial in a moment when Canada faces growing uncertainty amid an escalating tariff war with the United States that could easily become something even worse. Now more than ever, we need spaces that bring people together, foster solidarity and reinforce our national resilience – because the physical, social and economic strength of our communities will be a defining factor in how well we navigate today’s challenges.

Despite Canada’s sprawling geography, a significant portion of the population already lives without a car. In Toronto, for example, more than 30 per cent of households do not own a vehicle, with this number rising to 75 per cent in the urban core; in Montreal, 35 per cent of residents don’t own one, and in central Montreal, 70 per cent of residents walk, bicycle or use transit as their primary form of transportation. For these residents, the city is not just a place to live; it is their entire ecosystem. They rely on safe sidewalks, well-maintained bike lanes, clean and welcoming public spaces, and well-connected transit to make urban living functional and enjoyable.

However, despite the promise of transit-oriented development, our cities are failing to meet even the most basic expectations for pedestrian-friendly urban infrastructure. Many transit-adjacent neighbourhoods lack well-maintained public spaces and suffer from neglected parks, deteriorating sidewalks and declining cleanliness. This failure is not just an inconvenience; it is a betrayal of the very promise of urban living.

A well-functioning, dense, transit-oriented city is also our best tool for tackling climate change. The carbon tax is gone, but our need to reduce our carbon footprint continues. The single largest contributor to emissions in Canada is transportation. The most effective way to reduce those emissions is not by electrifying every vehicle but by designing cities where most people do not need a car in the first place. But that only works if people actually want to live in these places. If public spaces are poorly maintained, if streets are unpleasant to walk in, and if density is not matched with investments in quality of life, then people will seek out more attractive-seeming alternatives, such as car-dependent suburbs. A failure to commit to a strong public realm undermines the very policies that are meant to create a more sustainable future.

So we find ourselves at a critical moment in the future of Canada’s cities. We are growing, densifying and investing in transit in ways that could dramatically reshape how people live, which is a positive signal – but we need to be honest about where we are falling short. If we do not acknowledge the scale of decline in our public spaces, we risk compromising the very goals we set out to achieve.

The first step is recognizing the problem in the public spaces that sustain the city life we want. The next step is deciding that we care enough to do something about it.