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Vancouverism

Vancouver city skyline view
Vancouver high-rises often sit on top of a commercial or residential podium.

Vancouverism is an urban planning and architectural phenomenon in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is characterized by a large residential population living in the city centre in mixed-use developments, typically narrow, high-rise residential towers atop a wide, medium-height commercial base, significant reliance on mass public transit, creation and maintenance of green park spaces, and preserving view corridors.[1][2][3][4][5][6] The architect Bing Thom described Vancouverism this way:[7]

It's a spirit about public space. I think Vancouverites are very, very proud that we built a city that really has a tremendous amount of space on the waterfront for people to recreate and to enjoy. At the same time, False Creek and Coal Harbour were previously industrial lands that were very polluted and desecrated. We've refreshed all of this with new development, and people have access to the water and the views. So, to me, it's this idea of having a lot people living very close together, mixing the uses. So, we have apartments on top of stores. In Surrey we have a university on top of a shopping centre. This mixing of uses reflects Vancouver in terms of our culture and how we live together.[8]

An important aspect to note is that Vancouverism is an ideal that was developed in Vancouver but is not present in all regions of the city. Additionally, while outlying regions of Metro Vancouver, such as Surrey, have adopted aspects of these ideals, they did not originate outside the city of Vancouver.

Vancouver has been repeatedly ranked among the most livable cities in the world.[9] An article in San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association has taken note of Vancouver's approach to new development and view corridors and asks if San Francisco should pursue similar direction.[3] However, Vancouver's planning process has come under criticism for its unpredictability, lengthy approval process, lack of transparency, lack of public engagement, the repetitiveness of the built forms it produces, and the potential for the process to involve corruption.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]

  1. ^ Short, Michael J. (2012). Planning for Tall Buildings. New York: Routledge. p. 169. ISBN 978-0-415-58107-3.
  2. ^ Hiller, Harry H. (2012). Host Cities and the Olympics: An interactionist approach. New York: Routledge. p. 157. ISBN 978-0-415-52241-0. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  3. ^ a b Chappell, Jim (November 1, 2003). "Vancouver's View Corridors: Should San Francisco adopt similar guidelines?". SPUR. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  4. ^ Boddy, Trevor 16.2, 2004, U.C. Berkeley journal "Places."
  5. ^ Boddy, Trevor (September 20, 2005). "INSIGHT: Vancouverism vs. Lower Manhattanism: Shaping the High Density City". ArchNewsNow.com. ArchNewsNow. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  6. ^ Beasley, Larry (2019). Vancouverism. Vancouver: On Point Press. ISBN 9780774890311.
  7. ^ "Past Podcasts – CBC Radio". CBC News. Archived from the original on June 21, 2008.
  8. ^ Sharma, Ian Alexander Narasimha (2012). "On the Edge: Redevelopment Projects at the Urban-Marine Interface in Vancouver, BC". University of Washington. Retrieved August 25, 2014.
  9. ^ "Vancouver The Most Livable City In North America: Economist". The Huffington Post. August 28, 2013. Retrieved January 24, 2014. Vancouver may be the best place to live in North America, but it has yet to recover from a Vancouver Island highway closure that dropped it to third in the world in 2011.
  10. ^ Crawford, Tiffany (January 22, 2019). "Vancouver housing second least affordable in world: report". Vancouver Sun.
  11. ^ Daily Hive (March 28, 2019). "Vancouver ranked North America's 2nd least affordable city for housing".
  12. ^ Connolly, Joannah (January 21, 2019). "Vancouver now ranked 'second-least affordable' global housing market". Vancouver Courier.
  13. ^ Patrick Condon and Scot Hein (July 19, 2019). "Hard Questions about Vancouver's New Affordability Approach". The Tyee.
  14. ^ Condon, Patrick (August 14, 2017). "Learning from Vancouver: Housing Affordability & the Myth of Supply-Side Densification". The Planning Report.
  15. ^ Lee, Marc (May 2016). "Getting Serious About Affordable Housing" (PDF). Policy Alternatives.
  16. ^ Pearson, Natalie (July 13, 2018). "Vancouver's One-Two Punch Is Expensive Homes and Low Wages". Bloomberg.

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