Vancouverism: Urban Success? Or a Recipe For Disaster?
Has this Canadian city cracked the code to incorporate a city skyline with ample views of the mountainous terrain?
This past July, I touched down in beautiful British Columbia. On the plane, I peered over those in the seats to my right and got the slightest view of the breathtaking snow-capped Canadian Rockies. This was my first — and certainly not my last — visit to Vancouver!
My week’s trip out west entailed swimming in the freshwater lakes of Squamish, walking through Stanley Park in the pouring rain, line dancing at The Yale Saloon, music blasting out my friend’s car over the Lions Gate Bridge, and endless views of mountains. When it was time to head home, my friends and I hopped on the SeaBus into downtown Vancouver and rode the SkyTrain into the YVR Airport — skipping almost 2 hours' worth of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Talk about convenience!
When I got back home I did what any normal person would do. Blabber on to my siblings, parents, and grandparents about both the architectural and natural beauties of Vancouver along with its impressive early urban planning. I read all sorts of literature on Vancouver and what makes the city so dense yet spacious, urban but ever so green. In each article I read, I found myself asking the same question every time: What the hell is Vancouverism? Most commonly known from the novel (I have yet to delve into) written by urban planner and Vancouverite, Larry Beasley (arguably titled the father of Vancouverism). Wikipedia defines it as “An urban planning and architectural phenomenon in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It is characterized by a large residential population living in the city centre with mixed-use developments, typically with a medium-height, commercial base and narrow, high-rise residential towers, significant reliance on mass public transit, creation and maintenance of green park spaces, and preserving view corridors.”
In 1989, market prices for office developments plummeted due to the recession, which turned attention to high-density residential. However, the outskirt boroughs of downtown rejected any change so the only place left for real estate was on the downtown’s waterfront. At the time, population density was known as a bad thing, so Beasley hoped to defy that belief when he began his work in redesigning Vancouver. The solution? Thin, mixed-use, high-rises. “The skinniness offers light, air, and views for residents and pedestrians, while the podiums of shops and townhouses liven up streets.” Architect James Cheng designed a solid example of this: 888 Beach, a tower and townhouse project. Cheng has “gone on to produce other projects that have become poster children of Vancouverism.”
Though Beasley denies this criticism, I believe that part of the reason we see these skinny buildings as often as we do in Vancouver is its high influence from the large Asian population of BC. There is a Japanese architectural style known as Jutaku or kyosho jutaku (Japanese: 狭小住宅] which focuses on delivering “micro-home” designs on tiny plots of real estate. It is a common approach toward high-density Asian cities, and some may say in Vancouver as well.
However, as desirable as the product of Vancouverism has become, the city is seeing a rise in wealthy residents more and more as time passes. This path has led to a common worldwide issue: social segregation and decoupled market prices from the annual incomes of Vancouverites. As of July 2023, the average home price in Greater Vancouver for was $1,270,664 while the median income was a mere $82,000 in July 2022. Professor Meg Holden of Simon Fraser University worries that “Vancouverism has turned into a “gangsta” urbanism, a city of money and for money that, in the words of Tupac, was all about “trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents.” To others, the urban revolution that Vancouver underwent was striving for the greater good of the people. Serena Kataoka states in the Berkley Planning Journal, “Vancouverism promises to satisfy the drive to be ‘close to nature’ without rolling over nature, and so in a sense, it is more able to realize the suburban dream than the suburbs themselves.”
While the motive remains to be questionable to many, Vancouverism’s combination of land, sea, and sky, makes the city truly a sight worth seeing.
