As some of you may know, I got to visit Bologna this past summer to go to part of Vancity’s summer school on the co-operative culture there. Here’s a story of mine that just appeared in BCBusiness on the attraction of the Bologna model for a surprisingly wide variety of Vancouverites.

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It’s hard to focus on anything else besides the Olympics, I know, but here’s a small bulletin from the real economy of Vancouver: Port Metro Vancouver’s efforts to buy up industrial land in the region to preserve it from municipal conversions to residential.

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Mayor Gregor is about to open Vancouver’s alternative-media centre Wednesday morning, one of the buildings opposite Woodward’s on Hastings that will be run by W2 for the blogger/non-accredited media/citizen journalist crowd to post their assessment of the Games. (Look for the building with televised flames in the windows, making it look like the whole thing […]

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In case anyone missed it, the NY Times Magazine had an all-Olympics issue and featured the two Canadians they know best to talk about the Olympics: Michael Ignatieff and Douglas Coupland. Here’s the link to Ignatieff’s column, all about how we’re going to rise to the occasion. Stunning picture of the village to go with […]

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In defiance of VANOC rules, an Olympic volunteer has decided to set up a blog and post comments about the volunteer experience. He’s sent me a link to his blog and his first post here, for anyone who is interested in following this kind of thing.   http://olympicvolunteer2010.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/on-my-training-my-drive-to-the-olympics-and-no-sleep/ On my training .. my drive to […]

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I feel as though I’m in one of those ambitious liberal-arts programs put on by progressive colleges where, for an entire term, there’s a grand theme and all of life’s questions are filtered through that. I heard about one recently, where for the entire term they studied the literature, art, political science, economics and more […]

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It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s going to be a battle for public opinion in the next three weeks about homelessness in Vancouver as the 2010 Olympics media descend on the city. You would think that just telling the plain truth about homelessness in this province would be compelling enough for even the most radical […]

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Apparently council today added to the existing staff recommendation by voting in favour of a plan to try out a downtown bike lane by the end of the year. Here’s the motion that Geoff Meggs brought to council. THAT a separated bike lane be constructed on the Dunsmuir Viaduct at a cost not exceeding $300,000; […]

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Oh boy, to think there’s going to be another four weeks of this. The latest offerings from reporters here and there on our apparently tragic city. The Guardian, written by local freelancer Lucy Hyslop http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/03/vancouver-winter-olympics-homeless-row The New York Times, with reporter Greg Bishop, who profiled former mayor Sam Sullivan very sympathetically last week and now […]

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Anyone from the design/architecture field want to be quoted in a Globe story with their thoughts on the architectural excellence (or not) of the Canada Pavilion and/or other pavilions at the Games? (All others welcome to post their thoughts here.) Get in touch with me ASAP: [email protected]

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