What other cities can learn from development of Townsend, Ont. — a planned 'utopia' gone wrong

This article is part of a week-long CBC Hamilton series called, "How should cities grow? Hamilton's boundary dilemma," examining urban sprawl and boundary expansion.

Doug Ramsey spent Tuesday morning walking around a dream of a bustling city that was never fully realized.

Wide parkways run through it, arriving at stop signs surrounded by green space and hundreds of houses.

There's an artificial lake, a sprawling retirement home, and the top of a large government building can be seen peeking over the tops of trees. Everything is connected by a network of trails.

It was noticeably quiet. A woman could be seen walking her dog near the water. The odd car or truck drove up, slowing slightly before rolling through, on to somewhere else.

Welcome to Townsend, Ont.

Born in the 1970s, the community just under a hour's drive southwest from Hamilton was pitched as an Ontario government-sponsored development that would transform a rural section of Haldimand and Norfolk counties into a "megalopolis" to house hundreds of thousands of people drawn to the area by industrial employers.

Now it's home to fewer than 1,000, said Ramsey, citing data from the 2016 census.

It boasts plenty of parkland and amenities, but not a single store.

It exists as a sort of island of sprawl, a suburb without a city. Residents, experts and an artist who tracked Townsend's legacy say it's a community that offers lessons for Hamilton, as it wrestles with the question of whether its urban boundary should be expanded, and other cities that are looking to grow. 

For some, Townsend is a perfect place to call home, so long as you have access to a car. For others, it exists as a curious case and a cautionary tale of government planning gone wrong.

"On the drafting board, this is utopia," said Ramsey, who is from nearby Simcoe and spent three years working in Townsend for the regional planning department.

He even wrote a thesis on it back in 1991 titled "Townsend, Ontario: The Case of Failed New Town Development." 

Now, he's a professor in the Department of Rural Development at Brandon University in Manitoba, where he still uses Townsend to teach students how having a vision doesn't mean it will be properly implemented.