How to Grow Without Losing Your Soul

There’s no question: change is coming. Across the country, small towns and cities are preparing for rapid growth, and for many, it feels like a double-edged sword. On one hand, there’s opportunity—new businesses, new neighbours, new energy. On the other, there’s the risk of losing the things that make these places worth caring about in the first place.

But growth doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. Communities can expand while preserving their character. They can welcome new people without becoming unrecognizable. In fact, they can get better—more vibrant, more connected, and more resilient—if they choose to grow wisely.

I use the word “wise” intentionally. A Wise Community is one that thinks long-term. It invests not just in buildings, but in place. And it makes decisions that strengthen the connections between people and where they live.

The communities I’ve worked with that get this right tend to follow a few key principles.

First, they understand the importance of connection. Too often, new developments pop up in isolation—subdivisions that exist more as commuter outposts than as true neighbourhoods. Wise growth stitches new areas into the existing fabric of the town. It ensures people can walk or bike to schools, shops, parks, and public spaces. It prioritizes strollable streets over wider highways.

Second, they create new hubs for community life. As towns grow, their historic downtowns can’t do it all. Rather than sprawling endlessly outward, wise communities look for opportunities to create new gathering places—walkable, mixed-use areas where people can live, work, and socialize. In one town I know, the community is reimagining an old industrial road as a second downtown: a place for local businesses, public spaces, and new housing that complements the historic core rather than competing with it.

Third, they design for people, not just cars. We’ve all seen developments where parking lots dominate the landscape, where you have to drive just to get a coffee or pick up a loaf of bread. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Putting parking behind buildings, creating human-scale streetscapes, and designing storefronts that invite people in can transform a place from forgettable to beloved.

And perhaps most importantly, Wise Communities learn from what already works. Many of our historic downtowns are beautiful not because of grand architecture, but because of good design at a human scale. Narrower streets, buildings that frame public space, places that encourage chance encounters and community gathering—these are the things that give a place its heart. We should apply these lessons as we build new neighbourhoods.

Growth inevitably asks something of a town. It’s a kind of withdrawal from the community’s bank account—of land, of attention, of identity. But if we’re smart about it, we can make deposits, too. We can create places that future generations will inherit with pride, not regret.

In the end, it’s not about stopping growth. It’s about shaping it—so our communities grow into themselves, not away from themselves.