“I have travelled to many places, but rarely did I find such a rich and well preserved landscape as around Halifax.”

This is how Douglas Olsen, President and CEO O2 Planning+Design, described Halifax at the first stake holder session for the Halifax Green Network Plan, which his company has been hired to write. His company has operated across Canada and around the world, so he knows of what he speaks. Sadly, Halifax is unique in Canada both for its access to green spaces and for its zeal for building over them. To understand how Halifax’s tendency to garble up land compares to other cities, we analyzed high resolution before-and-after satellite pictures. The results shocked us. In 22 years we grew in population by only one fifth, yet almost doubled in size.