Photo by Raphaël Biscaldi on Unsplash
Two mornings, one city
Scene one: At 7:15 a.m., she grabs her bicycle and rides through streets shaded by old trees, arriving within minutes at her neighbourhood café where the barista greets her by name. She chats briefly with a neighbour about weekend plans and the upcoming school meeting for their children. Cycling along dedicated bike lanes, she feels the breeze, hears birds singing. She spots a friend on the sidewalk — just enough time to exchange a smile and a quick wave. She passes a small park, a bookstore, and a bus stop. The city feels human in scale, distances are short and everyday life is tangible. Time is not “dead time” for her — it is lived and experienced. After half an hour, she reaches her downtown workplace without traffic or parking. Her commute is an active and engaging part of the day.
Scene two: At 7:00 a.m., he steps into the garage and starts the car, the engine echoing in the enclosed space. He drives along wide, empty streets to a plaza, joins the drive-through line, and orders coffee through a speaker. A few metres ahead, a barista hands him his coffee through a small window, with no time for a “good morning.” The next car waits, the barista rushes. The whole exchange feels faceless. At a red light, he sips his coffee and watches passing cars through his windshield. He arrives at work, parks in the garage, and rides the elevator to his office. Everything unfolds within enclosed spaces — car, parkade, elevator. He remembers that after work he has to do thirty minutes of cardio at the gym, as his doctor recommended.
Both people live in the same city, yet the quality of their daily lives differs. One experiences and touches the city; the other just moves through it. The difference is not simply a matter of lifestyle choice, it reflects the built environment: life in an infill and compact neighbourhood versus a sprawling suburban context.
“Sprawl” refers to the outward expansion of development at a pace that exceeds population growth, typically low-density housing on the urban fringe. It is often characterized by a dispersed settlement pattern and single-use zoning, separating residential areas from employment and services. It uses more land per person over time (OECD, 2014). It means higher levels of car dependency, longer commute times, and reduced accessibility for non-drivers. Also poorer air quality, more traffic accidents, and worse public health outcomes such as obesity, chronic diseases, and social exclusion (Jaeger and Nazarnia, 2016; Luan and Fuller, 2022).
Sprawl has other consequences. As the land cover changes, natural systems are altered, disrupting local microclimates, water cycles, and biodiversity. The availability and quality of habitats for local plant and animal species, as well as opportunities for people to connect with nature, may be reduced.
How has Kamloops been growing?
Like many mid-size Canadian cities, Kamloops has historically developed under zoning that favored single-use, low-density residential neighbourhoods. Urban growth was usually larger homes with cul-de-sacs and expanded roads in peripheral subdivisions; also extensive strip malls with large parking lots and vehicle-oriented commercial areas. Neighbourhoods expanded into forested areas at the city’s edge. Transportation patterns here reflect this dispersed urban form: in 2021, nearly 88% of commuters used a private vehicle, 10% higher than the BC average (Statistics Canada, 2021).
Population density is an indicator of urban compactness. In 2021, Kamloops’ density was 329 people per square kilometre, rising steadily at a moderate rate of approximately 0.6% per year. This rate places the city in a transitional position, between faster-growing urban centres and slower growing communities. It is not densifying as strongly as Kelowna or Chilliwack, but its consistent upward trend suggests gradual urban intensification and a shift toward more compact development.
Kamloops’ geography shapes its urban form. Bisected by two rivers, it has a large municipal boundary includes steep slopes, silt bluffs, floodplains, areas of high wildfire risk, extensive hillsides, agricultural land reserves, river corridors, grasslands, and other environmental constraints. Unlike Nanaimo, Penticton, or Courtenay—whose boundaries more closely align with developed areas—Kamloops spans a broad and varied landscape, where the physical constraints have contributed to a multi-nodal urban pattern that complicates the efficient provision of public transit and active transportation infrastructure (Figure 1).
Figure 1- Population density in Kamloops compared with peer cities over 20 years (Source: based on Stats Canada)
What 24 years of growth in Kamloops reveals
Another way to understand the impacts of sprawl is through vegetation dynamics, a measure used to track changes in land cover and assess the overall environmental health of growing cities (Figure 2). Higher values indicate dense, healthy vegetation (shown in shades of blue), while lower values point to sparse or stressed vegetation (shown in shades of yellow). Visual comparison of vegetation dynamics in Kamloops over a 24-year period shows the extent of vegetation decline in newer peripheral neighbourhoods such as Aberdeen, Juniper, Westsyde, and Valleyview, when comparing 2000 to 2024.
Figure 2- Comparison of vegetation presence across the city in 2000 and 2024 (Source: Author’s analysis based on Landsat 7 and Landsat 8/9 data September 2000 and 2024. GIS resources provided by Simon Fraser University).
However, at a citywide scale, it seems that the loss of vegetation due to development was outweighed by vegetation densification across large undeveloped or managed landscapes: approximately 53% of land in the city’s boundaries saw an increase in vegetation (blue), while 28% of the land remained largely unchanged (grey) and in 19% of the land vegetation declined (yellow) (Figure 3). This pattern could be explained by the natural resilience of local plant species in large natural areas allowing vegetation to recover and by the management of parks and open spaces, which helps offset vegetation losses in developed areas.
