Viewpoint Vancouver
75 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsVancouver's source for Urbanism, Insight, and Evolution. Hosted by Gordon Price, former Vancouver City Councillor and Director of the SFU City Program lecture series. Featuring interviews with leading players and emerging voices on issues of urban planning, architecture, housing, transportation, politics, culture, and public spaces.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Michael Von Hausen: How does False Creek forecast the future?
October 28, 2022 05:00 - 1 hour - 48.8 MBJoin Visionary Urbanist Michael von Hausen for a broad yet intimate perspective on Vancouver urban design, from the '70s through to the present day. Michael has been laying Vancouver's groundwork since the ’80s, as a key designer in the early development of False Creek. His multi-disciplinary perspective on urban design draws from landscape architecture, planning, design, and development, to forge an urban ‘greenfrastructure’ to feed our bellies as well as our urban souls. Together Michael...
Price and Ladner place bets on Election '22
October 06, 2022 18:00 - 52 minutes - 36.1 MBWith 10 days counting down to Election Day, Gordon Price pulls in ex-NPA-Council-crony-turned-urban-food-security-activist-and-all-around-mensch Peter Ladner for a frank talk on what is up with this wacky election. With 58 candidates for Vancouver City Council and 10 registered parties in the running, how can we make sense of it all? Among the many chewy topics on the table, Gord and Peter consider: can anyone entice the centre Left to ride to a City Hall majority—and do these labels still ...
'Vanbikes' Chronicler Colin Stein tracks the history of Vancouver's Bicycle Revolution
September 20, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 46.6 MBIn this very special episode, author Colin Stein unveils an epic portrait of our place and time: Vanbikes: Vancouver's Bicycle People and the Fight for Transportation Change, 1986-2011 (An Oral History). In conversation with Gordon and a room full of fans, he relates how the bicycle people transformed Vancouver, and how Vancouver transformed Colin Stein. Related as a series of discussions and anecdotes and packed with photos and memorabilia, Vanbikes tells of culture change from the inside ...
Makin' it in Dubai - a Viewpoint Podcast Special
March 25, 2022 04:00 - 34 minutes - 23.5 MBWelcome to a special dispatch from Gordon Price, checking in from Expo 2022 in Dubai. (With our apologies for the sound quality. At a place like Expo, it was the quietest place he could find.) One of the best things about a world’s fair—after you’ve visited the pavilions, tasted the food, listened to the music —is oddly, also one of the worst things: standing in lines. Because it is in those lineups where you’re likely to engage with people from other places in way you never otherwise wou...
Three Quick Questions for John Coupar
February 18, 2022 04:00 - 9 minutes - 6.91 MBWelcome to Episode Three of Viewpoint Vancouver's election podcast feature: Three Quick Questions. Where, in under ten minutes, Gordon puts civic candidates on the spot with three unusual questions designed to reveal who they are and what really makes them tick. This time up, Gord turns the political spotlight on John Coupar, running as the NPA's candidate for Mayor of the City of Vancouver. Listen in on John's long behind-the-scenes family history with the Vancouver Park Board, and get t...
Three Quick Questions for Ken Sim
January 26, 2022 06:00 - 8 minutes - 6.04 MBListen in for Episode Two of Viewpoint Vancouver's election podcast feature: Three Quick Questions. Where, in under ten minutes, Gordon puts civic candidates on the spot with three unusual questions designed to reveal who they are and what really makes them tick. This time up, Gord puts it to Ken Sim, running for Mayor of City of Vancouver with A Better City. For more about Ken check out kensim.ca. ********************************************* The Viewpoint Podcast is a production of V...
BurnaBOOM! Post-war bungalows and transit-hub skyscrapers can make for uneasy neighbors. Lee-Ann Garnett brings the Burnaby housing story to life.
January 19, 2022 06:00 - 1 hour - 42 MBThe great “BurnaBOOM” started off in the ‘50s, as Willingdon Heights came to model the suburban ideal: a gridded neighborhood of wide streets, tidy flower gardens, and modest single-family bungalows. To some extent, it is still that—but so much more. Lee-Ann Garnett, Burnaby’s Deputy Director of Planning and Building, tells the evolving story of Burnaby housing through the eyes of Albert and Clara—an archetypal blue-collar couple who leave the prairies after the war, to settle in Burnaby an...
