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
Chuck Brook & Gordon Harris on Incrementalism, and the Change We Fear
March 04, 2019 04:27 - 47 minutes - 32.6 MB“You don’t hold referendums in small communities on a case-by-case basis—you do what you were elected to do, and make difficult decisions for the greater good.” For anyone following politics in Metro Vancouver these days, this is become the sentiment of some in the planning profession. It’s a message about (and even directed towards, even if not in so many words) the many new, inexperienced members of council in city halls across the region proposing, and making decisions about, the very r...
The Tactical Optimism of Portland’s Sarah Iannarone
March 01, 2019 18:13 - 38 minutes - 26.5 MBWhen Portlandians prepared to elect a new mayor in the months leading up to the May 2016 primary vote, few saw Sarah Iannarone coming. As co-founder of First Stop Portland, the organization responsible for telling the city’s sustainability story, and owner of a popular brunch spot in the so-hip-it-hurts Southeast PDX neighbourhood, Iannarone was a political neophyte. She jumped into the race, and with a firm grasp of progressive environmental, social and economic values — and a compellingly...
The Progressive Push for More Options, with CNV’s Linda Buchanan & Tony Valente
February 22, 2019 20:00 - 1 hour - 48.5 MBShe’s the new Mayor of the City of North Vancouver, a former councillor and school trustee with a life of public service in her community. He’s a first-time Council member, who’s devoted countless hours in recent years to advocacy for better cycling policies and more public spaces. And while they didn’t run on a ticket — few candidates for public office in Metro Vancouver do — Linda Buchanan and Tony Valente are singing from the same song sheet. Among other ambitions, they want to invite m...
Wes Regan on Working in Vancouver’s ‘Liminal Space’ of the DTES & Community Economic Development
February 16, 2019 17:16 - 59 minutes - 40.9 MBIn a rite of passage, ‘liminal’ refers to the transition point that is neither here nor there; a threshold that can result in multiple interpretations or outcomes, and thus (often) confusion. In this episode, Wes Regan, Social Planner responsible for Community Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Initiatives with the City of Vancouver, aptly uses this word to describe his work space at the downtown Woodward’s Building and, by extension, the city’s current approach to community economic...
The Bruntlett Blueprint for Bike Life — a Vancouver Story
February 12, 2019 21:07 - 41 minutes - 28.7 MBToday’s moving day for the Bruntletts, a foursome who have come to represent, over the past decade, Vancouver’s culture of cycling in the mainstream. Think normal clothes, kids in cargo bikes, and families who embrace the car-free lifestyle, riding around the seawall, or along a quiet neighbourhood street— the Bruntletts have helped shape this image. What began as writing to (and for) local media in support of transportation cycling evolved into their own media creations, through their con...
Naming the Climate Emergency, with Vancouver Councillor Christine Boyle
February 08, 2019 22:20 - 38 minutes - 26.7 MBDuring a Vancouver Council meeting on January 16, 2019, a motion moved by Councillor Christine Boyle to declare a global state of climate emergency was carried unanimously. With nine “whereas” clauses — referencing the impacts of BC and California wildfires, the emergency debates at various levels of government following the UN’s recent IPCC report on global warming, the estimated future costs of climate-related disasters to Vancouver, and our current vulnerabilities — plus half a dozen ame...
ULI Women’s Leadership Initiative — Excavating Inclusivity
February 06, 2019 00:30 - 44 minutes - 30.9 MBKate Lambert (IBI), Paige Ritchie (Intracorp), and Carla Guererra (Purpose Driven Development, Planning and Strategy) are members of the Urban Land Institute, an independent, nonprofit research and education organization with almost 40,000 members worldwide, over 400 of whom are based in British Columbia. They’re also founding members of the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI), with a stated objective of supporting and promoting the advancement of women in all disciplines of the real estate ...
“Density is a Foregone Conclusion”: Charles Gauthier of the Downtown Vancouver BIA
January 29, 2019 16:45 - 55 minutes - 37.9 MBThey call him Downtown Charles. Okay, he calls himself that, but it fits. For the past 27 years, Charles Gauthier has led the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, one of hundreds of BIAs that sprung up across Canada (and the world) in the past 40 years. Beginning in 1992, with a downtown business core saddled with double-digit commercial vacancy rates, Gauthier has helped usher in new programs aimed at stimulating greater public engagement in more public spaces. More promoti...
