Just a comment of mine about sprawl. As any informed voter should do I have been browsing candidate websites, reading newpaper articles, registering on twitter feeds, et al. I've noticed that generally any candidate who mentions development or sprawl is against it for the reasons being that it costs more in infrastructure, areas are unwalkable, transportation is car reliant, et al. To that affect I completely and utterly agree with that line of thinking.
After reading some stuff from Nenshi in developing more higher density, walkable communities with Garrison Woods being used as a beacon of enlightenment for future communities that can also feature many sizable family friendly town homes, I couldn't help but dream of living in a community like Garrison Woods. So I started looking at real estate sites and the like and found that town homes of size with backyards et al go for "From the 650,000s" according to the new 'Victoria Cross' Development
http://www.homesbyavi.com/main.asp?CityID=1. Highly levered 5%, 35% mortgage option aside, realistically this dream can only be attained by a family that features a couple who both earn six figures and in the end it's still just a townhome.
Obviously when faced with a choice between Garrison Woods and a 1700 sq foot home in far flung suburbs its no wonder Joe Six Pack who makes less than $100,000 a year chooses to live in far flung suburbs. He gets more house and land for his dollar. Bottomline, there's going to be the same demand for the single family detached homes with a backyard regardless of what the city does. If the City of Calgary curbs this kind development then ultimately it will price Joe Sixpack out of the Calgary market and you'll see people like him develop the crap out of places like Langdon, Airdrie, Cochrane, Okotoks. They'll still use City of Calgary infrastructure but the City will have no ability to tax his property.
This then brings me to the policies of Kent Hehr, who seems to be the only candidate that thinks of development and transportation in regional terms and sponsors more regional cooperation,
http://kenthehr.ca/media/CEC%20Backgrounder.pdf. Not sure if I'm going to vote for Kent, but at least he acknowledges that Calgary doesn't exisit in isolation. Sprawl isn't a Calgary only problem. If there are not good regional plans with regards to housing development and transportation then the 'Calgary region' will ultimately look the same from space regardless of whether Nenshi's model of development is used or McIvor's. The only difference is where the imaginary border lines between cities will be drawn.