Three Quick Questions for Mark Marissen
January 10, 2022 03:00 - 7 minutes - 5.55 MBJoin Viewpoint Vancouver for a quickie! Introducing our new Election feature: Three Quick Questions, where, in under ten minutes, Gordon puts civic candidates on the spot with three unusual questions designed to reveal who they are and what really makes them tick. First up in the series: Mark Marissen, running for Mayor of City of Vancouver with Progress Vancouver. What has Amsterdam got that Vancouver doesn't, creating a safer and more vibrant downtown? Mark has an idea. For more of Mark...
North Van's got urban soul—and big city challenges. Councillor Tony Valente reveals.
December 28, 2021 19:00 - 48 minutes - 33 MBThe City of North Van is no bedroom community. With sexy projects like the Shipyards, the Polygon Art Gallery, and new Lonsdale patios and covered seating, North Van is quickly becoming a destination city. In fact, the City has the lowest percentage of single-family homes of any Greater Vancouver municipality. The buzz now is all about market rentals, and affordable housing. First-term City of North Vancouver Councillor Tony Valente talks to Gordon about housing challenges, rapid buses, co...
Translink unveils TRANSPORT 2050, and Policy Development Manager Eve Hou is here to spill the beans.
October 28, 2021 23:00 - 50 minutes - 34.8 MBBig news for the Region! Translink has just unveiled Transport 2050: its blueprint for the next 30 years of regional mobility. Gordon talks to Translink Manager of Policy Development Eve Hou about the evolution of this important document, and what Translink sees coming down the long-range pipes. Will we have a future of integrated mobility: transit pass, car-share, and share-bike, all in one handy package? Translink calls it “mobility as a service”. The acronym is ACES — automated, connect...
Big Moves: Urbanist Anthony Perl on Global Agendas, Local Aspirations, and Urban Mobility
July 14, 2021 19:00 - 46 minutes - 32.1 MBAll countries have distinctive urban regions, but Canadian cities especially differ from one another in culture, structure, and history. SFU prof Anthony Perl’s new book Big Moves: Global Agendas, Local Aspirations, and Urban Mobility in Canada (co-authored with Matt Hern and Jeffrey R. Kenworthy) dissects how Canada's three largest urban regions have been shaped by the interplay of globalized imperatives, aspirations, activism, investment, and local development initiatives. In this episo...
Panels, manels or womels? Mo Amir helps Gordon Price unpack the intricacies of modern lexicon
June 08, 2021 23:00 - 1 hour - 41.8 MBAn OWG (Old White Guy) enlists the aid of a YBG (Young Brown Guy) in unpacking modern socio-political vocabulary. Can white people be 'racialized'? Is equity of opportunity the same as equity of outcome? What is privilege, really? Who has it now, and where does the balance tip? And, moreover: what does it really take, to be Gord’s perfect gym buddy? Join us for a rambling and entertaining conversation as Mo Amir of popular culture podcast This is VANCOLOUR joins Gordon Price for a trip th...
From Kitsilano hippies to Strathcona tent city: Judy Graves believes in housing for all.
May 21, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 47.2 MBThroughout her 33-year career, Judy Graves was the public face of City Hall to those living in Vancouver's streets and shelters. She knew who they were, what they needed, and how to get a roof over their heads. She reached out to them, often in the late hours of the night. She knew the ins-and-outs of City Hall, especially the ins, and who did what. She knew how to get the right kind of help to the people who needed it. While her successes were measured by the individuals she helped day t...
Ahead of the Curve, On the Leading Edge, at the Next Frontier, Marc Lee Is Looking There
March 13, 2020 03:07 - 1 hour - 44.8 MBMarc Lee has a sort of duality imbued in him that gives him a unique perspective on the world. Raised by a single mother who put him through private school at the prestigious Upper Canada College, Marc developed a perspective on both sides of the spectrum. His work as Senior Economist at the Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives has taken him from the trade agreements, Globalization and Neoliberalism of the 90s, to today’s housing crisis, and on to looking at the growing precarity of the ...
