Their Vision, My Loss

Every time I hear "World Class" I think "there goes the neighourhood". I was born at Vancouver General in 1953 and witnessed the change from small city anonymity to urban sprawl as ordinary people genuflect to this beautiful creation of already well heeled realtors. I fled to White Rock where I currently live and we are getting a dollop of high density in the shape of a 21 story residential/commercial tower, the first of a development (and more towers) known oddly enough as "Miramar Village", with the presently under construction tower almost fully sold out. As for "villagers" I dubbed the tenants "Lords of the Manor" with the "seaview" of peering down on my balcony as I sit naked in summer. As in the city of my birth I find every time there is a concerted effort to make a community - just as we are presently trying to make a civil society in Afghanistan - we are doomed to sterility or failure. The irony is that real communities grow out of a ramshackle mix and not out of a Plan.

I guess gentrification is

I guess gentrification is OK, sometimes, but only when those sometimes make you money. If this wasn't Beers people would be slamming this author as a rich greedy Capitalist pig that prays on people who can't defend themselves. After all he is an entrepreneur that is contributing to gentrification. He's the pinnacle of all evil.

Urban sprawl and suburbanites are often the favorite whipping boys of city slickers. The slickers constantly lament about how people who move to the suburbs should get no infrastructure improvements because they're out to destroy the environment.

The people on Commercial have a "no drive" hockey games 4 times a year to rally against suburban infrastructure improvements because it leads to the evil of urban sprawl. Yet if these same suburbanites move into the city to build eco-density they are contributors to gentrification. And anyone who contributes to gentrification is waging a war on the poor.

So you want eco-density, as long as it's not "rich" people contributing to the eco-density. What exactly is your goal? US style ghettos? Is that the soul you want?

How do you achieve eco-density without gentrification?

Oh i forgot, if we canceled the Olympics all of our gentrification "problems" would magically disappear. After all the Vancouver housing boom is purely speculative based on a 2 week sporting event.

stereotype citizens

The plans will require that the citizens also fit that plan!
Like being ready to live with a minimum of belongings, and of course a good income.

I remember meetings at strata-housings where the main subject often was: where am I supposed to store my winter-tires?
The answer is that you really should not own a vehicle.

You should not have hobbies that require even a small workshop or garage.
You should only desire merchandize that is carried by major stores, as the local specialty stores close one by one.

You should enjoy walking in lockstep along the seawalk, closing your ears to others by wearing some music -scource on your head.

Basically you should become a consumer of whatever is in vogue on the TV ads, and have no individuality!

I have known families move away at the first sign of such "improvements" and eventually wind up in places like Cranbrook or Gold River, in order to escape all the changes.

perhaps the ideals of "1984" by Orwell is going to happen in this fashion?

Vancouver-it's for the rich and dumb...

Shopping and more shopping, drinking at the best bars, eating at the best restaurants, skiing the best hills do not a community make.
"Slick. Efficient. Impermable." equals souless consumption.

Let's hope the pockets of community left can survive.
The only places for the smart and not so dumb.

I've tried several times

to make it into Vancouver--twice on the skytrain--but after being nearly poisoned to death by perfumed sociopaths between the stations Gateway and Broadway, and donning my scary, elephantine gas mask before disembarking into the smelly city, then trying a mad, hopeful rush onto Commercial Drive--one block east or west from long-rowed yuppierama and guilt-faking capital gains profiteers and $2.00 veggie pizza slices--I'm inevitably forced to re-train myself, and retreat southward to the breathable environs of Surrey and my guilt-free trailer park.

A little boy learns to live in a big smelly city ...

Truman,

I laughed with pure joy, right out loud, to read that there are people in your world who could smell so bad they'd poison you to death:

Don't start yelling at me again ... but that's pretty much what I was saying about the peaceful community we enjoy here on Tyee, most days.

