[caption id="attachment_9641" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Walking the streets of Marpole. Photo courtesy of Ren Thomas."][/caption] [Editor's Note: We are happy to present the first of a three InDepth Features covering a trio of special Jane's Walk neighbourhood tours around Marpole, Grandview-Woodland, and the West End. These were organized as a unique partnership between the City of Vancouver, Museum of Vancouver and Spacing Vancouver, in light of the ongoing Community Plan process currently happening in each important district. This will be followed by podcasts of the tour, if you missed the Walks, and a final dialogue event on June 19th. Stay tuned for more information.] This year, the City of Vancouver will be starting community plans for three neighbourhoods: Marpole, the West End and Grandview-Woodlands. In addition to the usual open houses and community meetings, the City has been using its new Public Engagement Division (within its Communications Department) in innovative outreach. On May 6th the City, Museum of Vancouver, and Spacing Vancouver partnered with local residents and designers to hold walking tours of the three neighbourhoods as part of Jane’s Walk. The Marpole walk was hosted by landscape architect and urban designer Margot Long, and local resident Jo-Anne Pringle. Lil Ronalds, the City planner working on the Marpole plan, and City Councillors Heather Deal and George Affleck also attended. [caption id="attachment_9643" align="alignright" width="360" caption="Some of the residential streets within Marpole have significant tree canopies. Photo courtesy of Ren Thomas."][/caption] One of the oldest neighbourhoods in Vancouver, Marpole is economically and socially diverse. Primarily a residential neighbourhood, it is bounded by 59th Avenue, Ontario Street, the Fraser River and Granville Street. This massive area is intersected by several major arterials—including Oak Street, 70th Avenue, and Marine Drive—which contribute commercial and industrial land uses, but have also led to physical and social barriers within the neighbourhood. The legacy of streetcar routes and a branch rail line from Steveston to Vancouver are also evident in the existing land use and street patterns: the Metro Theatre being the last reminder of a thriving commercial hub generated by the interurban rail line.

  “When have you had your most engaged life experience?” asked Janet Moore and Duane Elverum. A rapt audience sat in silence for ten seconds. “No one ever says they had their most engaged experience in a classroom, or at a computer,” Elverum said. “Typically it's when they've been connecting their passion with their work, often it's outside, they're often sharing a struggle with others, working with people to accomplish something they couldn't otherwise.” Two years ago Moore, Assistant Professor at Simon Fraser University's Centre for Dialogue, and Elverum, Assistant Professor in design at Emily Carr University, asked this question at a Vancouver Design Nerd Jam in Vancouver. They envisioned a collaboration between the City of Vancouver and postsecondary students, allowing students to work on long-term real-world projects. The idea quickly gained traction at the City, which had just launched its Greenest City 2020 Action Plan. Greenest City Planner Lindsay Cole asked Moore and Elverum to present their idea to the Mayor's panel. With strong support from the Greenest City team, CityStudio was launched in September 2011.

The Next CoV Community Plans - Terms of Reference Administrative Report dated March 7, 2012, will be considered by Vancouver City Council’s Standing Committee on Planning, Transportation and Environment at its meeting on: DATE:    Wednesday, March 28, 2012 TIME:    9:30 am PLACE:    Council Chamber - Third Floor, City Hall The agenda for the meeting and the relevant report can be viewed at: vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/councilmeetings no later than the Friday preceding the meeting.  Hard copies will also be available upon request at that time. If you wish further information on this matter, please contact Matt Shillito ...

The Vancouver Dialogues Project is an initiative taken by the City of Vancouver to create a conversation of understanding between Vancouver’s many cultural groups.  The project is focused around First Nations, urban Aboriginals and new immigrants to the region — all of which come from very distinct cultural backgrounds that are very important to Vancouver’s cultural makeup. Distinct and significant as these communities are, they are also in danger of being marginalized or lost. With this in mind, one key issue identified as being a catalysts for the dialogues project was that it can be very difficult for new immigrants to learn about First Nations culture.  This is due to the lack of information readily available, as well as difficulty accessing what already exists. As a result, many new immigrants have very little knowledge of First Nations cultural heritage and its importance to the history of the city, province and country as a whole. The Dialogues project was set up as a way to bring communities together to share and learn from each other, create understanding and strengthen community relations between different groups. This was done using dialogue circles, community research, cultural exchange visits, youth and elder programs as well as legacy projects.  Of these, the most important part was the dialogue circles which had representative members of different communities prepare and participate in respectful sharing and dialogue.  These helped identify areas that were of particular concern and interest to each community and led to meaningful cultural exchanges.

