The greening of Sudbury

Excerpt

SUDBURY, Ontario. Since the late 1800s, this name has been synonymous with mining activity in North America. It is also known for barren, tree-less landscape which is part of this mining legacy. So drastic was the environmental damage that a widespread, negative image of Sudbury developed—an image that made it difficult to attract new investment and interest in the area.

To counter this problem, the community of Sudbury set out to change its image through new private and public sector building projects, community cultural improvements, area promotion, environmental pollution reduction, and landscape improvement. The latter includes the major initiatives undertaken between 1978 and 1986 to improve Sudbury's physical environment.

The setting

The Regional Municipality of Sudbury is located in northeastern Ontario, about 250 miles north of Toronto. Built into a northern landscape of beautiful lakes, rocky outcrops, and forested valleys, Sudbury is an urban center of 152,000 people It lies on the southern portion of Canada's Precambrian Shield in a vegetation transition zone between the eastern deciduous forest of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Forest Region and the coniferous forests of the Boreal Forest region. In spite of its beautiful surroundings, a significant …