A rendering of a boxy midrise against a bright blue sky. Underneath, a slogan says "It's not the HEIGHT of the tower. It's the DEPTH of the hole."

Ummm

"gondola to SFU" had the right cadence to trigger my brain, and reminded me of this comparison between the space race and municipal infrastructure project timelines
bsky.app/profile/push...

"We choose a gondola to SFU not because it is easy, but because it is hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win."

as if it wouldn't have been possible to get the same "plants" to show up in person before

I’ve been walking by the restoration of this heritage house on Broughton for years thinking it would eventually include a couple of units, like others in the area. Nope. Single-family $12.8 million. In the heart of the West End 😵‍💫

#RealEstate #Vancouver #VanRE

I think there is some credit for the economically diverse midrise multifamily housing of South False Creek being progressive for the time, despite the concurrent entrenchment of single-family zoning, but then they still have to answer why they didn't create a system that kept producing more SFCs.

They sometimes even speak positively now of the West End's relative height and mature greenery in comparison to Yaletown or the Broadway Plan.
It's a bit awkward when they host a community forum and a crowd member says the quiet part out loud about just hating all towers.

I think their "we're not against change, it just needs to be affordable" does need recognition as not quite the same as the explicit exclusionary foundations of Shaughnessy and WPG despite the common outcome, because they use it as pretty effective deflection away from their status-quo bias.

Yeah, I'm sort of accepting the political nimby's self-mythology as protectors of affordability against their predecessors, and omitting the longer history of the "creme de la creme" crowd, even though they have no qualms allying with each other.

A social media post with a photo of a Safeway store being demolished for replacement with a new store and housing, captioned "goodbye, old friend"

Humans will pack bond with *anything*

These are two separate and completely unrelated 75 space parking lots

West Kits has a hate-on for 1.0 FSR multiplexes, but thinks converting older 0.7 FSR homes to multiple units will result in cheaper family-sized homes

Today, Vancouver council passed a rezoning that will replace a SINGLE(!) Shaughnessy mansion with 31 apartments.

Gigantic single family homes hoard so much land on the West Side. This should be legal to build everywhere by right.

Sounds like she just needs to start cycling
✅ Wind in one's hair
✅ 20mph on the main thoroughfare feels fast
✅ Risk of death
✅ Sexy

I think the highlight is the contrast between how some of Kits sees itself - a dense, storied neighbourhood that is an exemplar of Vancouver's character that deserves preservation - and how it's seen by outsiders (an underdeveloped place outside of the city), and others (stagnant).

While I wouldn't call Arbutus Ridge a suburb, it does feel substantially suburban for a place that I can just walk to
bsky.app/profile/west...

From my own experiences, I think of how visiting Schönbrunn Palace felt like a destination outside of Vienna despite its actual proximity, compared to the continuous experience of a day in the Innere Stadt.

Someone used to living in a suburban context might only travel past their own inner city neighbourhoods, skipping the transition in built form, so anywhere not higher density is considered suburban. Only fragments of Kits actually have aesthetics people would associate as strongly urban.

Familiarity brings things closer, and especially as someone who uses active transportation you experience the continuous connection between places repeatedly over time, stitching the city together into a coherent whole.

An aerial image of Vancouver used by the Vancouver Area Neighbours Association. The downtown peninsula in the upper right is labelled "The image", while the low density residential that occupies most of the frame is labelled "The reality".

Borrowing an image, to outsiders the downtown peninsula often *is* the city and a lot of what they're visiting for.
Things further than that are destinations disconnected by travel, whether they're in the city (Bloedel Conservatory), technically not (UBC MoA), or actually not (Capilano Suspension)

We Were SHOCKED by Vancouver! 🇨🇦 | Vancouver Travel Guide YouTube video by CJ Explores

I occasionally watch one of those videos from travel influencers about my beautiful city, Vancouver. They often get things wrong, but it’s an insight seeing thru their eyes (& hearing what they were warned about). In this one, they like the “cute little suburb” of Kitsilano & call it underdeveloped…

No, we shouldn't do those things that we said

cityhallwatch.wordpress.com/2025/10/07/m...

housingreset.ca/2026/01/20/c...

Instead of Broadway or the west side we should build in

False Creek Flats and available public land
vancouversun.com/opinion/davi...

or Mount Pleasant Industrial area
www.vancouverisawesome.com/opinion/lett...

but also...

To be clear, SFC and AW are nice - their built form and inclusion of affordable housing are good.
But they will accept no change over how MIRHPP, SRP, Broadway Plan, etc produce net-new affordable housing. While they want Broadway corridor 6 storeys at most, that's too much for anywhere else.

The housing wins they boast about like South False Creek and Arbutus Walk were scaling down height from the initial plans for brownfield redevelopment.
The Jericho Coalition opposes towers but has no vision for how any of the rest of West Point Grey could change.

This in Vancouver is NIMBYs opposing housing density as "Urban renewal" because their identity is still in stopping highways. They're unable to think progressively in a context that requires change instead of opposition - and where they are now wealthy and privileged.

That would be interesting if some rental apartments advertised a "free" transit pass for residents.

I'd be interested in ways group passes could be resident-led rather than something landlord could choose to stop paying for. Increasing discount if 50/75/100% of residents sign up for yearly pass?

We need a CANDU attitude about moving away from fossil fuels 😉

One of my favourite parts of participating in the Whistler Grand Fondo was the swarm of cyclists coalescing along the bike routes to get into and through downtown for the start

A new building near me was quick to lower their asking rates and offer a free month of rent when neighbourhood rents dropped just before they started leasing.
They're still renting at a premium because they're new, but the bank wants their money back and they don't have time to wait out the drop.