For those who wished they had been at the blog gathering, but couldn’t make it, here’s a recap from Kirk Thanks to those that made it out last night. For those that missed it, I heard two main topics: 1. The election and the candidates. 2. Vancouver’s future. Housing, investment condos, demographics, schools, you name […]

[Read more →]

I paid $500 of my own good money, which I’ll have to raise elsewhere, to install this system which several people said would improve the commenting system. We’ll see how it all goes. If really terrible, I’ll uninstall it. My blog-maintenance minions assure me that all previous comments will re-appear, as they are only partway […]

[Read more →]

Warning: This post contains a mix of serious analysis and some whimsically imaginary facts mixed with real ones. If you can’t tell them apart or if the juxtaposition creates too much cognitive dissonance for you, STAY AWAY. The Vancouver election campaign has been so strangely underwhelming so far that it’s allowed many of us in […]

[Read more →]

This came to my inbox from reader/resident George Muenz. Anyone else noticed this problem? Thousands of cyclists go up the Spanish Banks road to UBC in order to get to the cycling paths on Marine Drive and onwards. I have had reports from several people that police have threatened people with fines and worse if […]

[Read more →]

So Kirk and Jenables and a few others set a date for a gathering of the blog commenters recently (that week my blog was actually malfunctioning, as it turned out). Kirk has now found a spot for us to gather and reserved a table. See you all there to talk about who is going to […]

[Read more →]

That was the provocative question last night from writer, university lecturer and activist Matt Hern last night as he responded to Andy Yan’s big-data presentation on trends that have influenced Vancouver in the past and will in the future. Hern, reflecting on Yan’s data about foreign ownership, speculation, the city’s low incomes and high house […]

[Read more →]

I was very happy to see the city start an urban-design awards program, though I, like the city, mistakenly understood it to mean architectural awards. The city announced the winners last week and, to judge from public and private comments I’m hearing, the process could do with some, shall we say, improvement. Lance Berelowitz weighs […]

[Read more →]

I try not to fall in sentimental rhapsodizing about mid-rise European cities, as some of my fellow urbanists do. I know that for every chic French or Spanish historic town, there’s a ring of appalling towers on the outskirts that the immigrants and poor have been relegated to. But it is puzzling to me that […]

[Read more →]

  I was just fooling around on Twitter last night to wind down from a long day and then this erupted. 22h Duncan McCue and Wise Monkeys favorited your Tweet 22h: @kirklapointe Aren’t you supposed to be writing a speech or speaking with a large group of people about fiscal responsibility or something? Kirk LaPointe […]

[Read more →]

Because I have thousands of words to write in the next few days, this instead. There are 10 weeks left in the campaign. At the moment, this is how the various parties and their mayoral candidates rank on the social-media counters. Facebook: Gregor Robertson, by himself: 7,560 “Gregor Robertson and the Vision team”” 4,559 Vision […]

[Read more →]