MUST READ – Canadian Architect

I’m so glad you’ve started to write a blog. I still clearly remember your presentation to the Sacramento City Council in late 2004, and I’ve been following with great interest the development and evolution of Vancouver, especially the somewhat recent questioning of the wisdom of Vancouverization.
Your lovely city is often held up as a model for other cities that are trying to revitalize the downtown core, and I know Sacramento folks involved in urban planning certainly look to both Vancouver and Portland for inspiration. At the moment, I think we’re avoiding the “residential-only” problem thanks to many mixed-use projects under development, but even so, the contents of the mixed-use component bear additional scrutiny as well to ensure that these other uses are compatible with the downtown and keep the entire area vibrant.
Of course, with the glut of State buildings and workers in our downtown, I don’t think we’d ever run the risk of completely losing businesses, but it’s an important note of caution in some recent postings about Vancouver.
I look forward to reading more…

And no doubt you will.  The Planning Department is working on a central-area review, and will be coming up with more definitive information on what’s really happening to our downtown core.
One school of thought says that jobs follow people.  If we provide housing for young, creative workers, then businesses will locate to be near them.  And there seems to be some evidence of that, particularly in high-tech and entertainment industries.  Others say that people will have to reverse commute to find the jobs that have located in the suburbs because they’ve been priced out or can’t find suitable space in the core.
Then there’s the whole quetion of what kind of space is really needed for an information-based economy, particularly one with a lot of independent workers.  How many of those condos, in other words, are really work places, effectively creating mixed-use districts regardless of what the zoning bylaw says.
Stay tuned.
Gord