The intent of Sustainable Burlington is to cultivate our citizen responses to urban sprawl, energy issues, and climate upsets, with appropriate lifestyle choices. We are learning about and experimenting with appropriate scale of living options. Some of us may actively prepare for disruptions in the marketplace of goods and services we now take for granted. We see important areas for citizen involvement such as public transit versus cars, local shopping and workplaces, residential neighbourhoods and public spaces, food quality and local production, to name a few.

We will inform the city government of our ideas, mobilize and lobby as appropriate, and actively change what we can in our personal situations. We are intent on cultivating the ability of neighbourhoods to engage, support and rely on each other, especially in times of stress.

In particular, SB is a community-led initiative which advocates the creation of an Energy Preparedness Action Plan for Burlington. We believe that a city using much less energy than we presently consume could, if properly planned for and designed, be more resilient, more abundant and more pleasurable that the present growth-dependent economy will be able to provide, in the 3 to 5 year time frame.

Burlington is 187 sq km, 43% urban, by area, total pop 150,000, avg family income C$94,000. 17% of households have income below the LICO (low income cut-off) poverty line. Pop density is 8 per hectare, pretty low, but even in the urban area it is not very dense. It is a commuter town, with the same number of people leaving each day for work as come into it. To learn more about Burlington see A Social Profile of Burlington, by Community Development Halton, http://www.cdhalton.ca/, a social development agency for all members of the Halton community.