Just to service my Burrard Bridge crowd, here’s the latest update from the city. Don’t say I never did anything for you. Burrard Bridge traffic to increase Tuesday; Motorists encouraged to consider alternative options Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is encouraging motorists to consider alternate routes and transit options in the face of heavier downtown traffic […]

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Like many a Vancouver wanderer, I’ve always admired the house styles of other cities, particularly the brownstones in New York or the Plateau houses in Montreal, which create house fronts and steps right on the street. Vancouver’s townhouses are an effort to replicate the idea behind those styles. Recently, I came across an interesting piece […]

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I got a chance to talk to Vancouver’s new deputy city manager, Sadhu Johnston, in Chicago earlier today. Here’s my Globe story about Johnston, who will be arriving here Nov. 2. He’s a very personable sounding young man (sorry if I sound like an old fart, but I am), who mostly avoided talking ecojargon with […]

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City hall is buzzing this morning about the official announcement that a young guy from Mayor Richard Daley’s office in Chicago has been hired as the new deputy city manager. Sadhu Johnston has gotten lots of glowing press in the States for his leadership in giving Chicago the reputation as a leading green city. I’ll […]

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When I was doing research earlier this year into the death of Paul Haden, I ended up finding out more about the push in some circles to have entheogens (psychoactive drugs that are used to produce spiritual experiences) given some credit for their traditional uses in religious practices and as treatments for medical or psychiatric […]

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A current story that is generating lots of huffing and puffing from commentators (here, here and here) is the fact that park-board commissioner Constance Barnes apparently received a $3,000 loan from the board to help with the cost of the $18,000 rehab program she enrolled in after crashing her car into a house and being […]

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As a few blogs around town are reporting  (Alex Waterhouse-Hayward and city caucus) and I’ve been hearing from others, Abraham Rogatnick died Friday. Bruce Grierson did a piece for Vancouver magazine last year that described the deep impact this professor, historian and urbanist has had on the city, which you can read here. Better than […]

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There’s been a lively discussion going on for a while related to the series of stories in The Tyee about Portland’s alleged superiority to Vancouver, which I’m sure many of you have looked at. Here’s a Seattleite weighing in on the comparison, pointing out at least one interesting fact. Yes, Portland has less homelessness. It […]

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My latest column in Vancouver magazine is about our eponymous credit union, which sometimes feels like a form of local government. VanCity is going through big changes — it dumped its insurance service and announced it was shutting down Citizens Bank’s loan operations since I wrote this piece. I spent some time with CEO Tamara […]

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Vancouver activists and planners tied themselves in knots over Southeast False Creek for years before the Olympic village was planned there, fighting to make it an area that set new standards for the ideal community: green, socially mixed, non-car-dependent, and everything else your little urban heart could wish for. Strangely, hardly anyone is paying any […]

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