Figure 3- Vegetation dynamics in Kamloops, 2000–2024 (Source: Author’s analysis based on Landsat 7 and Landsat 8/9 data September 2000 and 2024. GIS resources provided by Simon Fraser University)
Who pays for sprawl?
Sprawl places significant long-term burdens on municipal finances. Low-density housing at the urban edge costs more to service per household (e.g., roads, water, sewer). While developers may pay additional charges to cover these costs initially, future maintenance becomes the city’s responsibility. As a result, owners of lower-density housing pay less than their ‘fair share’ of the long-term costs, and owners of higher-density housing pay more. In addition, because all road use is free of charge, residents with long-distance car commutes benefit more from the city’s road maintenance, repair, and policing costs than residents with shorter or non-car commutes (North of Somewhere, 2025).
Towards growing wisely: How Kamloops directs growth toward the core
Municipalities manage sprawl using a mix of bylaws, policies, and incentives such as permanent growth boundary (Kelowna), unused land tax (Tallinn) or building obligations (Rothenbrunnen). Some of Kamloops’ existing policy and regulatory frameworks tend to discourage further sprawl:
- Developers pay development charges at different rates, based on location. Rates for multi-family projects in the “Core Sector” (downtown, the North Shore, and designated town centres) are lower. As a result, higher-density and more compact developments in the Core may face lower per-unit development cost charges compared to projects built on the urban fringe. The updated bylaw is expected to come in front of Council in March 2026.
- Under the City’s Revitalization Tax Exemption Bylaws for hotel and motel redevelopment, as well as for areas in the city centre and the North Shore, eligible developments may receive a 100% exemption on the municipal portion of taxes applied to the increase in assessed improvement value for up to 10 years.
- The newly adopted Official Community Plan (2025) projects that roughly 35% of future housing growth will take place in the Core Sector and anticipates that 48% of new housing over the next 20 years will be in high-density forms. The plan clearly distinguishes between developments in already serviced areas and those on the city’s edge, with the majority of anticipated 20-year growth—around 70%—expected to occur within established, serviced neighbourhoods.
- Transit-oriented areas have been designated within 400 metres of major transit exchanges at Lansdowne, North Shore, and Thompson Rivers University. These areas support higher-density residential development near transit. A proposed transit-supporting area near the potential Valleyview Transit Exchange also aims to transition car-oriented land uses toward a mixed-use, transit-supportive urban form.
- The Official Community Plan concentrates growth within mixed-use areas, including town centres. Land use policies also prioritize walkability, access to daily needs and to transit. Integrated transportation design, including sidewalks, cycling routes, multi-use pathways, and transit connections is a requirement.
While Kamloops’ policies and bylaws provide a framework on paper to encourage infill, compact and transit-oriented growth, the real test lies in how the market responds and how consistently the political will supports sustainable growth. Developers usually express concerns that land policies by themselves may not resolve development challenges. Intensification projects are often less profitable and harder to finance than undeveloped-site or suburban development, partly because of higher cost for land assembly, and elevated land prices. Political factors, including voter preferences and election timing, can influence how successful intensification initiatives are. Translating these plans into action requires consistent enforcement and alignment between market forces and the city’s goals for a livable, efficient, and resilient urban form.
Kamloops’ core area has historically been shaped by the confluence of the North and South Thompson Rivers — a defining geographical feature that has long contributed to the city’s identity and character. Cities that benefit from such a strategic setting have strong potential to successfully implement downtown intensification, provided that there is adequate investment in amenities and infrastructure to enhance the attractiveness and public perception of living in the core rather than in suburban areas (Graham et al., 2024). This potential is especially significant in Kamloops given the presence of Thompson Rivers University; it attracts a population of young professionals to the city which creates additional capacity for cultivating an energetic, inclusive, and engaging urban core.
The year 2030 is the target for achieving a 30% reduction in community greenhouse gas emissions and is also the end of the the next planning cycle for updating the Official Community Plan. Hopefully, between now and then, day by day, more of us can experience that morning of walking, cycling, and spontaneous socializing, where the city feels alive, welcoming and truly ours.
Acknowledgment
Thanks to Simon Fraser University for the use of GIS resources.
References:
Graham, R., Momer, B., Filion, P. (2024). Sprawl to tall: Lessons from Kelowna as a blueprint for downtown intensi-fication in mid-sized cities, Canadian Journal of Urban Research (33):2-16-36
Jaeger JAG, Nazarnia N.(2016). Social and ecological impacts of the exponential increase of urban sprawl in Montréal. Can Comm Dis Rep; 42:207-8.https://doi.org/10.14745/ccdr.v42i10a07
Luan, H., Fuller, D. (2022). Urban form in Canada at a small-area level: Quantifying “compactness” and “sprawl” with bayesian multivariate spatial factor analysis, EPB: Urban Analytics and City Science, Vol. 49(4) 1300–1313. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083211062901
OECD (2014). Deconstructing Canada’s Housing Markets: Finance, Affordability and Urban Sprawl” (Calista Cheung, OECD Economics Department Working Paper No. 1145, 2014).
North of Somewhere (2025). We built a city we can’t afford. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIRGI5FLZps
U.S. Geological Survey. (2024). Landsat7, 8/9 imagery for Kamloops, [September 2000–2024].
