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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The 1960s cartoon series The Jetsons promised a future filled with limitless urban expansion and interminable transportation networks. Given the world's diminishing oil reserves, a lack of planning may result in an urban future that shares more in common with The Flintstones than The Jetsons.

Raza Moghal, a planning and lands officer with the city, and Margaret Kralt, a planner with Dillon Consulting, will host a film screening and discussion tomorrow at the library for World Town Planning Day.

The planners are inviting the public to learn about and discuss how residents can provide input into the future of our city.

"As gas prices rise and as increasingly we're trying to be more sustainable it's valuable to consider how we live," Moghal said. "I think it's important that the public get involved because planning is a public process."

The event opens with a screening of the documentary The End of Suburbia.

The film argues the suburbs are a relic of a bygone error.

Expansive green lawns, long commutes in an SUV, profligate consumption and grocery stores stocked with food shipped half-way around the world are becoming increasingly unsustainable as the demand for fossil fuels outstrips the remaining supply, the film maintains.

"World Town Planning Day is a day to raise awareness about what planning means to average, everyday citizens. We're all part of it and it's all around us," Kralt said, referring to the streets we walk, the transportation we use and other aspects of a town's infrastructure. "Right now the City of Yellowknife is undergoing their Smart Growth Plan and with that comes a whole whack of consultations. So, it's a really interesting time for citizens of Yellowknife to take that opportunity to become involved."

The film presentation and discussion begins at 3 p.m. in the library meeting room. A Planning 101 trivia game and discussion will follow. Refreshments will be served.