Isolated businesses could not match the cost savings from compact urban supply chains.

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Allied with the island's compact urban environment -- huge expanses of open space are rare -- and you get an unhealthy "visual lifestyle, " says the health ministry's Rajan.

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Short and compact, on the Concept E-go, urban traffic will seem like a videogame that will be fun and easy to skilfully nE-gotiate.

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And aging baby boomers are looking for a more urban lifestyle as they downsize from large homes in the suburbs to more compact town houses in more densely built locations.

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Mathieu Lehanneur's Local River -- an aquarium that also grows herbs -- and Jochem Faudet's "Grow Your Own" -- a compact greenhouse -- both offer solutions to cultivating home-grown food in cramped urban environments.

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The urban growth boundary -- established in 1979 as a way to reduce sprawl and encourage more compact growth -- is the framework around which other political decisions and compromises are made.

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