In a World of Acrimonious Political Discourse, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones Has Some Words of Hope
March 05, 2020 00:24 - 1 hour - 41.6 MBRecently retired from federal politics, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones has had a distinguished career; from grassroots local politics, to helping improve the peace and security of women on a global scale. Gord and Pamela talk about densification, reconciliation, the reason she got into federal politics, being a good neighbour, and more. Read more »
Mark Sakai on Building For a Warming Future, the Grand Bargain, and Housing Affordability
February 27, 2020 21:08 - 1 hour - 45.2 MBDirector of government relations for the Homebuilders Association Vancouver and 4th generation Japanese-Canadian Mark Sakai talks internment, immigration, growing up in Steveston and housing. Housing. What’s important? Mark asks: can you find the housing you want at your stage of life? Single family housing? Spoiler, it still dominates, but you’re probably going to look in Maple Ridge or Abbotsford, or Brandon, Manitoba for that matter, unless your pockets have depth and breadth. Two-third...
To Gian Singh Sandhu, Success Means Not Taking a Back Seat to Anybody
December 03, 2019 17:10 - 1 hour - 48 MBWhile the majority of the 27 million practitioners of Sikhism live in India — most living in the state of Punjab — half a million Sikhs reside in Canada. In fact, 1 in 20 British Columbians is Sikh. And according to Gian Singh Sandhu, founding president of the World Sikh Organization (WSO), so is 1 in 4 Surrey residents. Sikhism is one of the (if not the) fastest-growing religion in Metro Vancouver. As the Vancouver Sun noted a few years ago, “B.C. is the only province in Canada, and one ...
Greens’ Adriane Carr on Working with Communities to Prepare for Sea Change
November 15, 2019 16:27 - 1 hour - 42.8 MBIf you needed more evidence that environmental issues are no longer fringe issues, all you have to do is look at Vancouver Greens’ Adriane Carr. Her 74,000 votes in the 2014 municipal election was the most by a Vancouver council candidate since 1996…and perhaps ever? Had she run for mayor in 2018, she might have won, and by as many as 20,000 votes. Born at VGH and raised in east Van, Carr’s future political life began auspiciously — a Master’s degree in Geography under the tutelage of UBC...
No Days Off for Sarah Blyth or the Downtown Eastside
November 05, 2019 17:00 - 28 minutes - 19.9 MBSarah Blyth first started to see the spike in drug overdoses in the Downtown Eastside community in 2016. From her vantage point as manager of the DTES Market, she couldn’t help but see it. People were literally dying in the street. So she decided to do something about it. Rob sums it up: “You saw the need, set up a tent, and tried to save lives”. Yup. Blyth’s role as founder and Executive Director of the Overdose Prevention Society is the latest in a series of contributions to the city b...
Rookie Councillor Ahmed Yousef on the Changing Face of Maple Ridge
October 28, 2019 17:00 - 1 hour - 44.7 MBIt wasn’t that long ago that British Columbians were saying, “What the hell is going on in Maple Ridge?” In 2014, voters elected Nicole Read as mayor of the region’s eastern outpost …and then subjected her to a virulent strain of online harassment which, after two years, resulted in threats that prompted an RCMP investigation, and ultimately her decision to not rerun in the 2018 election. The reason for the harassment? The appearance of a homeless camp in an empty lot at a cul-de-sac on C...
xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Member Wade Grant, on What Canada is Today
October 21, 2019 17:08 - 1 hour - 43.4 MBWhat does it mean to change a street name? What does it mean to be able to fish? What does it mean to have title over the land upon which you, and your people, were born? This line of questioning may not immediately resonate with the majority of Canadians going to the polls today, intent on electing (or re-electing) the next Prime Minister. But it matters a hell of a lot to Indigenous people, to the Musqueam Indian Band, and specifically to Wade Grant. In this long-awaited discussion with...
