Quote:
Originally Posted by stevai
"But we [in Vancouver] rely excessively on being beautiful and being next to nature. All our planning tends to focus outward toward the views, and there has been no attention to the street-level experience for people.
Actually, pretty sure Vancouver pays above average attention to the street-level experience. The approval process for any development application downtown always has a substantial focus on the street-level design and pedestrian scale. So this claim of "no attention" is bogus.
"It has been known to rain here," he observes dryly. "Yet we've paid no attention to building underground passageways among shopping centres -Pacific Centre and Bentall Centre, for example."
Actually, there has been attention paid to undeground passageways... Although limited, Bental Centre, which connects to Royal Centre, along with Pacific Centre, which connects to Vancouver Centre is somewhat of a basic foundation for an underground network similar to PATH in Toronto. Again, this claim of "no attention" is bogus.
"I look at the park where I live at Coal Harbour. Why not use the first 30 or 40 feet of grass -cover it over with retail opportunities, use part of the walkway for chairs where people can sit out and drink and eat and enjoy themselves?
It's not clear what park he is referring to exactly, but maybe he should look a bit harder along the waterfront in Coal Harbour to where there are stretches of retail and patios to eat and drink along the seawall. I'm not sure there would be enough market demand for this along the entire stetch... last time I checked the new new retail spaces along the seawall at the new convention centre still had plenty of For Lease signs.
"The same thing at False Creek. There are beautiful opportunities to build retail right out onto the waterfront so people can stroll and stop for a beer.
Again, has this guy even been to false creek? Fails to mention the stetch of restaurants and sidewalk patios between the bridges.
He has obvious points with the rest of the article. Doesn't take much to see that for yourself.
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very true - some of the retail near the westin comes and goes - many little businesses have tried to set up in there and within months end up shutting down - even the urban fare in that area can feel quite empty
there is a great plaza on south false creek seawall somewhere just about 10 mins east of granville island - its got the retail surrounding it that he calls for but its basically a crappy convenience store and no one seems to go there to hang out and it's a pretty prime location for residents but they don't seem to support it and if you throw in a starbucks than people complain about that
vancouver has tried many things and supports many things and festivals - the ones that have survived are things like the childrens festival or the folk fest etc.
a lot of events also seem to be rather exclusive and if you don't know about them the organizers are happier that you don't and enjoy their little closed intimate events to themselves and thats a problem with vancouver on a lot of levels - many complain about the lack of this or that and if you aren't in the right circle you just don't get it and will never become privy to it but if you are in the right circle its the greatest city in the world - vancouver is very clicky and i think exclusive in a lot of ways
I meet so many people who say vancouver isn't friendly and i always say no it's a great city but when you think about - you have the west end people not wanting a new rental building cause they don't want more people in THEIR west end, people on the west side or kits don't want social housing in THEIR neighbourhood, how dare the city densify cambie street, we don't want OUR views messed with etc etc. what a bunch of self-centered entitled sense of being people are they
I know people who live in the west end and hate the fact that "surrey people" are roaming robson street or granville street and they hate the fireworks cause it brings in "them" and its just so tired
the city tries and the people fail