What Gets Measured Gets Managed — Design, Health & Public Policy, with Lawrence Frank
January 25, 2019 20:30 - 57 minutes - 39.7 MB“Metaphorically-speaking, the clothes I put on fit me,” says Dr. Lawrence Frank, one of the most-published and highly-cited urban planners in the world. Having started his career in landscape architecture, Dr. Frank’s 1985 thesis on transit mall design eventually led to a Masters of Civil Engineering Transportation Studies and a PhD in Urban Design and Planning, both from the University of Washington. Dr. Frank worked for the Washington State Department of Transportation and held faculty ro...
Campaign Finance Reform & Our Little Dark Money Problem — with John Whistler of VanGreens
January 15, 2019 00:11 - 40 minutes - 28.1 MBIn recent years, critics have accused both Liberal and NDP cabinets of rushing through inadequate electoral reforms via BC’s Local Election Campaign Financing Act, or LECFA. The most recent round of changes took effect last April, impacting the 2018 municipal elections across the province. What were they all about? Are BC municipalities in-line with campaign financing limits and disclosure requirements at the provincial and federal levels? What is “the dark money”, and why is that still a t...
Daphne Bramham of The Vancouver Sun on Women in Politics, Legacy Media & Survival
January 07, 2019 20:30 - 39 minutes - 26.9 MBIf you’ve kept up with regional news on BC’s south coast over the past 35 years, chances are you’re familiar with Daphne Bramham’s work, and its impact. Starting out at the Regina Post-Leader, Bramham moved to the west coast as political reporter for The Canadian Press, until eventually joining the Vancouver Sun. From beat and investigative reporter, to associate editor and columnist, Bramham has helped BC readers understand more about power and politics at all levels of government, and dif...
Grading Vancouver Council, by The Independents
January 01, 2019 00:32 - 39 minutes - 27.5 MBFrom A to F, where would you grade Vancouver City Council? This was the question posed by Gordon Price to two of “The Independents” — podcast guests and past Council candidates Adrian Crook and Rob McDowell. In this end-of-year wrap up, and summation of standout moments in council chambers over their first two months in office, Gord, Adrian and Rob talk about all manner of hot topics, many of which will be back on the agenda (and in the Comments section and your news feed) in the new year....
Karen Ward on the DTES – “Abnormal in a Way That’s Distressingly Normal”
December 29, 2018 01:16 - 30 minutes - 20.8 MBThat’s “Downtown Eastside” — a tragic shorthand, an acronym that’s deserving (at the very least) of a full explanation. What’s happening? How did we get to the current situation? And why can’t we find our way out? Karen Ward is a member of the “we”. She’s an ardent and eloquent activist who lives in the neighbourhood and provides emotional support to her vast personal network — a community which spans from Woodwards to Oppenheimer Park, from the foot of Main Street to City Hall. Karen is a ...
The Urbanist-Conservationist Divide, with Ian Bushfield of Cambie Report
December 21, 2018 18:00 - 1 hour - 45.1 MBIan Bushfield is one-third of Vancouver politics podcast Cambie Report, one-half of its older, BC-focused cousin PolitiCoast, and executive director of BC Humanist Association. He’s also co-creator of a new classification method — a simple but compelling matrix — for visualizing the political and urbanist ideologies of the people and parties that ran for, and now occupy, City Hall. Gord spoke to Bushfield at length about the urbanist-conservationist axis and what it means in the current po...
On Spatial Justice, with Jennifer Bradshaw & Stuart Smith of Abundant Housing Vancouver
December 18, 2018 19:30 - 53 minutes - 36.5 MB“The price of exclusivity in Shaughnessy, Kerrisdale and West Point Grey is gentrification everywhere else.” Much has been said about Vancouver’s housing crisis, and much has been promised. But now things are about to get real — and advocacy groups are ready. Particularly at Abundant Housing Vancouver. AHV is a voice for more — policy reform (renter protections, land value capture, zoning laws), non-market housing, and purpose-built rental units. For this, not to mention the specious claim...
“Classic NPA”, with Ken Sim
December 11, 2018 20:36 - 48 minutes - 33.6 MB“We came within an eyelash of running the table.” And he’s not wrong. Ken Sim, founder and CEO of homecare provider Nurse Next Door and bagel chain Rosemary Rocksalt, is just two months removed from having come within 957 votes of being the mayor of Vancouver. With five NPA Vancouver councillors, Sim would have led a majority, and thus the face of municipal (and perhaps regional) politics might look very different than it does today. Having returned to regular family and business life, he ...