From Thin Soup to Dreamland: The Social Impact of SCARP Alumni Thomas Bevan & Bob Williams
October 08, 2019 16:59 - 1 hour - 44 MBThe latest in our Passing the Torch series introduces us to Thomas Bevan, a Millennial who’s already left his mark on Vancouver. From his youth in Kitchener, Ontario — and a “difficult relationship” with a downtown that wasn’t quite the hotspot it has since become — to his graduate studies at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning (“a dreamland…a beautiful place”) and current work with BC Housing, Bevan stepped into the world of urbanism with a naturally intuitive sense that the e...
Talking NIMBYism, Populism & Campaign 2022 with George Affleck
September 20, 2019 18:57 - 35 minutes - 24.1 MBOne thing is proven without a doubt in this wide-ranging, deep political dive with Gord, Rob, and return guest George Affleck — these guys don’t know their Tolkien. And while there was no cranky, right-wing guy in Middle Earth, there is a central character whose very rigid way of thinking begins to soften. If that seems to be the case with Affleck, it may be with the benefit of retrospect, especially with an eye to the performance of current council, and specifically in contrast to its pre...
Brent Toderian: It Was the Best of Jobs, It Was the Worst of Jobs
September 10, 2019 16:29 - 1 hour - 47.3 MBA tale of two city-makers — one, a son of the working poor, who showed an early knack for creation and collaboration, in part through the use of polyhedral dice; the other, a world-renowned urban planner, with a Twitter following as large as the populations of some of the cities he now calls clients. The two are, of course, the same man. Brent Toderian arrived in Vancouver in 2006 as the new Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver, stepping into the role jointly held by Larry Beasle...
Lon LaClaire on Challenges, Cost/Benefits, and ‘Aha’ Moments for Transportation in Vancouver
September 03, 2019 17:09 - 1 hour - 50.4 MBIt was 2009, Vancouver was about to become the largest metro region to host a winter Olympic Games, and the city faced a challenge of similarly grandiose proportions — how to accommodate a 30% increase in downtown transportation trips alongside a 30% reduction in road network capacity, thanks to Games-related operations. For Lon LaClaire, a transportation planning engineer at that fraught moment in the city’s history, it was an experiment that would prove to be the ultimate litmus test of ...
Michael Gordon on the Yin and Yang of Community Planning in Vancouver
August 31, 2019 00:08 - 1 hour - 43 MBEvery child is full of questions. And while the science is fuzzy, it seems that children who ask questions about the future — not how things work today, but how they could work better tomorrow — tend to make great planners. Michael Gordon was one of those children. And his legacy as one of the most important planners of Vancouver’s Golden Age (thank you, Larry Beasley) has been built by finding answers to the most difficult of questions about the growth of inner cities. Namely, is it possi...
Already Pretty Lit: Passing the Politics Torch, with Peter Ladner & Vivienne Zhang
August 13, 2019 18:33 - 1 hour - 43 MBThere’s nothing like listening to a gifted speaker riff on culture and politics; especially when the riffing is concise, with a judicious use of words, and an almost complete absence of hyperbole or bafflegab. Sure, that sounds like Peter Ladner. But in this edition of Price Talks torch-passing, it also describes Vivienne Zhang, the successor to Ladner’s predecessor. Zhang is a UBC grad, currently en route to the Paris Institute of Political Studies (‘Sciences Po‘) to begin her Masters in ...
The Co-Creationist Idealism of Pete Fry
July 29, 2019 18:30 - 54 minutes - 37.5 MBAccording to Vancouver Green Party councillor Pete Fry, consultation won’t build us the city of the future. “Where we’re going, we don’t need sticky notes on a wall,” he said (kind of). To Fry, consultation simply means, ‘the plan has already been written’ — not the right approach for the city-wide plan. Ironically, it was a lack of consultation that almost resulted in a freeway blowing through his Strathcona neighbourhood, but that’s a story for another time. He wants co-creation. Neighb...
