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ABSTRACT
Canada's post-Second World War policies on urbanism were first outlined in an obscure government document – the 1944 report of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Planning of the federal government's Advisory Committee on Reconstruction (known colloquially as the ‘Curtis Report’). This article uses the tools of Historical Institutionalism and extensive archival research to analyse the Curtis Report. It examines antecedent conditions in the Depression and war; permissive conditions during the wartime housing crisis; the actors and choice of options at the critical juncture; the reactions during implementation and the path-dependent municipal planning and suburbanization outcomes of the report. The Curtis Report is identified as a critical juncture for major changes in housing and community planning that set Canada on a different course than the UK or the USA.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Harris, Creeping Conformity; Unplanned Suburbs; Harris and Larkham, Changing Suburbs.
2 Curtis, C.A. (ed.) 1944. Advisory Committee on Reconstruction Subcommittee on Housing and Community Planning, Final Report. Ottawa, ON: King's Printer. Hereafter cited as ‘Curtis Report’.
3 Curtis Report, chapters 2, 3 and 7.
4 Town Planning Institute of Canada Fonds, Library and Archives Canada, MG 28 I275.
5 Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously.”
6 Sorensen, “Taking Critical Junctures Seriously.”
7 Sorensen, “Global Suburbanization in Planning History”; Ward, Freestone Silver, “The ‘New’ Planning History.”
8 Sorensen, “Taking Critical Junctures Seriously,” 930.
9 Sorensen “Taking Path Dependence Seriously,” 20; “Institutions and Urban Space”; “Taking Critical Junctures Seriously,” 930.
10 Sorensen “Taking Critical Junctures Seriously,” 931, drawing on Pierson, Politics in Time.
11 Sorensen, “Taking Path Dependence Seriously;” “Institutions and Urban Space”; “Multiscalar Governance.”
12 Grant, Filion and Low, “Path Dependencies Affecting Suburban Density”; Sorensen and Hess, “Building Suburbs, Toronto-style.”
13 Sorensen “Taking Critical Junctures Seriously,” 933.
14 Curtis Report, Table 13, p. 89.
15 E. J. Ashton, Memoirs, Provincial Archives of Alberta, PR1967.0137; Ashton, “Soldier Land Settlement”; Fedorowich, Unfit for Heroes.
16 Delaney, “The Garden Suburb of Lindenlea.”
17 Stone, Urban Development in Canada.
18 Simpson, Thomas Adams, Chapter 3.
19 Simpson, Thomas Adams, chapter 4; Delaney, “Garden Suburb of Lindenlea”; Fulton, “Hydrostone District, Halifax.”
20 Bloomfield, “Ubiquitous Town Planning Missionary”; Simpson, Thomas Adams, Chapter 5.
21 Curtis Report, Table 3, p. 32 and pp. 125-6.
22 Ashton, “Some Colonisation Problems.”
23 Gordon, 2019.
24 LSR Social Planning for Canada.
25 Carver, Compassionate Landscape, 13–21; Cassidy (LSR) to Carver, file 20/1, CCA Carver fonds; Carver, H. “A Housing Programme: Making Town Planning a Reality,” in LSR, Social Planning for Canada.
26 Curtis Report, Chapter 6, 131.
27 Ibid., 100–106.
28 Harris, Unplanned Suburbs.
29 Bacher, Keeping to the Marketplace; Hulchanski, “1935 Dominion Housing Act.”
30 Bothwell and Kilbourn, C.D. Howe, A Biography.
31 WHL fonds, LAC, RG 28; Wade, “Wartime Housing Limited.”
32 Somerville, “Site Planning for Wartime Housing.”
33 Kingston was different and resisted some WHL initiatives; see Curtis fonds (QUA) Box 2, file 18, “Correspondence: J.M. Piggott.”
