This is my reply to a post I found here (http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2007/10/why_vancouver_sucks.html).  While the title is shocking, the post is about high housing in Vancouver and not about the Canucks!  It’s from someone in San Francisco saying that Vancouver is no model for his own city.

________________________________________

I live in Vancouver and absolutely love the city. It’s nice, the weather is wonderful (by Canadian standards), and the people friendly. That being said, it’s no paradise.

I’m a renter and prices are absolutely soaring in this city. Right now I live in a decent apartment a bit far from downtown, but look to move closer. Although, rent is extremely low ($725), this is exceptional for here! There is virtually nothing decent under $1000/month (Check Craigslist to see for yourself: http://vancouver.craigslist.org/apa/).

While, as I mentioned, my unit is OK, smells and noises from my neighbours keep encroaching my apartment and the building is extremely badly managed. One example, one tenant sells drugs (marijuana, crack, probably crystal meth, etc.) on the first floor and the owner/manager doesn’t do anything about that. Another reason I want to move out is that I don’t think the building would survive a strong earthquake (like SF, “The big one” might strike anytime here too)

This bad management partly explains the “low rent” but the main reason there is bad management is that the owner has no interest in taking care of the building because I’m pretty sure he wants to sell the land to, you guess, one of those developers who want to build condos. The land is worth much more then structures here, probably about 4 times the value in Vancouver.

I’m not sure where “new urbanism” fits in here, but nice walkable neighborhoods, bike paths and getting the cars out of city centres doesn’t have to mean building pricey condos that will be bought by people not living there themselves. The main reason, I feel, Vancouver housing situation is in such deplorable situation is lack of political leadership.

Our mayor, Sam Sullivan, and Premier of BC, Gordon Campbell, are only interested in money and not people. While, obviously, economic factors must be looked at, the fact is that provincial, municipal and even federal governments are doing absolutely everything in their powers to satisfy the needs of developers and established land-owning corporations. Social and affordable housing projects are completely set aside to make place for market-priced condos.

I am no expert, but I don’t think “new urbanism” has to be automatically associated to pricey condos. If it includes norms that impose under-market value units, then the benefits of “new urbanism” could be share by everyone, not just people who can afford the nice condos.

A good neighbourhood should have diversity of people and not specialize to a certain socio-economic group. It should be a balance of rich, poor, old, young, big families, no children families. North America has too much of those neighbourhoods that have only one-type residents. Pluralism is not just ethnic diversity but also socio-economic diversity.

Frédéric Van Caenegem