A Night on the North Shore: A Conversation with Residents
July 09, 2019 15:05 - 1 hour - 54.8 MBThe Price Talks team hosted its first public podcast recording, held in front of a live library audience in the District of North Vancouver on June 26, 2019. We’ve lobbed quite a bit of criticism at the North Shore generally over the past eight months, regarding recent decisions about housing, transportation and the public realm, but felt it was time to actually hear from residents. Joining Gord for the discussion were: Dominica Babicki, formerly Energy Manager with the District, current...
The Sky’s the Limit for Kevin Desmond, CEO of North America’s Transit Ridership Leader
July 03, 2019 15:04 - 55 minutes - 37.8 MBThere’s no two ways about it — TransLink, Metro Vancouver’s transit authority, is #1 in North America for year-over-year transit ridership growth. Seattle’s King County Transit is #2. And Kevin Desmond has led them both. Desmond, now in his 4th year at the TransLink helm, didn’t emerge as a transit planning professional as a result of education, nepotism, or some cultish, hippie-era, preternatural NUMTOT trip (though, thanks to Gord, he’s now officially hip to the ELMTOT jive). No, Desmon...
The Intergenerational Lessons of Outsiderdom, with Paul Lee & Nathan Pachal
June 25, 2019 19:52 - 42 minutes - 29.4 MBMore bus routes with greater capacity. Ground level retail in proximity to low-rise residential buildings. Communities designed with walking, cycling, and integrated multi-modal mobility in mind. And yes, rapid transit. Surrey and Langley are two obvious examples of cities south of the Fraser taking slow, but steady and at times bold, steps towards the future, thanks in no small part to the work done by people like Paul Lee and Nathan Pachal. In this second edition of our “Predecessor/Suc...
Re-Imagine Downtown Vancouver: 3-Year Progress Report
June 14, 2019 21:24 - 43 minutes - 30.1 MBIn 2015, the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) undertook a strategic planning process that might have invited a bit of cynicism — give a fancy name and lengthy timeline to a stock-in-trade exercise, and call it transformative. That exercise, however, was Re-Imagine Downtown Vancouver, and it has already proven to be anything but typical. For one, it’s a 25-year legacy ‘vision’ project laid upon a foundation of rigorous research and public engagement. For another, ...
Mike Brown on the Role of Private Capital in Tackling the Climate Emergency
June 07, 2019 18:30 - 53 minutes - 36.6 MB“A lot of people thought we were wildly pessimistic as to the speed with which we were facing this crisis. Turned out we were wildly optimistic. This is happening faster than those of us who started getting interested in it 30 years ago could possibly have conceived.” In recognition of the 30 year anniversary of Clouds of Change, the 1989 report from the City of Vancouver’s Task Force on Atmospheric Change, Gord speaks with a key influencers for his originating motion to strike the task f...
A Night with Jeff Speck: Cars Moving Slowly, Deep Walkability & Recreating the Traditional American Town
May 31, 2019 19:00 - 1 hour - 42.5 MB“There are places we love, and places we hate…at a certain point, we made it illegal to make the places we love anymore, and we were only allowed to make the places we hate.” So says Jeff Speck, one of North America’s top urban designers, and a leader of the new urbanism movement, in a recent visit — his first — to Vancouver. As co-author of 2010’s Suburban Nation with his mentors Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (of architecture and town planning firm DPZ Partners), Speck reached...
Bringing (More) Process Back to Politics, with VanGreens Councillor Michael Wiebe
May 28, 2019 15:00 - 41 minutes - 28.5 MBYou might be a fan of Vancouver Councillor Michael Wiebe’s previous work with the Park Board, including the Jericho Lands Agreement, the Biodiversity Strategy, and warming shelters. Or maybe you prefer his first big hit, as co-owner of eight 1/2, the well-regarded Mt. Pleasant restaurant. You may even appreciate his 10 years as Park Board staff, or his debut in administrative management in the provincial government. But if you’re invested in Vancouver’s new era of power and politics, you...
