Riding through vineyards is fun - but watch out for snakes.

Urban planning is a lot like oxygen, you don’t miss it until you realize you no longer have it.

I realized this on my recent father-son bike tour through the Okanagan. Last week my dad and I set out to wander the vineyards of the Okanagan and test our mettle against the windy hills of Penticton and beyond. During the journey, we visited three small Okanagan cities and one small town.

In Penticton, we found the first great example of a contrast between good and bad urban planning. The effects on local community were just as obvious. As we drove into the city, we were met with a strip of fast food joints all serving the same cheap, unhealthy stuff. The roads were large and the parking lots massive and packed with every type of American built truck you could imagine. After cruising by half-a-dozen RV parks, drive-in motels and big box stores we finally found ourselves in the three square blocks of downtown Penticton. Unlike the train wreck of urban sprawl we witnessed on entry to the city, downtown Penticton was quaint with a variety of small cafes, a couple little mom and pop restaurants and a used book store that was to die for. There was even a local community mural project that had drawn dozens of young artists to spray a wide array of different gorgeous designs on the walls (some of these designs were as impressive as Vancouver’s recent offering of community art). The whole project was funded by the Penticton Business Improvement Association.

On the streets, there weren’t to many people wandering around, and I imagined many of the residents of the city now avoid the downtown area for their shopping needs preferring the big box shops we’d passed by. Transit was basic to say the least and considering the sprawl of large single level houses out into the hills, it’d be almost impossible to provide decent service. As a result people drive – everywhere.

The thought made me sad. It also made me lonely, as I glanced around it was difficult finding many people (oh so vital for most communities) on the streets.

The next day, we set out on our bikes for OK Falls. Along we went, hugging the side of Skaha Lake and passing dozens of for sale signs. It seemed at time that half the Okanagan was for sale – thousands of retirees who were retirees no more following the market’s collapse and were desperately trying to sell back their dream homes in the face of market cataclysm.

When we arrived at OK Falls, we got yet another treat of just how important decent urban planning is to making a town desirable. Unlike other small towns I’ve driven through, which lay in far less gorgeous a location, OK Falls had no centre. In the mad rush to cash in on development, RV parks and gated villas were given run of the beach area. A few blocks back, on what seemed to pass for main street, the few shops stood depressed and devoid of any particularly welcoming vibe.  It wouldn’t be a stretch to watch tumbleweeds pass by the deserted, dusty streets.

Contrast this with Naramata, another small town on another lake (Okanagan Lake rather than Skaha) and you see the opposite. Even in a depressed fall economy, Naramata had a core at the bottom of the hill and seemed quaint rather than desolate. The shops there were well maintained and the streets were surrounded by dozens of pretty and smaller homes and cottages. Unlike OK Falls, there was no highway running through the town.

OK Falls Aint Ok.

Later in the trip we visited both Oliver and Kelowna. Both cities had a far denser main street/downtown areas and with that density and local business feeling came much more economic and social activity. Kids riding bikes, people sipping coffee or wine at local cafes, and general businesses setting up shop all build community.

It became increasingly clear that although all of these things seem possible in a district surrounded by dozens of  wineries, which draw millions of tourist dollars each summer, they can be undermined by poor urban planning.

These days, the more I travel and see other ways cities and towns have developed, the more conscious and thankful I am for the wise planners up in City Hall. Way to go folks. Way to keep Vancouver from being a really big version of  Penticton.