[caption id="attachment_6562" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Photo courtesy of Ariane Colenbrander."][/caption] [Editor's Note: Affordability is a major concern in Vancouver - and is arguably the issue that will govern the future of the city for the foreseeable future. With this in mind,  the Mayor's Affordability Task Force has a large burden to bare on its shoulders. So, we are happy to cross-post one of the only articles to-date — written by Nathan Crompton, Sean Antrim and Andrew Witt of The Mainlander — with a thorough breakdown of all its members and what their take is on how it may affect Vancouver.  Although only time will tell what the legacy of the Task Force will be, getting different perspectives and intelligent voices outside the mainstream media on the matter is an important contribution to the discussion.] Two weeks after Vancouver was once again named one of the most unaffordable cities in the world, Mayor Gregor Robertson has unilaterally appointed the members of the city’s “Blue Ribbon Affordability Task Force.” The fourteen appointees of the task force are drawn from a list of prominent developers, landlord lobbyists, architects, and industry insiders. There is not one person on the task force to represent renters, who are the most negatively affected by the housing crisis, and who represent 55% of the city’s population.

[caption id="attachment_6136" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Photo courtesy of Mischa Bartkow."][/caption] [Editor's Note: As many of you know, we just launched Spacing's second National Edition with Gregor Robertson's interview being the main feature of the magazine. However, as is often the case with print, space limitations required that we edit the full interview down to a comfortable size. Naturally, certain Vancouver-specific content was chosen for omission with the idea being that we would run the entire 30 minute interview exclusively through Spacing Vancouver. So...here it is!] Mayor Gregor Robertson and the centre-left Vision Vancouver’s November 2011 election victory further cemented the upstart Elector Organization as a powerful political force in the city. The Coalition of Progressive Electors, from which the Vision party sprung, was shut out Vancouver’s ten council seats in the most recent vote, while the venerable Non-Partisan Association (NPA) won just two seats—an improvement from the one seat it garnered in 2008, but a far cry from elections past. Spacing Vancouver Editor Erick Villagomez managed to catch up with Robertson at his office to discuss how Vision pulled off this reelection win, what it means for Vancouver, and how he and his party intend to fulfill the promises made during the campaign. •••

Spacing Vancouver is excited to announce that we will be holding an in-depth Q & A session with Mayor Gregor Robertson to be published as one of the main Feature articles in Spacing's much anticipated second National Edition. In light of this great opportunity, we would like to give our readers the rare opportunity to add to the list of questions and issues we are going to address with the Mayor. Bike lanes? Laneway housing? Public realm? Future visions for the city? Anything you feel is important and worthwhile. Given our limited ...

[caption id="attachment_4300" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="A selected image from the Spacing Vancouver Flickr pool. Image courtesy of Steven Godfrey."][/caption] [If you're reading this before 8pm, polls are open. Still lost or caught by surprise? Check out Spacing Vancouver's recommendation post for more information on how to vote and who to take a closer look at.] The first post of this series went some way to explaining Vancouver's relatively unique electoral system, but before the ballots start going into the box it's useful to go into a little more depth as to how it works - and doesn't work. To begin with, each voter will be presented with a list of 94 candidates across races for the mayoralty, council, parks board, and school board. Without a ward system, every Vancouverite gets one vote for mayor, ten for council, seven for parks board, and nine for school board, for a grand total of 27 votes. Counting votes is rather straight-forward - simply add up the totals and take the top ten, seven, or nine. This is first-past-the-post on a grand scale, with the potential for candidates to squeak through on a plurality twenty-seven times over. To make things simpler yet, most candidates in contention come branded with a particular electoral organization's stamp of approval. In English, Vancouver has entrenched party politics. It also, again relatively unusually, allows non-resident property owners to vote in its elections.

[caption id="attachment_4385" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Top 5: RJ Aquino (COPE), Geoff Meggs (Vision), Sandy Garossino (I), Andrea Reimer (Vision), Ellen Woodsworth (COPE)"][/caption] Spacing Vancouver brings together contributors from all facets of the urban experience - transportation policy wonks and affordable housing activists alike. Our contributors are volunteers, flaneurs, and professionals, with interests as diverse as our city's urban landscape. While we would not presume to tell you how to cast your ballot, you might be feeling lost with only one day left before election day - so we've compiled a list of council candidates that we think deserve a closer look. Check out the City of Vancouver's website for details on how and where you can cast a vote to support our shared urban environment on Saturday, November 19. More than a dozen contributors have pooled their preferences to produce the following list, ordered in rough decending order. All four major slates are represented, as are the lone Green and key independent - and while the vast majority of those who contributed plan to vote for Gregor Robertson to continue as mayor, Randy Helten and Suzanne Anton did register in our poll.

[caption id="attachment_4158" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="A selected image from the Spacing Vancouver Flickr pool. Part of a photo by Philip Tong."][/caption] When I found out that CBC was opening their audience for Wednesday night's mayoral debate between Robertson and Anton, I immediately slotted it into the week's schedule after Sunday's "Last Candidate Standing" and Monday's "Connecting People and Places" without much thought. After being herded into the studio and sitting through the mic checks, however, it was clear that any new information was going to be thoroughly squeezed through the television tube. If you want the definition of manufactured story, check out CBC's own coverage entitled "Occupy Vancouver dominates CBC mayor's debate." No mention, naturally, that the format was specifically designed to give Occupy the entire first third, with housing and transportation fighting for the scraps.