34 Curtis Report, Chapter 4.
35 Young, “Reining in James”; Grant, Mackintosh, The Life of a Canadian Economist.
36 Irving, “Canadian Fabians;” Wilcox-Magill and Helmes-Hayes, "Leonard Charles Marsh.”
37 Curtis Report, page.3; Brandt, "Pigeon-Holed and Forgotten":
38 Curtis fonds (QUA) Box 2, File 37: Reconstruction Housing – “Preliminary Report.”
39 Urquhart, “Clifford Austin Curtis.”
40 Gordon and Wehbi, “Clifford Austin Curtis.”
41 Curtis Fonds (QUA), Box 2, File 38, Curtis to C.F. James 3 Feb 1943.
42 See note 28 above.
43 Curtis Report, Appendix E, 266–71.
44 Adams, Rural Planning and Development, chapter VI; Carver, “Strategy of Town Planning.”
45 Ward, Peaceful Path.
46 Stern et al., Paradise Planned.
47 Miller, Hampstead Garden Suburb.
48 McCann, Imagining Uplands; “Planning and Building;” Delaney, “Lindenlea”.
49 Choko, Une cité-jardin à Montréal.
50 Curtis Report, chapter 2 and Table 3, p. 32.
51 Ibid., chapter 3.
52 Bacher, Keeping to the Marketplace.
53 CCA Carver fonds, National Housing Conference, 1939, file 20/16.2.
54 Curtis Report, chapter 3.
55 Harris, “From ‘black-balling’ to ‘marking’;” Hackworth, “Why there is no Detroit in Canada.”
56 Curtis Report, 52–57.
57 Thomas Adams, Outline of Town and City Planning.
58 Bartholomew & Assoc., Plan for the City of Vancouver; Bloomfield, “Ubiquitous Missionary.”
59 Sert, Can Our Cities Survive?
60 Carver, Compassionate Landscape, 21; “Strategy of Town Planning,” Figure 1.
61 Perry, “The Neighborhood Unit;” Stein, “Toward New Towns for America.”
62 Carver, “Strategy of Town Planning”, Figure 7; Choko, Une Cité-jardin à Montréal.
63 Curtis Fonds (QUA), Box 2, File 38, C.F. James to Curtis, 13 Jan 1943.
64 Curtis Report, 4.
65 Firestone, Residential real estate in Canada.
66 Curtis Fonds (QUA), Box 2, File 38, Reconstruction (Marsh) 1941–1944.
67 Curtis Fonds (QUA), Box 2, File 38, Marsh to Curtis, 22 July 1943.
68 Curtis Fonds (QUA), Box 2, File 38, Piggott to Curtis 16 Dec 1943.
69 Curtis Fonds (QUA), Box 2, File 38, Reconstruction (Marsh) 1941–1944.
70 Young, “Reining in James.”
71 Curtis Report, chapters 2 and 3.
72 Ibid., chapter 6 and 8
73 Ibid., recommendations 52-61.
74 Ibid., chapter 9 and recommendations 62–75.
75 Ibid., chapter 8
76 Curtis Fonds (QUA), Box 2, File 38, Curtis to Marsh, August 30, 1943.
77 Curtis Report, 9–10.
78 Curtis Report, 15–17.
79 Curtis Report, 173.
80 Curtis Report, 173.
81 White, Planning Toronto, 43–46.
82 Curtis Report, 169-70.
83 Canada, National Housing Act, S.C. 1944, C-46, ss 24–5.
84 Mansur, “A Sense of Mission.”
85 CCA Carver fonds, “Proceedings, Community Planning Conference, Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, June 25th and 26th, 1946,” file 20/45.
86 Howe, “Community Planning in the Reconstruction Period,” speech delivered at Community Planning Conference, Ottawa, 25 June 1946, 4; CCA Carver fonds, file 20/45.
87 CCA Carver fonds, “Alan Hugh Armstrong,” file 20/51.1; “1948–1955 Continuous Development of the Community Planning Association,” file 20/47 B.
