Skytrain station, Surrey, B.C.
The majority of urban Americans live in suburban metropolitan areas, and the challenge of the coming decade will be making the suburbs more urban, that is, making them denser and creating active, concentrated, walkable town centers. To see how this might be done, one must look no further than Surrey, a suburban community in metropolitan Vancouver, British Columbia. Linked to the city and the urban region by Skytrain, an elevated mass transit system, Surrey is no stagnant suburban dormitory; with almost half a million residents, by 2020 its population is expected to surpass that of Vancouver itself. Outside the Skytrain station (left) is a pedestrian plaza leading to Surrey Central City. At first glance the complex looks like a shopping mall—but it’s hardly a run-of-the-mill mall.