The DNV Delbrook Lands Vote, with Mathew Bond
December 08, 2018 01:06 - 23 minutes - 16.4 MBGord visited District of North Vancouver Municipal Hall this week, to chat with Councillor Mathew Bond about about the failed Delbrook motion to allow a parking lot at 600 W Queens Road to become the site of an 80-unit affordable residential building, with a seniors respite care and below-market rentals. It was rejected 5-2 by the new council — following two years of planning and community consultation, the result of a complex partnership and collaboration. What does the vote say about the...
Greg Moore — Once a Planner…
December 04, 2018 19:45 - 59 minutes - 41.2 MBA fixture in Port Coquitlam politics for the past 16 years — two terms as councillor, three as mayor — Greg Moore has also been a figurehead and ardent champion for the entire region. As chair of the Metro Vancouver board for seven years, and chair of the Mayors Ten Year Vision Committee in the midst of his decade-long tenure on the TransLink Mayors Council, Moore rolled up his sleeves and left indelible marks of leadership and organizational effectiveness on both organizations, while helpi...
Prelude to a Renoviction (The Berkeley) & Rob McDowell
November 30, 2018 19:45 - 32 minutes - 22.7 MBIn the opening op-ed, Gord blends some historical context into the current debate over renovictions and the state of Vancouver’s mid-rise rental stock, in a profile of West End icon The Berkeley. Then, a deep-dive interview with former diplomat — and independent council candidate in Vancouver’s recent election — Rob McDowell. A professional adjudicator and mediator, Rob talks about his entry into the political world over three decades ago, his decision to run for council for a third time, ...
Lisa Dominato – On Public Service, Politics & City-Wide Planning
November 27, 2018 20:56 - 53 minutes - 36.8 MBGordon Price and Tom Davidoff chat with newly elected Vancouver Councillor Lisa Dominato on how her successful run in the recent election was informed by her experiences as a school trustee, working in public policy with the provincial government, and through conversations with voters during the campaign. Plus, her take on the issue of the day — fulfilling the housing needs of the ‘missing middle’. What does she think about prior Council decision on duplexes? How can neighbourhood voices he...
On Housing, with Josh Gordon & Tom Davidoff
November 22, 2018 20:23 - 51 minutes - 35.3 MBAn opening op-ed from Gord, celebrating 60 years of the Planning Institute of BC, and highlighting some of what came to influence Vancouverism in the period 1986-2010. The main segment features a housing discussion between Josh Gordon, Assistant Professor at the School of Public Policy at SFU, and Tom Davidoff, Associate Professor of the Strategy and Business Economics Division at UBC Sauder School of Business, hosted by Price Tags Managing Editor Colin Stein. Read more »
Gordon Price & the Independents – Sarah Blyth, Adrian Crook, Wade Grant, Rob McDowell
November 19, 2018 22:59 - 55 minutes - 38.1 MBGord reviews the recent municipal campaign with four unsuccessful candidates for Vancouver City Council who ran as independents, together. Sort of. Harm reduction and Downtown Eastside activist Sarah Blyth, affordable housing and transit advocate Adrian Crook, Musqueam First Nation community leader Wade Grant, and health sector mediator Rob McDowell chat about what happened, what they’re watching with the current council, issues of representation in our public institutions, and whether they...
Maria Dobrinskaya & Simka Marshall on Electoral Reform
November 09, 2018 20:00 - 43 minutes - 30.1 MBIn this episode, editor-in-chief Gordon Price opens with an audio op-ed, on how Vancouver’s #CouncilSoWhite may not be as telling as we think. The main segment features Price Tags managing editor Colin Stein talking to Maria Dobrinskaya, BC Director of the Broadbent Institute, and Simka Marshall of the BC Federation of Students, on electoral reform in the province…and why Pro Rep is LIT. Read more »
Gordon Price & Tom Davidoff
November 08, 2018 00:00 - 49 minutes - 34 MBIn this debut episode of Price Talks, Gordon sits down with Tom Davidoff, Associate Professor of the Strategy and Business Economics Division at UBC Sauder School of Business to talk about the region’s housing affordability crisis. Read more »
Price Talks – Trailer
November 07, 2018 22:14 - 1 minute - 732 KBGordon Price welcomes you to the podcast of the blog. Price Talks is available on Apple iTunes and Google Play. More to come. Read more »