A previous version of this article appeared in e-architect.co.uk/ They say of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Romantic poet and famous opium addict, that he was prone to digress into his illustrations. He had a far-searching mind that just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Defining sustainable community would have given him hours of fun. Renewable energy. Ten percent of Germany’s roofs now green. Ten-thousand solar rooftops in LA. Stockholm suburban houses that one can heat with a hair dryer. Leed-certified box stores. Most of the press on the subject suggests that sustainable homes mean technologically savvy and energy efficient. But the marketing and attention given to eco-gadgetry overlooks a couple vital human needs. Every day I drive through the vinyl sea that was once a novel garden city en route to our little three-acre plot north of Kanata. I scan the streetscape for attempts at architectural beauty: gothic signifiers in a hotel fit for Batman; the preservation of the hundred-year-old March House (soon to be dwarfed by a box store neighbour); a stylish renovation to a bungalow now a dental clinic (with stonework outside that reminds me of crooked teeth in need of straightening). But, I have to look hard. Most of the time I think I could be on any suburban street in Toronto, Seattle, or Vancouver and not know the difference. I’m not a fan of suburbia. But suburbia is where I grew up. My pastoral playground was the bungalow-ville of the seventies. Its developers, too, had paved over valuable farmland. My neighbourhood was far from the modern density ideal.