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Entries from January 2016

Anti-gentrification strategies in the Downtown Eastside get as much attention as the actual gentrification

April 30th, 2013 · 85 Comments

As several other media outlets have reported in bits and pieces over the last couple of weeks, there has been some messy politics surrounding the anti-gentrification protests in the Downtown Eastside. My story here rounds these up, though it only skims the surface of this everything that’s going on. In particular, it doesn’t begin to […]

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Social media in an election campaign: It’s about way more than the likes and follows, all about the data and the conversation

April 29th, 2013 · 23 Comments

Doing anything about strategy during a campaign is excruciating. Hardly anyone wants to talk, unless they think they’ve got nothing to lose. Message box, yes. How we’re going to reach voters? Not so much. So the NDP declined to comment in any way about their social media strategy, in case you’re wondering about the lopsidedness […]

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Crawling toward the finish line in paying down the Olympic Village debt: $162 million last year, only $300 million to go

April 23rd, 2013 · 74 Comments

We never used to pay much attention to the city’s financial statements, except for a cursory brief on what the total budget was or some quirky expenditure. Now, it’s an annual event to see where the city is with the Olympic Village and the $750-million construction loan it took out to pay for it. My […]

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After seven long years, the Vancouver Art Gallery gets the site it wanted for a new building PLUS support from the mayor. But … a few strings attached

April 18th, 2013 · 157 Comments

While all of you have been merrily living your lives, some people in the city have been waiting for months for this city report to come out saying whether the Vancouver Art Gallery would get the Larwill Park site or not. And the answer yesterday was … yes, sort of. My story here, plus my […]

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When that 3 million square feet of office space gets built in Vancouver, will there be enough tenants to fill it all? The hot question these days

April 18th, 2013 · 8 Comments

The office-tower boom in Vancouver (and Burnaby, New West and Surrey) never ceases to produce chatter in the halls of the development/broker sector. It was the topic again at the city’s recent real-estate forum, where several panelists speculated on the impact of all that space hitting the market.

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One way to be an opposition politician — come up with ideas that the majority party thinks are swell

April 16th, 2013 · 25 Comments

Hmm, this is the second time I’ve seen this where Councillor George Affleck pitches an idea that the Vision council decides to adopt with no quibbling. (Other one was New Year’s Eve celebrations) It’s kind of a novel approach to political activisim — think up new things to do that fit with the governing party’s […]

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Are we all ready to enter the brave new world of intensive garbage sorting? I’m not so sure I am

April 16th, 2013 · 39 Comments

Every time my niece comes over for a family dinner, she watches in some disbelief as I scrape food scraps into a bucket, peel the labels off tin cans and drop the component parts into the paper recycling bag and the tin/glass/plastics box respectively, and generally act like I’m at a sorting centre. She thinks […]

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What does it really mean that COPE voted to run a mayoral candidate and candidates against Gregor Robertson and Vision?

April 10th, 2013 · 105 Comments

After much see-sawing back and forth over the last seven years within COPE on co-operating with Vision, the anti group turned out in force last Sunday. They elected many of their like-minded compatriots to the executive and passed a motion that the party should run a mayor candidate and a majority slate of candidate in […]

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Who would fund transit more — the NDP or the Liberals? See if you can figure it out from this

April 10th, 2013 · 24 Comments

Transportation Minister Mary Polak came out with what appears to be the Liberal position for the election campaign on transit Monday. I also included, for comparison purposes, the NDP’s. Story here. Interesting to see how relatively close they are, at least in the statements. Quite a difference with what’s happening in Ontario, when Premier Kathleen […]

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Dear City of Vancouver: A gentle resident begs you to clean up the mess under the south end of the Granville Bridge

April 7th, 2013 · 17 Comments

This came in through City Plumber and it seemed like a plea that deserved a little attention. So if someone at engineering/311 could take note? I have called the 311 number several times to ask that the multi-layered (and years old) grafitti at the bus turnarounds at the south end of the Granville Bridge be […]

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