New Media

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.

As the world descends on Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympics, I’m feeling awfully proud of my adopted city. With all of the construction finally finished, our outpost on the Pacific Rim can truly lay claim to the title of the most beautiful cityscapes anywhere.

Of course, this is a city of contrasts. We’re not just a pretty place. It’s complicated. A few examples for our welcome visitors:

* Vancouver aims to be the greenest city on the planet by 2020 and we may just be able to pull it off. But if everyone on Earth lived like people here, we’d need four planets to sustain us.

* Vancouver is one of the most livable cities anywhere. It is also home to the poorest postal code in Canada, the Downtown Eastside, where “livable” is definitely a relative term for some of its most unfortunate residents (like Quatchi?). But there’s another side, too; the DTES, one of this city’s oldest neighborhoods, defies stereotypes with a community that is bursting with spirit and compassion.

* We’ve got a mayor who entered politics as a lefty New Democrat after first making it big as a successful entrepreneur and who has since become a… well, someone not quite defined by conventional partisan politics. Which seems to be a bit of a Vancouver tradition.

* Vancouverites (well, probably all Canadians) have a reputation not just for tolerance (which is sort of a pathetic goal, if you think about it), but for being awfully nice, polite-to-a-fault sort of folks. Yet apparently, we need to be reminded about how to smile properly for our guests.

* Our city is a nice, safe place. Except when the occasional maniac killer stalks our citizens. Or if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when the cops show up.

* This is one of the only big cities in Canada where we don’t get ice that stays in the winter. It’s also home to one of the most beloved (and consistently sold-out at minimum $100 a ticket) hockey teams in NHL history.

* For some newcomers to Vancouver who haven’t yet discovered their clique, this place can be cold and unwelcoming. But if you are willing to take five minutes to set up a Twitter account, you can join a rambunctious and eclectic social circle over some locally-brewed pints in less than half an hour.

* Vancouver came on the scene fairly late in the game when it came to settling this continent (well, by people who weren’t already living here for 10,000 years, anyway). Yet we have amassed a unique heritage that is worth preserving; indeed, Vancouver’s late emergence in the modern age was perfectly timed to give us a leg up when it comes to planning and sustaining a city that works.

I hope that visitors to Vancouver will spend some time digging deeper. This is an awfully interesting place to be — even after the Olympics have come and gone.

There goes the neighborhood? I don’t think so. But since it’s my neighborhood I’m talking about, I’m going to waffle a bit.

Vancouver writer Frances Bula points out a big problem with consultations on social housing projects in Vancouver, in this case referring to a new proposal for my neighborhood of Mount Pleasant:

As is always the case with “public consultation” these days, the open houses are always designed to split people up, rather than have a big open meeting, so that the angry ranters don’t get a chance to dominate.

That’s good, but I was struck by what I noticed in the conversations I had, which was a tendency among the explainers (city planners, architects, housing groups) to take on a tone of “but you just don’t realize the facts and I’m now going to explain them to you.” Very annoying, as it felt like I wasn’t really being listened to…

In the small groups I eavesdropped on, it sounded as though others were having the same experience and not being persuaded by it. One explainer said the neighbourhood didn’t have to worry about problems with the project because there had been a housing project built on Fraser and everyone had been worried about that, but it was completely unnoticeable now that it was up. But, said the woman listening, that project was much smaller, only 30 or so units, and this was is 100. And the people accepted there were people who’d gone through rehab; this one is for people who still have a lot of problems that aren’t going away any time soon.

Talking past one another is only part of the problem. But another factor is that stakeholders in these public forums may be encouraged in the impression that if they can just talk things out, a compromise solution will be found. But in some aspects of the social housing debate, there may be no middle ground.

Does the argument hold that all citizens, regardless of how addicted or delusional they may be, or whether they are a danger to themselves or others, are entitled to shelter? And that the shelter they are entitled to must be in a location and have amenities that offer a better quality of life than your typical bug-infested Downtown Eastside hotel? Well, then, some people, somewhere, in a community that has managed to create a positive experience for its residents, will necessarily have their own livability diluted.

It’s no stereotype that living next door to newly-moved-in drug addicts and the mentally ill is no picnic — it’s just the way it is. The level of inconvenience and public safety is likely to go down. But how much of a downgrade in livability is the community willing to tolerate so that their more unfortunate fellow citizens can have a chance at a better life?

Well, that really goes to the heart of what cities have always been about. Living in an urban setting has always been about trade-offs in access to amenities, economic opportunities, views, safety and just how comfortable you can be with your neighbors.

As a thought exercise, I suppose I’m comfortable with the idea of a single social housing facility going up in my neighborhood. But right now, I’m fuzzy on precisely how these new residents might affect the neighborhood overall. Won’t the potentially negative impact of the new neighbors be diluted in a densely-populated area of 54000 residents?

I’m also a bit more able to be more welcoming, since I know the project isn’t going up right next door to me. I judge the likely impact on my own standard of living to be relatively small. This seems to be borne out by one recent study showing that social housing facilities in Vancouver thus far seem to have little to no impact on the host community. I’m certain I’d be more emotionally involved if I lived on the same block as the new residents. I can afford to be more open-minded. But the NIMBYists do have legitimate concerns. What we have here is a failure to communicate — though it doesn’t have to be.