I used to write about the Internet and telecommunications for a living, but urban planning frequently seems even tougher to describe. I’m not sure why. I often felt that the tech community never figured out that acronyms were meant to make things easier to remember, not harder. RSS feeds? JPEGs? VOIP? DSL? Really? Planners don’t traffic in such odd terminology, but the field can still seem hard to convey. It’s rooted in data and science and seeks to analyze large-scale cause and effect over a long span. That’s why I was excited when a colleague forwarded me a link to Saga City, a video produced by a Quebec firm called Vivre en Ville. It depicts — in cartoon form, of all things — how suburban sprawl occurs, why it hastens climate change and why planning is crucial to confront that challenge.

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