My name is Ann McAfee. I’ve lived in Vancouver almost all my life, and for 32 years, I worked for the city of Vancouver, the last 10 of those as co-director of planning.
Introduction to Vancouver’s Unique Urban Model
Vancouver is unique because it’s a small city by world standards. With only 750,000 people in a region of almost 3 million. So, by world standards, we’re small, but we have many opportunities to live, work, enjoy the outdoors all year round, and appreciate a multicultural community that brings a range of ideas and a wide variety of ethnic foods, services, jobs, and recreational activities.
What is Vancouverism?
“Vancouverism is a term that means different things depending on who you ask. If you ask an architect, they’ll talk about tall, slim buildings with a podium around the bottom, which combines local services and housing for families who are living at high-density. If you talk to someone in the transportation sector, they’ll tell you about sustainable transportation: walking, biking, and transit as ways to move around the city. In other words, it’s about having jobs, housing, and recreational services within a 10 to 15-minute walk—certainly a principle of the inner city of Vancouver”.
Ann McAfee
The History of Vancouverism: Avoiding Freeways, Building Community
In the 1950s and early 1960s, most North American cities built housing—often for returning veterans from World War II—in the suburbs, followed by freeways connecting those suburbs to inner-city downtown jobs. In the late 1960s, there was a plan to develop a freeway right into downtown Vancouver. This would have destroyed Chinatown and nearby neighbourhoods, putting a barrier between where people lived, worked, and played, and the waterfront. Construction began, but so did the protests, which eventually stopped the freeway. In 1972, a new council was elected, and that new council said no freeway.
Vancouverism’s Three Key Principles
Following this decision, the question became: if there’s no freeway, how do you get people to work and help them move around the city and region? The council had three answers:
- Building Housing Near Downtown Jobs
There were large pieces of old industrial land adjacent to downtown that could be redeveloped into new housing. - Provide Housing for a Range of Households
New housing developments should cater to families with children, older adults, and younger people, representing a range of household types and incomes. - Ensuring a Full Range of Services for Residents
The council emphasised that any new development would need a full range of services, including transit for those who couldn’t walk or bike to work.
Overcoming Challenges in Developing Downtown Housing
Building housing downtown wasn’t an easy task, with three main challenges.
Challenge 1: Proving Demand for Downtown Living
The first challenge was that the development community didn’t think people wanted to live downtown. To address this, the city assembled 80 acres of land on the south shore of what’s called False Creek and organised the redevelopment of that land. They created new housing designs for people to live at high density and provided all the necessary parks and services. People quickly moved into the co-op, non-profit, and market housing, proving that there was indeed demand for downtown living.
Challenge 2: Ensuring Developers Provide Essential Services
The second challenge was on private land: how could the city ensure a full range of services for residents? The city’s response was to require developers to provide all necessary services on large sites near downtown—not only sewer, water, and local streets, but also parks, open spaces, community centres, land for non-market housing, and land for schools and daycares. Developers weren’t initially pleased with having to provide these services before getting their building permits. However, once the city required the parks, open spaces, and seawall to be in place before construction, developers found that people would pre-purchase properties, bringing in funds from future residents to help cover the costs of these amenities.
Challenge 3: Promoting Sustainable Transportation in the City
The third challenge was promoting sustainable transportation. The city wanted to encourage walking, biking, and transit use. It was relatively easy to reconfigure roads and sidewalks between these new developments and provide a 10 to 15-minute walk to downtown jobs. But not everyone could live downtown, so those in suburban areas needed access to downtown without relying on a car.
Creating Family-Friendly Housing Guidelines for Vancouverism
Vancouver council also wanted the neighbourhoods around downtown to have a full range of housing options, including family-friendly housing. Since there weren’t any existing North American guidelines for high-density family housing, the city created its own by engaging mostly single mothers with young children to learn what would make higher-density apartment living work for families.
Vancouver’s City Plan: A Community-Driven Vision
Another significant project was creating the city’s first overall plan since the 1930s. Much had changed by the 1970s, 1980s, and mid-1990s, so this project, called “City Plan”, involved over 100,000 people, roughly 40% of Vancouver households. It included schoolchildren, people from various cultural communities, and was conducted in eight languages. Community members formed groups, or “City Circles,” to brainstorm ideas about jobs, housing, arts, culture, and governance. Over about three years, thousands of people collaborated just before the internet became widely accessible. They later attended large events where ideas were shared, and the ones most likely to enhance liveability were identified.
Some ideas, such as building greenways—bikeways and walkways through the city—were so popular that the council began funding them even before the plan was completed. This immediate action inspired those involved, as they could see their contributions directly impacting their community.
Vancouverism Managed High-Density Living without a Freeway by:
- Embracing a 15-minute city model for easy access to essentials
- Promoting sustainable transport like walking and cycling
- Engaging residents in planning for tailored solutions
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