Houssam Elokda on the Heliopolis Effect, Happy Cities, and Doing Nothing Together
May 21, 2019 18:30 - 41 minutes - 28.4 MBIt’s not Vancouver, but it sounds like the Vancouver we want to be: multi-family residential buildings located close to the urban centre. Generously spaced laneways and semi-private lots for kids to play. Sufficient access to high storefronts, services and other amenities, in ever-expanding concentric circles of community, neighbourhood, and city. It’s Heliopolis — once a suburb 10 kilometres outside of Cairo, today swallowed up by the city. And like most neighbourhoods in Vancouver, it’s ...
Mark Busse, On the Underlying Confidence That We Can Design for Community
May 14, 2019 16:30 - 58 minutes - 40.6 MBCan we create community out of diversity? If so, will it require changing the scale and character of urban forms within our communities…the very change some Lower Mainlanders have recently become notorious for rejecting? It’s one of many thorny questions tossed around, grappled over, and occasionally outshouted by our venerable host and his subject Mark Busse, Director of TILT Curiosity Labs at HCMA Architecture + Design, and host of the Creative Mornings Vancouver breakfast lecture series...
A Little Institutionalized Rant from George Affleck on Red Meat, the Mushy Middle & the NPA
May 07, 2019 16:30 - 29 minutes - 20.6 MBIn George Affleck’s world, the only thing worse than the politician who tries to please everyone is the politician who only focuses on the base. So you can understand why the only thing to possibly vex him more than last council — in which he withstood endless punishment from a neo-leftie Vision Vancouver majority — could be this council, the least experienced in…possibly forever. The two-time former NPA councillor, alongside friend of the podcast Rob McDowell, joins Gord to dissect the g...
Designing Loveability: Chris Fair of Resonance, on Placemaking & Superstar Cities
May 03, 2019 21:00 - 45 minutes - 31.6 MBChris Fair helps places — communities, cities, regions — think about the future. That thinking drives the design of everything from the branding of a destination, to the design of streets, buildings and other public spaces, and what is put in them in order to make a city not just liveable, but loveable. Fair’s belief? That if you stop looking at how people behave, and begin understanding how people may want to behave in the future (in part through creative disruption, and of course big da...
The Notorious MDG: Melissa De Genova on Political Pedigree, Plot Twists & New Priorities
April 29, 2019 16:00 - 32 minutes - 22.6 MBIf you follow Vancouver politics, you don’t need an intro to Melissa De Genova. In just her second term as Vancouver councillor, De Genova suddenly has the second-longest tenure of anyone in council chambers, and has also become (surprisingly, to some) one of the more credible authorities on policy, staff relations, and council protocol. Maybe even one of the adults in the room. Falling on the heels of three consecutive Vision Vancouver council majorities — in which De Genova was a favour...
The House that TEAM Built: Reflections from Living Legend V. Setty Pendakur
April 26, 2019 17:00 - 56 minutes - 38.8 MBLegendary is not a term to be taken lightly, but neither are the accomplishments of TEAM (The Electors’ Action Movement), the municipal political party formed in 1968 in Vancouver by Art Phillips. TEAM steamrolled into City Hall with an 8-seat majority in 1972, and is credited with steering the city into a direction which is often recognized as upholding a world-class standard for quality of life. Similarly, living legends are rare. But, in the case of V. Setty Pendakur — as with Vancouver...
A Night with Jarrett Walker: Building Human Transit with Shakespeare, String & Elephants in Wine Glasses
April 19, 2019 18:00 - 1 hour - 52.1 MBPublic transit consultant Jarrett Walker says the value of his work with municipalities around the world is never predicated on delivering his own recommendation. Instead, he says he “fosters conversations, leading to confident decisions”. That might get his firm Jarrett Walker + Associates the job. But as he demonstrates during this enlightening and entertaining chat — Price Talks’ second live recording at Gord’s West End apartment —”convening people in the presence of reality” is Walker’...
The Sea Captain, the Strongman & the City of Surrey — with Sukh Johal
April 09, 2019 18:30 - 38 minutes - 26.2 MBThe Sea Captain is the newly unveiled public art piece, held aloft from the ceiling of the newly upgraded Surrey Central SkyTrain station on Expo Line. It’s also, perhaps, an apt metaphor for themes covered in this episode. Themes like encounters with colonialism, and the different forms they can take. Figuring out how different peoples live together in one place. Gord explores these, and many other themes related to culture, settlement, and “the Canadian experiment”, in his wide-ranging...