I thoroughly enjoyed this David Beers story when it appeared (with much approval) in The Globe and Mail. His little son is a lucky lad to be learning so much at the side of his father. Learning how to find the fragile soul of a smelly, crime-raddled city.

I was born in Vancouver General Hospital, too, bpither1, and in those days White Rock was the star of our childhood. Lost the dream while at SFU, by taking my kids to see White Rock; we spent the afternoon moving away from the dog poo -- at least we thought it was dog poo -- turned out it was a poo-sewage blanket over every inch of the beach. We walked into the sea which I remembered as clear emerald green. Couldn't see our feet. Jeez. In one generation! End of fond memories there too.

Are our memories now our nightmares....

i was born at St. Paul's and going to Boundry Bay was my families "big deal". i have so many memories and great photos of us all on the beach way back then. Now the whole area is threatened by developers, Gateway and the Roberts Bank Port development...it breaks my heart.

I hardly ever go into Vancouver anymore except to hang out on Main St. or "The Drive".

The "Drive" is still a vibrant community. It's car free Sundays are on June 22 and July 17. Here is the link...people taking back the streets!

http://www.commercialdrivefestival.org/

Vancouver is turning into a disappointment

The city of vancouver burecrats are just using the olympics as an excuse to do politically dangerous things like...hold you breath...clean up the city. How horrible. This is long overdue, but the problems of Vancouver are deep rooted and have nothing to so with the olympics. It has to do with corporate governance in city hall, or should I say the lack of.

The 8% tax increase for residential property tax is rediculous. Contrast that with West Vancouver's 0% property tax increase, a place I chose to move to after I lost faith in Vancouver. Vancouver spends money it does not need to, just becasue it can. It is so easy to raise property taxes above the rate of inflation year after year. But it just results in the city becoming even more expensive for working families. And for renters, well, the tax increases get passed on to them making them press the city for social housing. So the city needs more tax revenue and the vicious socialist tax cycle continues.

As an aside, Vancouver does not cater to people with families and the current dog problem is a good example. The city of Vancouver councillors and parks board members prefer dog park improvements to improving parks for children! Feces from dogs, off leash dogs in on leash areas and ignorant dog owners instructed by VANDOG on how to get away with breaking the dog by-laws are everywhere. Disgusting.

Not to mention being number one for crimes against property in north america, per capita. Vancouver is not a city to raise your children. Unless you have no worries about the off leash pit bull near the swing set, the half way house next door or the drug treatment centre around the corner.

Vancouver is not governed for property owners, which is unfortunate. For if you don't have your own capital at risk in real estate, what say should you have in how the city develops....NONE, in my opinion.

West Vancouver is what the Vancouver of pre expo used to be. Vancouver has become Toronto with a mountain view.

Van General

Mary..you were born in Van General?
I was born there 1945..was that you in the next incubator making all the noise? ;)
Yup..used to take the train out to White Rock..learned how to swim there...put pennies on the tracks..sssshh..the ferry to North Van
and streetcar to Lynn Valley..Frederick Varley lived there then...
" Fresh southerly winds...a long time ago."

No Logo

Small business is the heart of our economy, and the lifeblood of our communities.

Working more capital, employing more people, filing more patents, and generating more revenue than the entirety of all TSX-traded corporations, millions of "local" businesses revolutionize industries AND bring smiles to the faces of millions, like David's son and creator of comic-book heroes. They also feed the world, far more food than McDonald's could ever dish out, and healthier too.

But where small business fails is in politics, and this is why Main Street (and Cambie) appear doomed to the Orwellian syndicalist juggernaut that is recent BC governance. The more money it takes to elect a candidate, the larger the business must be behind him or her, and the more likely that candidate will turn against the small.

Without disclosure, conflict of interest rules, and electoral reform, Vancouver will continue to lose the heart and lifeblood of its economy.

We will also lose the talent of artists and writers, young and old, who began with a crayon or the internet, started a small business, and changed our world.