Wasn’t the map of Algeria placed over Europe an interesting exercise in perspective (and the distortion of the Mercator Projection)?
Here’s another: Europe atop of Australia. It’s said that Aus is either the world’s largest island or its smallest continent. Maybe it’s actually the second smallest.
Read more »Would you have guessed Algeria? And that it is as big as most of Europe?
Another illustration of how the Mercator Projection distorts our worldview.
Read more »Long-time friends of Price Tags, Michael and Dianna have pledged an additional $2,000 in a matching contribution — meaning, they’re challenging PT readers to donate — for the very reason this blog exists:
“Price Tags gives us a digest of the most important urbanist writing and information that would otherwise require us to spend hours searching multiple websites.
It’s important stuff that we can’t get anywhere else, that would take too much time to find on our own every week.
Just the time Price Tags saves us each month is worth at least $100 a year — so we’re challenging readers to make a meaningful donation.”
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Join Michael & Dianna — support Price Tags All donations up to $12,000 will be matched — learn how it will be used. Read more »We hope our series of independent Vancouver City Council candidate Q&As has been informative.
That said, these are just four of the 26 unaffiliated candidates in the race; to learn more about the others, check out this list from CBC, and then look up their websites and Twitter accounts; the City of Vancouver website gives no indication of independent status or party affiliation.
Even better? Candidates not covered by Price Tags to date are invited to Comment on any (or all) of Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and this post. Why? Because your name will show up in the Comments feed on our homepage, and be seen by as many as 1,000 people on any given day.
The final question:
What’s Your Vision for Vancouver? Read more »In this penultimate post, diving deep into the positions and ideas of four independent candidates for Vancouver City Council, we get to the question that inspired this series in the first place.
Misconceptions. Coming into this final month, I wondered if independents would be especially prone to lost votes on the basis of critical misconceptions about their candidacy.
Yet, all four candidates are knowledgeable about the issues, strongly opinionated, high in energy and, to borrow the words of one, deadly serious.
So, onto the question.
Read more »Well, party people — this is the week we slip in under the 30-day countdown to the BC-wide municipal elections.
Vancouverites will soon get their first look at the new, random order ballot, which will benefit some; for others, a high rank may not make much difference, due to the lack of a suffix after their name. Party brand.
Does it matter this election? Is it reasonable for policies and personalities alone to outshine party affiliations?
We’ve been trying to figure that out by asking four independent council candidates a series of questions — on housing (Part I), transportation (Part II), and their decisions to run for public office (Part III).
Today — in a nutshell, why should we care about them as candidates?
Read more »Why are they running in a race they can’t possibly win?
It’s the blunter question than was originally posed to our independent council candidates (read on for that). Blunter, and perhaps rooted in the past.
Because, although they may need 60,000 votes to win a seat, this may be the election where voters spurn the party system in Vancouver. It’s a tall order, but if it happens, we can speculate on factors.
Perhaps due to a trend influenced by the strength of the independent mayoral candidates. Maybe a consequence of Millennial distaste for backroom party politics. Or possibly a false equivalency that pays off — confusing social media following and hype, for broader engagement and voter activation…which generates more media coverage, triggering broader engagement and voter activation.
Regardless — here’s Part III on our quartet of independents, and the reasons why they’re running.
Read more »In Part I yesterday, our four featured independent candidates for Vancouver city council shared their position on housing, and how they would approach the affordability crisis.
Today, the question is transportation. Do independents think differently from the party candidates? What are they saying that nobody else is?
But first, some explanation of why the focus on independents — and why these four candidates — among the estimated 15 confirmed indie council hopefuls.
Read more »Jake founded Vancouver’s Smallworks to work on the same kinds of issues Price Tags shares with our readers —creating new housing solutions, challenging the status quo, and livening up communities with innovative design.
Jake knows the New York Times will be around for awhile. But Price Tags depends on his — and your — active support to sustain our voice.
Be like Jake — support Price Tags All donations up to $10,000 will be matched (we’re 20% there!) — learn how it will be used. Read more »The Questions for Candidates series started in June with Vancouver’s Kettle-Boffo controversy (ancient history?), and our appeal to the early field of candidates in the upcoming municipal elections to weigh in how the city was handling the requirement for Community Amenity Contributions from non-market housing developers.
Teasing out substantive(ish) policy platforms from candidates was crazy yet compelling; we followed with an “LRT vs Skytrain” question to Surrey and Langley candidates, and this fugly graphic. We soon realized the scope of possibilities for Q&A — with hundreds of candidates in 20+ municipalities — was dwarfed only by the time and effort to perform the outreach. Time to narrow the focus.
Today, the first of a six-part Q&A — on policy, politics and possibility — with four independent candidates for Vancouver City Council.
They’re each running a different kind of campaign; no logos, small budgets, and a glaring absence of infighting or intrigue. Just character, a c.v., and policies.
You may even know some of them…but what do you really know about them? Let’s find out.
Read more »
