New Media

You can’t beat the view. Here’s my video from the top of Harbour Centre in the heart of downtown Vancouver. YouTube doesn’t quite do it justice — you really do have to be there. But it’s a rite of passage for longtime Vancouver residents and tourists alike.

Funny, I didn’t even know I was in the running. Looks like I’ve been recognized with an Honorable Mention by the National Magazine Awards for my articles in Granville Magazine’s EcoDensity Special. Congratulations to my fellow honorees!

If you’re curious about what I wrote that deserved this honor, here are the articles that were recognized for extraordinary awesomeness:

• Vancouver: The Greenest City in the West
• Happy city, happy planet
• Vancouver in 2050

Where will we get our food a few decades from now? Is our current model sustainable? Will we be able to feed the world’s teeming billions? Is “breakfast in a can” the thin edge of the wedge for where we’re headed? Learn more in my feature article in Sharp Magazine, The Future of Food — or even better, actually buy a copy of the magazine at Chapters or some other newsstand

(NOTE: If this topic doesn’t really grab you, check out the magazine anyway. Aliya-Jasmine Sovani’s boobs are practically falling out of her shirt on the next page after my story ends, on page 64. In her feature by Leo Petaccia, “Sharp sits down with MTV Canada’s most infamous host to talk about the merits of social consciousness, the importance of breasts and why we all need to lighten up once in a while”. Worth a look.)

An excerpt from my story:

“Make a better breakfast faster, Batter Blaster!” The tongue-in-cheek jingle is not the only addictive thing about entrepreneur Sean O’Connor’s invention. His waffle mix in a spray can is now in 13,000 stores across North America, including Costco and Walmart, with plenty of accolades and YouTube testimonials by dedicated fans of the product. “Just shake, point, blast and cook,” the slogan goes.

“We believe we’re consistent with the innovative path that led to microwave popcorn, or lettuce in a bag,” O’Connor notes. It’s organic, easy to use and, increasingly, represents the future of how we prepare our food.

There are certainly enough other examples of packaged foods, unrecognizable a few generations ago, that have become commonplace. But as the demand for high-tech foods increases, so does the demand for organics and local food. Once again, we face a paradox.

Is this the future of food?

When a neighborhood’s resiliency derives so much from affordability for the working class, artists and small businesses, should a neighborhood deliberately avoid making improvements? Deliberate sabotage of a community seems rife with risk and the threat of unanticipated blowback.

But for the funky, vital neighborhood of Commercial Drive in Vancouver, gradual improvements will just keep adding to the trend of gentrification that has made home-ownership for lower incomes totally out of reach and made some local business owners concerned about their long-term future. Without more massive infusions of subsidized housing, how can the Drive retain its character as the neighborhood becomes irresistible to Yuppies? My comments in the Granville Magazine blog post, When livability and resilience collide

Can Commercial hold back gentrification? If it can’t, is it possible to retain the neighbourhood’s distinct character? These were the sorts of questions that participants were dealing with at the recent Drive to Resilience forum on envisioning the future of Commercial Drive, hosted by the students in the Semester in Dialogue program at SFU. Those in attendance included residents, local business owners and representatives from various neighbourhood organizations who were guided through a day-long exercise in collaborative problem solving.

Much of what participants discussed revolved around developing more support for affordable housing, help for artists and small businesses, and even programs to support the integration of the area’s homeless and marginal people into composting efforts. In this sense, much of Commercial Drive’s character seems dependent on low rent and subsidies for those with low income.

Ironically, the characteristics that define Commercial Drive may have actually become more pronounced due to the gentrification of areas like Kitsilano, which has sent artists and working-class holdouts fleeing for the Eastside. But in a few more years, rent increases for residents and businesses may conceivably turn the area into a slightly more mellow version of South Granville—with its Le Chateau, Pottery Barn and Chapters stores—sending purists and the area’s poor fleeing for some other as-yet ungentrified corner of the city.

If the consensus from neighbourhood residents and Vancouver-area citizens who make the Drive their second home is to preserve a working class neighbourhood and artist refuge in the midst of a rapidly growing, trend-setting cosmopolitan metropolis, the simplest way to keep rents down is to disincentivise certain yuppie types from moving into the neighbourhood. How to do that without going so far that you actually put the area into decline is tricky.

How Does Commercial Drive Retain This?

“Homes, not Games” has been a consistent rallying cry of anti-Olympics protesters. But visitors to Vancouver may not realize that progress on this file has not been utterly lacking. The social housing we’ve built for our most vulnerable may even be a model for other cities around the world to follow.

Here’s an excerpt from my report in Granville on the viability of Woodward’s as a living example of social housing that works:

Of course, since about 2000, Vancouver’s residents and politicians have made substantial efforts to change this neighborhood. Without an umbrella organization to direct taxpayers funds effectively, many projects have seen pitiful returns on investment. But as I noted last week, the Woodward’s building is an example of a project that has provided real benefits to residents—and in the bigger picture, our city.

There’s no question that April and other residents of Woodward’s are now able to live with dignity in a supportive environment. But this improved living condition didn’t come cheap. Not everyone is pleased about the scale of the investment. As one friend who lives in Vancouver South confided in me the other day, “I understand people need housing, but why do we have to spend so much so that they can have views of Canada Place and brand new couches? I mean, do people really have a ‘right’ to live in some of the most desirable real estate in the world?”

Tough questions. But I think our city has provided some balanced answers in the Woodward’s experiment.