Cheer up. You can’t afford to buy a place here, but we have some darn good street parties. And other stuff that makes city living all worthwhile. FRANCES BULA Special to The Globe and Mail Published Sunday, Jul. 14 2013, 9:26 PM EDT Last updated Tuesday, Jul. 16 2013, 5:16 AM EDT     Sometimes […]

[Read more →]

As I say in this story in the Globe and Mail, which comes in at the tail end of a debate that Frank Ducote introduced us to a little over a month ago, many observers in the community thought that the city was going to do things differently when it adopted a go-slow approach to […]

[Read more →]

Okay, this is Friday fluff, but whatever. I feel I must contribute to the ongoing deep investigations into Mayor Gregor Robertson’s change of abode by reporting that his Douglas Park-area house has apparently sold, for the asking price of whatever it was, $1.95 million or something. I realize that where the mayor lives is significant. […]

[Read more →]

Whenever I go to Europe (if that doesn’t sound obnoxious), I’m always struck by the way the mythological view of it doesn’t match the reality. In conversations among urbanists, amateur and professional, here, European cities are always treated as though they have achieved the highest level of excellent city operation. They are walkable. They encourage […]

[Read more →]

I know that provincial election seems like it was years ago, but the lessons it taught are worth contemplating. I got to hang out extensively in Vancouver-Fraserview to see the ground war in action, which I wrote about here. Something for the NDP to ponder while they are reviewing what went wrong.

[Read more →]

Another brave soul has submitted a guest blog. I am back now, but thought this deserved an airing. It all started with a Trojan horse: The 2010 Olympic games. Granville and Robson have been closed to all traffic. Granville had been closed before due to the Canada line construction, and bus were using dedicated lane […]

[Read more →]

I’m still awaiting the scintillating guest blog posts I’ve been promised, but, in the meantime, here is the open forum that I always set up when I’m on vacation and therefore only blogging erratically. Your burning thoughts on any Vancouver issues welcome here.

[Read more →]

And here is my account of nine days in Paris, using Velib for various trips around town (though not all). Completely anecdotal, with no statistics except my own experience. So, I love bike-share systems. They make it so much easier to hop on a bike and get around than the usual procedure of tracking down […]

[Read more →]

For those who haven’t guessed already, I am away from the city right now and will be away until the first week of July, as part of my annual ritual of city observation elsewhere. (Known to others as “a vacation.”) I’ll be posting some stuff of my own — been riding a lot of bike-share […]

[Read more →]

Let it not be said that a stone has been unturned in the City of Vancouver’s quest to find patches of ground on which to build housing. The latest suggestion has been housing on top of a fire hall that has to be rebuilt. The idea of building on top of city property isn’t new. […]

[Read more →]