Former Vancouver chief planner Brent Toderian, seeing the Canadian city top global 'most-liveable city' charts, is in Canberra with the Heart Foundation to preach healthier and greener city planning.

Mr Toderian said medium-density buildings on Lonsdale Street did a great job of combining housing, shops and offices.

"It's not bad that there's a parking problem here [in Braddon]," Mr Toderian said.

It would promote more people to walk, cycle or take public transport to use shopping strips in one destination rather than driving to make multiple, distant stops.

Mr Toderian joined Heart Foundation's Dr Anthony Burton on Friday in Haig Park to interact with the Canberra community on how to encourage use of the 1.7 km strip.

"I like to say in this town we have 356 thousand planners," Mr Burton said.

"[Haig Park's] a transitory space, it's not a space people stop and linger."

Mr Toderian said Canberra had a long way to go, especially in the suburbs, and Canberrans needed to care less on details like aesthetic preferences.

Kingston was a good example. Mr Toderian said it lacked aesthetic grit but medium-density planning, easy public access, segregated bike paths and even places to people watch had impressed him.

"You've got your fundamentals right [in Kingston]," Mr Toderian said.

Mr Toderian also said Canberrans shouldn't underestimate high density construction on corridors, like Northbourne Avenue.

He said Canberra's unique use of shopping strips in each suburb needed to be denser to promote more people using them.

"Frankly Canberra's going to have to rethink what Canberra is," Mr Toderian said.

"It's very car-centric but I've seen interesting things."

"Stop designing it how you're kind of crazy for walking, Suburbs in particular have designed exercise out."

While Canberra cycling infrastructure needed improvement, the bus network and the future light rail network would also be good developments for the bush capital.

"As soon as you fund transit, transit rides go up," Mr Toderian said.