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Entries from January 2016

Ask not for whom the bridge tolls. It tolls for thee.

September 25th, 2013 · 138 Comments

Okay, that is a really terrible headline: a mutilation of a lovely piece of poetry and also something that is guaranteed to fail all SEO tests. But whatever, we can have some fun every so often. So, just to do that horrible thing that middle-class people now do, this topic of tolling is very relevant […]

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Chocolate-making delivers a way out for women in the Downtown Eastside

September 19th, 2013 · 4 Comments

It’s too easy to get sentimental about every do-good program in the Downtown Eastside. Some, quite frankly, don’t really do much for the people they’re supposedly helping. The people who created this chocolate-making business at East Van Roasters aren’t sentimental. As Mark Townsend, from PHS, pointed out to me: People like to kid themselves that […]

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As businesses move to take over responsibility for recycling, cities raise a host of questions

September 18th, 2013 · 11 Comments

Who knew recycling was such a hot topic? It has been the last week, as cities have publicly raised concerns about the new system that’s about to descend on the province. That new system, which came about because of the province’s efforts to get producers to pay for the cost of recycling their packaging and […]

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Office-tower developers continue to love transit and Vancouver downtown

September 16th, 2013 · 165 Comments

Two new office-tower projects, to add to the I’ve-lost-count number already. I still can’t get over how much the commercial broker/office developer cluster is bullish on downtown and transit, after having been so hot on business parks for so many years. These two are interesting, as well, because they’re taking advantage of space that’s not […]

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Vision Van turns to Vision Critical for online engagement, and Vision Critical’s latest new hire is … former communications guy for Vision Van

September 12th, 2013 · 89 Comments

I would be remiss if I didn’t bring together these two news releases that landed in my inbox eight days apart. From Sept. 3/Vision Critical: Vision Critical appoints Ryan Merkley Managing Director and Senior Vice President, Public Affairs   Former Mozilla Foundation Chief Strategy Officer to lead VC’s Public Affairs practice worldwid TORONTO – September […]

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Park board and six community centres head to court tomorrow, as the divorce continues to get nastier

September 2nd, 2013 · 237 Comments

I can tell that the park board/community-centre association fight is hitting home when I go for my early-morning swim at New Brighton and women in the line-up are talking about the whole mess. Sunday morning, one was telling the other that all the contract staff currently hired by the centres are going to be fired […]

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Arts groups struggle to stay on Main Street as development booms ahead of creation of new city spaces

September 2nd, 2013 · 40 Comments

Vancouver actually has a plan to try to create new cultural spaces in Mount Pleasant out of the money it will extract from developers for new projects. And, from the look of things, it will have a fair amount to play with, as projects start rolling up the street from the Olympic Village construction-crane festival. […]

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