Category Archive: Cities
Vancouver's East Side suffers from The Mohawk
Posted by Michael Klassen on August 10, 2008
Writer Erick Villagomez beat me to a topic that I've been a little obsessed about for the last year or so. I began to document the matter in photos last January. I tagged new homes with small, one-room top floor extensions as having "peek-a-boo" rooms. Erick came up with a better label: The Mohawk.
Erick argues that as a result of Vancouver's rules around "floor space ratio" home builders are squeezing an extra, ugly story to new homes to provide a view over surrounding homes (and trees). He nails it by calling it what it is: junk food architecture.
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Tagged: andres duany, cities, ecodensity, vancouver east
Anatomy of a Block Party
Posted by Michael Klassen on April 3, 2008
Last weekend we held a small outdoor community event in recognition of Earth Hour that I'm proud to have been a part of.
How Mountain View's Earth Hour Hot Chocolate Party came about is a combination of chance and modern technology. First, a little background on the community.
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Tagged: earth hour, mountain view neighbourhood
Could better park design have prevented a tragedy?
Posted by Michael Klassen on February 4, 2008
Less than 24 hours before 15-year-old Deward Ponte was stabbed to death at the edge of Grays Park it was a bitterly cold Saturday morning – about as cold as Vancouver gets in winter. A temperature of minus 2 degrees Celcius and the forecast calling for snow. I stood beside Grays Park Hall on St. Catherine's street waiting for someone with the key to unlock the door of the meeting space we'd booked. The local community centre board had kindly loaned us the hall for 2 hours to conduct our annual general meeting of the neighbourhood association.
Although I've lived in the Vancouver's Mountain View Neighbourhood for 5 years this month, I had never stepped into Grays Park Hall before 2 months ago. My first occasion was when our school PAC had booked the empty space for a family portrait photo shoot to raise funds for neighbouring McBride Annex Elementary. The exterior of the building was a dour grey colour which probably hadn't been painted in over 10 years. The surrounding bushes had barely been groomed and a rusty chair was left outside the entrance doorway.
As I waited outside that morning I pondered Grays Park for a moment. As a public space it had so much potential to be one of the East side's great gathering places, I thought. It's a small park but it's not cramped, and it has a zillion dollar view of downtown Vancouver and the North Shore mountains. Some attention to the landscaping would help, and why do we need this parking lot (chained up after attracting regular drug dealing) that no one uses? An old lawn mower had been dumped in the juniper bushes beside it as if to emphasize the futility of this empty, chained off patch of asphalt.
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Tagged: public realm, public safety, vancouver parks
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Congratulations, Sunset Community!
Posted by Michael Klassen on December 17, 2007
A tip of the hat to my friend Walter Schultz. Walter dreamed that his community of Sunset, on Vancouver's often overlooked south side, would have a new community centre. Everywhere he went he was told his brainchild wouldn't happen, but he believed otherwise.
Walter worked his extensive network gained through business, politics and community activism and made the new Sunset Community Centre happen.
Just look at this photo -- it's beautiful!! The building was designed by the maverick architect Bing Thom. This is another coup by Walter, bringing in top talent to make this one of Vancouver's most remarkable structures.
The new Sunset Community Centre just opened this past weekend. What a great Christmas gift to everyone who lives near Main & 52nd.
Check out this link for all the photos Walter has posted.
Tagged: community spaces, parks, south vancouver
Robert Liberty on the politics of sustainability
Posted by Michael Klassen on November 14, 2007
A plug for a free public lecture presented by the Vancouver City Planning Commission, this coming Tuesday evening.
The Principles and Politics of Urban Sustainability
What can Vancouver learn about implementing smarter growth?
Growth in Metro Vancouver is at a crossroads. We welcome newcomers and are planning for a predicted increase in population. But citizens and developers are skeptical about the planning process and are debating the outcomes. What does it mean to implement smart growth? And what kind of leadership is needed to make it happen?
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Tagged: urban sprawl, vcpc
Expensive real estate killing industry in West: BIV
Posted by Michael Klassen on November 8, 2007
I won't weigh into the debate about the new Crappy Tire planned for Marine Drive, except to say that Big Box must start thinking Small Box and soon. Why can't a store like Canadian Tire find a niche at one of Vancouver's many neighbourhood centres? Their store at 7th & Cambie should be a model for future store development.
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Tagged: industrial land, south vancouver, urban sprawl
Michael Geller back home with a message
Posted by Michael Klassen on November 8, 2007
I went to a talk tonight by Michael Geller, noted Vancouver urban planning commentator and developer consultant, hosted by the Planning Institute of BC. He has returned from an 8-month trip abroad, where he visited dozens of cities to explore how they are dealing with change and growth. Naturally, he compared Vancouver with places as diverse as Auckland, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Beijing and Prague.
While I didn't bring anything to record notes, a number of his ideas and observations stood out and I'm listing many of them below in no particular order.
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Tagged: favourite, transportation, urban design
Urban sprawl fuels California wildfires?
Posted by Michael Klassen on October 25, 2007
First of all, I'd like to send well wishes to those individuals and families displaced by the wildfires happening in southern California. Nobody deserves to lose their home, or their community, to natural disasters.
You can argue that during a crisis is not the best time to discuss the causes of that crisis, but to me it is. So I ask, is urban sprawl responsible for this devastation?
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Tagged: california, urban sprawl, wildfires
Previous entries...
Can I write on your wall?
07.09.24
Clever activism creates instant parks
07.09.23
Plug for CityFarmBoy
07.08.16
Props for Price Tags
07.07.12
