There Goes the Neighbourhood
Guest: Larry Beasley, City of Vancouver urban planner
On this edition of Journal, we examine what is happening to the City of Vancouver – and what can be done, if anything, to turn this situation around.
When I was a councillor in the late eighties, I remember one example of how neighbourhood planning was done in those days: on the street, not in backrooms.
A brand new False Creek residential development, to be built on industrial land, while controversial, was to be a centrepiece of new urban planning principles. Immediately, questions arose. How can you have density without amenities like parks? Or the idea that you can’t start building without thoughtful plans for infrastructure and traffic management. Most importantly, you have to talk to residents (or future residents) about their needs.
Larry Beasley, an urban planner for the city, was not content to just send paper reports to Council – he took a group of us councillors down to False Creek so we could actually see the design initiatives that were important to liveability, rather than just plunking down apartments.
As a sidebar, part of the lesson was about quality, dramatically emphasized when he was mid-sentence explaining why a certain kind of rock – rip-rap – had to be used along the shoreline to prevent rats from infesting the residential area. Just at that moment, a rat appeared and scampered up to us. Alright, alright. Pay for the right rip-rap!
But the point actually is, Larry Beasley was always hands-on: walking the streets, talking to residents, asking questions, listening and responding, ensuring we built a city for its citizens. It is a big reason why Vancouver has so many unique neighbourhoods. And for many years, those streets became mini communities – safe to walk, shop, and talk to your neighbours.
Larry is not happy with what he is seeing today: that the province has decided it can design our cities from Victoria.
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