Vancouver - nature still at your footstep???

Vancouver is being marketed to the people as one of the world’s most livable cities, as a place with nature at your footsteps, and as a place where it is possible to ski, golf and sail within one day. But for an average person, this is less of a reality now and will be even less true in the future.

Politicians’ desire is to increase the population of metro Vancouver by another 1 000 000 people in just few years. These people will be squeezed within the existing city boundaries by increasing the population density. This development will certainly benefit some key groups and industries (real estate, builders), but let’s think about how this will change things for the most people living here;

As the population density increases, more and more of the people will be squeezed into towers with tiny concrete cells, with a view to 50 similar concrete cells across the street. People can move around only within a 3-block radius by foot, since all the streets will be impassable due to permanent traffic jam - building one more skytrain line by 2020 will hardly alleviate this. The mountains and the wilderness that used to be close – making Vancouver special – will be further and further away. Just getting across the bridge that leads towards them will take hours. As more and more people move in, even the tiny concrete cells will become more expensive than a large house somewhere else, and thus more low income people will be displaced out on the streets. So, if you leave your tiny concrete cell and go for that little 3-block stroll, you can enjoy the views of concrete towers and streets lined with standstill cars and homeless beggars, instead of the ocean and mountains.

As I see it, quite soon, Vancouver will be more of a stress ridden, overcrowded hellhole than one of the worlds most livable cities.