The Downtown Eastside has become our regional mental-health institution, as most of the world knows. What that means, among other things, is trying to deliver health care to thousands of people who are spread out across a few dozen city blocks instead of one convenient large institution, who can’t be compelled to show up for […]

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Anyone who thinks the mainstream media is dead should have been at the scrum with Transportation Minister Todd Stone and TransLink mayors’ council chair Richard Walton Friday, where there was a multiplicity of cameras, recorders, and reporters. And, since the talks that had just happened between the minister and council were fairly inconclusive, everyone was […]

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On City Plumber. Over to the left, people.

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The favourite parlour game among the political watchers these days is discussing who is being approached to take a run at the mayor’s job. Most of the chatter is about potential NPA candidates, although TEAM and COPE also see getting a high-profile candidate as key to their success. The names circulating? Carole Taylor, of course; […]

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Hmm, not good news for Bixi. Alta has just announced a partnership with 8D, the former software provider for Bixi, for the “next generation” of bicycle-share operations in North America.  Their news release here. ABS-8D Partner Release FINAL-1 This comes just after my story last week on Alta Bicycle Share and its vertigo-inducing growth from […]

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  This sent on to me by one of my most loyal researchers, who makes sure I know always what’s happening in the rest of the world. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/01/rich-overseas-investors-uk-eu-housing-market —- Radical plans to stop rich overseas residents who live outside the EU buying British houses – as well as tight restrictions on them acquiring “newbuild” properties […]

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Many thanks to Andy Yan, number-cruncher and city analyst par excellence, for this map and story. Andy scraped or whatever all the data about property assessment changes between 2014 and 2013 and put it on a map. Look really closely and you can see what happened on your block. The map tells the tale of […]

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Someone just sent me this interesting story about the free-transit experiment in Estonia.  

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A new report just out from Avison Young on commercial leasing, with interesting news on vacancy rates throughout the region. Surrey saw a significant decline in leased space, with downtown Vancouver’s vacancy rate also climbing. With new construction about to come on board factored in, Avison calculates that the downtown vacancy rate is around 9 […]

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I came across something recently that resonated, given the propensity of this council to make decisions quickly in the interest of achieving goals the mayor and his party set out for themselves. (Think: bike lanes, transitional housing, intervention into tanker issues, etc.) This article, written about L.A.’s efforts to get a bike-share program, looks at […]

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