Shauna Sylvester & Veronika Bylicki on Mentorship, Dialogue & Representing Lived Experience
April 05, 2019 16:00 - 1 hour - 47.8 MBCheck out Shauna Sylvester’s profile on LinkedIn. Don’t be shy — she invited all Vancouverites to connect with her on the well-behaved social network for the 2018 Vancouver civic election. It was one of a few memorable tactics Sylvester deployed during the endless campaign. Like having policy platforms, and speaking authentically about topics with which she had direct experience. Something definitely worked, because her independent run captured 20% of the vote in the mayoralty race, for th...
Return of The Independents
March 29, 2019 17:00 - 51 minutes - 35.6 MBPast Vancouver City Council candidates — and Price Talks pundits — Adrian Crook and Rob McDowell return to the podcast to give their latest letter grades to our local leaders. And much ground is covered in the process, including Rental 100, the Broadway-UBC subway, and the back-story to the cold shoulder given to Vancouver Rape Relief’s grant request. Plus, teapot tempests such as councillor budgets, and the big mistake Kennedy made early in his mayoral tenure. The team also ruminates on ...
Turning the Tables on Gordon Price
March 26, 2019 23:03 - 31 minutes - 21.8 MBIt was with some relish that the Price Talks production team spun the guest mic around to hear what the podcast’s namesake, the well-seasoned urbanist Gordon Price, might reveal when lightly grilled. An activist, political and urbanist voice in Metro Vancouver for four decades, Gord’s public life has been informed in no small part by his upbringing in Victoria, which included some formative cultural, social and personal influences that eventually led him — with some trepidation — to Vancouv...
A Night with Jeff Tumlin: Acknowledging Privilege & Getting Cities to Yes
March 22, 2019 19:15 - 1 hour - 53.6 MB“Google ‘Tumlin NIMBY’ or ‘Tumlin Santa Monica’, and you can see a little bit of the story arc.” An effective stage-setting for a dialogue earlier this month, in front of a small gathering at Gord’s West End apartment, with Jeff Tumlin, Principal and Director of Strategy for Nelson Nygaard. One in a long-running series of Price Tags Soirées, and our first live audience recording, the chat included a Q&A with a few special guests well-known to #vanpoli followers. Tumlin, raised in LA and ...
Seth Klein on Mobilizing for the Climate Emergency, and the Lessons of WWII
March 15, 2019 14:30 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MB“There is a time coming, in our lives, when the tap of natural gas into our homes and into our city is going to be turned off. It’s not tomorrow — we have time to make adjustments.” As follow-up to his interview with Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle (Episode 19) — mover of a unanimously-approved motion to declare a climate emergency — Gord wanted to speak to one of the ‘generals’ working on a solution to coming disaster. Someone with the knowledge, experience, and character to not...
Nathan Edelson on Housing, Gentrification, & the Future of Inner City Planning
March 12, 2019 21:34 - 49 minutes - 34.3 MBIn 1997, as workers were stripping asbestos out of the old Woodward’s building, the Vancouver planner overseeing the project predicted it would take 10 to 20 years for Hastings Street to change. “From anything we can see, the community will be overwhelmingly low-income for that long,” Nathan Edelson told the Vancouver Sun. Flash forward 22 years, and he was both right and wrong. True, a lot has changed on Hastings Street since the opening of the new Woodward’s Building in 2010. The central...
Let’s Get Small: Jake Fry on Building a New Housing Typology
March 09, 2019 00:06 - 1 hour - 44.7 MBThis is the creation story of laneway housing in Vancouver…and, perhaps, the beginning of the end of the Bartholomew era of restrictive zoning. The protagonist is Jake Fry, a self-proclaimed — metaphorical, mind you — child of Trudeau, who grew up in small-town Ontario and attended a one-room schoolhouse. His real education might have come half a kilometre underground; coming from a family of miners, this is where Fry learned hard skills, carpentry first and foremost among them. This ultim...