Vancouver’s new council desperately wants to create affordable rental and, to that end, it’s preparing to give developers extra density if they can come up with proposals for suites they’re prepared to rent out for at least 20 years and at rents in the neighbourhood of $2 a square foot. But, as NPA Councillor Suzanne […]

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That’s what various blog friends are emailing me in the latest. For those who don’t recall, the city passed a motion a couple of weeks ago to deal with restaurant hours, which will allow a bunch of restaurants to now stay open to 1 a.m. on weekdays, 2 a.m. on weekends. That meant a few […]

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A couple of people have alerted me to the fact that there appears to be another round of media stories appearing about vandalism to Paris’s bike-share system. A story from the New York Times that appeared last week repeats many of the same themes as one that appeared on the BBC a couple of weeks […]

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Vancouver’s Northeast False Creek plan continues to wind its way through the system, generating ripples of unease about the high amount of density being allowed in that neighbourhood. That’s in a part of town where you wouldn’t really have to buy a ticket to U2 or anyone else who played in the stadium there, since […]

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Just in time, yet another news release is issued on the city’s favourite one-kilometre stretch of news, the Burrard Bridge and its bike lane. The mayor’s office issued Bulletin 23 today, with polling results showing everyone in Vancouver wants to kiss a cyclist. Well, something like that. (See exact wording below, plus the city report […]

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Every time I turn around, Surrey is doing some new thing that no one could have predicted 10 years ago: a multicultural music festival, a sobering centre, a bike park, a homelessness action plan. The latest is a design competition for the gigantic municipality’s future neighbourhood centres. (See news release below.) One day, a design […]

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My favourite kinds of stories are the ones that break stereotypes. In my fantasy world, we’d constantly be covering stories about Calgarians having the highest rate of art-museum visitorship in the country, Torontonians taking more yoga classes than anyone else, single mothers being more likely to get promotions to management positions and the like. So […]

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I see that the Caption Contest has been a roaring success, thanks to the creativity of a number of you. Perhaps I should make it a regular feature. Then we could have weekly votes on the best caption with prizes awarded: Framed copies of original Penny Ballem internal emails, a chance to blog under my […]

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Words fail me as I look upon this recent transmission of our mayor’s activities from London. I hope you are not similarly afflicted. Please send your best efforts at a caption that could capture the spirit of whatever the heck is going on here. (Those familiar with the New Yorker’s cartoon caption contests will know […]

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Two nights, two art spaces, two different gatherings, and yet some parallels. Friday night, an eclectic group of people gathered at the Vancouver Centre for Contemporary Asian Art to say goodbye to Donald MacPherson, the city-hall drug-policy co-ordinator for the last nine years, who announced last month that he was off to new adventures (still […]

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