Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
to the Chinatown and Gastown Historic Areas introduced an official politics
of recognition to territorial expressions of cultural difference in cities,
thereby blocking property development not sympathetic to these spatialized
identities. Multiculturalism, in adding cultural rights to the menu of citizen-
ship rights, raised new possibilities for defence against intrusive change. So
now neighbourhoods as territories of cultural difference provided a viable
ontological category in citizenship claims. Urban politics could no longer be
about just individual rights; collectivities in neighbourhoods could also
claim protections and privileges based on their special character.
The municipal reform parties gained power in Vancouver in 1972 and in
various alliances retained control of City Hall for most of the next 15 years.
A parallel development at the regional level saw the emergence of the
Greater Vancouver Regional District's Livable Region Plan, which also held
plural objectives (GVRD 1975). The Plan was the outcome of a lengthy
programme of community consultation and went far beyond a blueprint for
economic development. Indeed under certain conditions, growth was a
problem to be avoided, for the region's planning director wrote in a federal
report, 'Planning can be against growth if that is society's goal, rather than
for it' (Lash 1976). The breadth of planning objectives in the region was
retained when a draft of a new regional plan was released in 1990 (GVRD
1990). Like its predecessor it followed a period of public consultation and
promoted social rights over private rights. It attacked pollution of all kinds,
discouraged use of the private car, backed the preservation of agricultural
land, and aimed to minimize the journey-to-work by guiding employment
growth to specified regional town centres with higher residential densities.
The 1970s represented the high point of the Canadian welfare state:
impressive targets were achieved in the production of social housing; in
Vancouver freeways were not built and instead the first leg of a long-mooted
rapid transit system was opened in 1986. A distinctive and generally suc-
cessful model of urban planning was initiated featuring mixed land use,
minimising the journey-to-work through emphasis on downtown housing
development, and attention to urban design and landscaping (Punter 2004).
Design priorities included promoting 'neighbourliness' in land use plan-
ning, a principle propounded by Ray Spaxman, the influential Director of
Planning in Vancouver, appointed by a reform council in 1974 and in office
until 1989.
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Upon his retirement, and reflecting back over this period,
Spaxman (1989) wrote: 'the more we identify and reward neighbourly
behaviour the more successful we (as a city) will be'. The ethos of the public
household was in the ascendancy, including the recognition of public enti-
tlements to space.
Institutionalizing this ethos, local area planning was initiated in the early
1970s with opportunities for neighbourhoods to consult with planners in
establishing local land use priorities. Here was the recognition of neighbourhood
