fastcompany.com

The community is the Orbit, a futuristic-sounding name for a new district on the edge of the town of Innisfil, Ontario, a commuter city about a half-hour drive north of Toronto.

The plan for the Orbit is a grid of streets radiating around a dense central district, with proposed mid-rise towers, plentiful open spaces, and a mix of residential, commercial, and civic buildings. The center point of the plan is a commuter rail station that links Innisfil and other suburban communities to Toronto.

The town is hoping to avoid repeating the patterns of other suburbs in the region. “Strip malls, subdivisions, big-box stores, all that stuff we see all over North America,” says Jerschow. “The vision for the Orbit was about rethinking that approach.”