88 Ontario, An Act Respecting Planning and Development, 1946, S.O. c 71, s 25.
89 Wang, “An evaluation of Perry's Neighbourhood Unit Concept”; Gordon and Harding, “The Disappearing Grid.”
90 Firestone, Residential real estate in Canada, Tables 109–110; Wade, “Wartime Housing Limited.”
91 CCA Carver fonds, “Minutes, CPAC Montreal Conference, 2–4 Oct 47,” file 20/44; Compassionate Landscape, 88–89.
92 CCA Carver fonds, files 20/47 to 20/98; Compassionate Landscape, chapters 8–14.
93 Gordon and Harding, “The Disappearing Grid.”
94 McGeachy, “Polson Park and Calvin Park.”
95 Barker, “Ajax" McGeachy, “The CMHC in Ajax”; Spence-Sales fonds, McGill, “Oromocto: Conference.” (1957); Gordon and Virginillo, “Canada's Model Town.”
96 CMHC, Choosing a House Design (1952); Principles of Small House Grouping (1954); Harris, Creeping Conformity, front cover and Figure 12.
97 CMHC, Builders’ Bulletin; Site Planning Handbook.
98 CCA Carver fonds, “Development of University Graduate Courses in Town Planning,” file 20/47; “Grants Made under Part V of the National Housing Act,” file 20/84.
99 Harold Spence-Sales fonds, McGill, “Planning Legislation in Canada, 1948,” box 59; McMurray, Outlines of Canadian Planning Law.
100 CPAC fonds (LAC), MG 28 I14; Vol. 1 and 2; Gordon and Virginillo “Post-war Revival.”
101 Stephenson, On a Human Scale, 154–178; Gregory and Gordon, “Gordon Stephenson.”
102 Spence-Sales, How to Subdivide; Unwin, “Nothing Gained”; Urban Land Institute, Community Builders Handbook.
103 Rose, Regent Park; Dennis and Fish, Programs in Search of a Policy; Sewell, Shape of the City.
104 Harris, Creeping Conformity; Hulchanski, “What factors shape Canadian housing policy?” Gordon and Harding, “The Disappearing Grid.”
105 Keil and Fu, After Suburbia; Newman and Kenworthy, End of Automobile Dependence; Gordon and Herteg, Canadian Suburbs Atlas.
106 Blais, Perverse Cities.
107 Leung, Land Use Planning Made Plain; Hodge, Planning Canadian Communities.
108 Harris, Creeping Conformity; Sewell, The Shape of the City; The Shape of the Suburbs.
109 Duany. “Rethinking Suburban Sprawl,” 24:55 min.
110 Lorimer, The Developers; Spurr; Land and Urban Development.
111 MacDermid, “Funding City Politics.”
112 CIP: https://www.cip-icu.ca/About/About-Us; APA: https://www.planning.org/dashboard/. Accessed September 30, 2023.
113 Harris, Unplanned Suburbs; Wolfe, “Canadian housing policy in the nineties;” Hulchanski, “What factors shape Canadian housing policy?”.
114 Leung. Land Use Planning Made Plain; Cullingworth, Political Culture of Planning.
115 Tomalty and Mallach, America's Urban Future; Leung, Land Use Planning Made Plain; Hodge, Planning Canadian Communities; Cullingworth, Political Culture of Planning.
116 Sewell, Shape of the City, foreword by Jane Jacobs; Hulchanski, St. Lawrence and False Creek.
117 Newman and Kenworthy, End of Automobile Dependence.
118 Sorensen and Hess, “Metropolitan Indicators”; “Building Suburbs”; Tomalty and Mallach, America's Urban Future; Grant, “An American effect”; Hackworth, “Why there is no Detroit in Canada.”
119 Pierson, Politics in Time.
120 Carver, Decades, 97.
121 Marsh, "Housing Policy and Community Planning."
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David L. A. Gordon
David L. A. Gordon FCIP RPP AICP is a Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning of the Department of Geography and Planning at Queen's University in Canada. He was SURP Director for over a decade and also taught at McGill, Ryerson, Toronto, Riga, Western Australia, Harvard and Pennsylvania, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. David holds a doctorate from the Harvard GSD and other awards and honours. Recent books include Town and Crown: An Illustrated History of Canada's Capital and Planning Canadian Communities (with Pam Shaw). His latest research examines planning histories and compares Canadian and American suburbs.