Big feature today in the Globe by Lisa Rochon on Surrey and its big plans for the future, after her visit out here for the TownShift competition. But Rochon’s piece reveals far more than just architectural ambitions—it captures a city in the midst of a remarkable transformation from suburban sprawl to what’s officially being called Metro Vancouver’s “second downtown.”
Surrey’s story in 2010 is one of a community shedding its reputation as Vancouver’s “big, ugly sister across the river.” With a population of 466,000 growing by 1,000 people monthly, Surrey had become Canada’s fastest-growing suburb, yet it carried the baggage of being known as “the armpit of the Lower Mainland”—too poor, too young, and too dumb, as Vancouver’s elite liked to sneer.
Mayor Dianne Watts, the determined local leader profiled by Rochon, had been spearheading a sophisticated urban renaissance since 2005. Her strategy combined cutting-edge civic architecture with aggressive crime reduction and community building. The TownShift competition itself—”Suburb into City”—represented a $300,000 investment in reimagining Surrey’s town centres, drawing entries from 31 countries exploring everything from hip street gateways to enlivened public squares.
The competition wasn’t merely aesthetic posturing. Surrey’s transformation carries enormous implications for similar edge cities across North America struggling to create magnetic urban centres. Unlike places like Mississauga, which paved over farmland for industrial complexes, Surrey retained one-third of its territory as agricultural land while acquiring more parkland and protecting salmon-spawning creeks that “never suffered from toxic dumping.”
Central to Surrey’s vision was Bing Thom’s stunning Central City project—a brazen architectural statement that converted a banal shopping mall into an elegant complex topped with Simon Fraser University’s satellite campus. The structure’s innovative roof, fashioned from “peeler cores” (the formerly wasted inner rings of logs stripped for plywood), created a golden-glowing interior that buzzed with student energy even late at night.
Rochon’s piece highlighted how Surrey’s young demographics (one-third under 19), strategic location near Vancouver airport, and position as Canada’s second-largest border crossing made it attractive to new immigrants from China, the Philippines, and South Asia. Yet the city also grappled with serious challenges: carjackings, drug dens, homelessness, and mental illness.
The response was comprehensive. Watts implemented “broken windows” policing, demolished 190 derelict drug houses, shut down nearly 1,000 grow ops, and housed 500 homeless people. Crime dropped 30 percent between 2004-2008. Even Olympic modular housing would be transported to Surrey post-Games for supportive housing.
