Searching for Tao

Ask anyone in this town and most of them will tell you that the primary problems in Vancouver are homelessness, and the high cost of living. It's so bad that over the Olympics, the Pivot, an activist group based in the Lower East Side, held a sit-in protest in the form of a field of red tents surrounded by placards and signs with slogans like "homes not games" and "homes for everyone". (Flickr, Now Public) There were staged protests downtown and even a riot -- all for good reason: here in Vancouver, the disparity between the rich and poor is out of control.

So what do we do about this? Obviously the current tactics aren't working. The world came to Vancouver and no one cared to really do anything about our most desperate citizens. For the most part, that whole area was ignored and tourists were advised not to go there. What good is a protest if no one cares about what you're saying? A riot? That only fuels the opposition. No, what's needed is to move counter to the gentrifying forces in this city.

The problem is the location. Everyone in Vancouver knows that the poorest people live in the Lower East Side. We also know that that neighbourhood is something we want to avoid if we don't fancy the stench of human urine, or the sight of public drunkenness and dirty needles. The richest, most powerful people in Vancouver never go there. They don't even drive through Hastings if they can help it. What good is a protest if the only people who see it, are affected by it, are those who already support you? No, if you want action to be taken, you need to inconvenience people, you need to make people see what's going on and remind them that just because they've managed to ignore the problem, the problem hasn't solved itself.

The red tent protest was held near Abbot & Cordova in an empty lot opposite an Army & Navy frequented only by people who live in the neighbourhood. Given that fixing the homelessness problem will require action by a considerable number of people outside of this demographic, this is not a good choice for action. Instead, I think that the homeless population needs to get the held somewhere, anywhere that isn't the Lower East Side. Hold tent-city protests in David Lam Park (Yaletown has one of the highest per-capita incomes in Vancouver) or in any open (public) spaces south of 16th... you know, where all the rich folks who own most of this city live?

Sleeping in the street is an accepted norm at Hastings and Main, but about Granville and Broadway? Generally speaking, cities (especially Vancouver) like to corral their poorest citizens and then gradually push them from neighbourhood to neighbourhood through gentrification, never solving the problem. Therefore, the answer to newer, more expensive buildings moving into the Lower East Side shouldn't be to move East (as the powers that be are hoping), but instead to relocate to Kits and Point Grey so those responsible for the gentrification can experience the fruit of their labours.

The problem in Vancouver isn't homelessness and the high cost of living, it's not even that nobody cares about these issues, because thousands of people do. No, the problem in Vancouver is that the right people don't care about these issues because they don't have to. Fix that, and I'm sure something useful will be done.

I'm trying to come to terms with the Olympics. I suppose that it's about time since the party's been going on for over a week now. The thing is, I've got two problems with the whole event:

• I've never cared about Olympic sports
• It's the ultimate smack in the face to the working poor in this city

Now don't get me wrong, I think that the Riot 2010 people are just silly, self-righteous, angry, rabble-rousers intent on breaking things in a fit of helplessness. I don't support them, but I also won't deny that many of their grievances need to be addressed.

The fact is that we've spent billions of dollars throwing a party for athletes, while in true Vancouver style, we've politely ignored the people trying to bring attention to the fact that those funds should have been spent elsewhere. Hell, we didn't even have the decency to kidnap the homeless population and intern them in Chiliwack for the duration of our capitalist shindig. No, we put up banners, threw a party and played music, right next door to the most desperate community in the country. We rubbed our disinterest in their faces and were then surprised and even outraged when a few of them got angry and started breaking things.

But this is nothing new really. The haves never care about the have-nots until someone threatens to cut off a few heads. You won't catch me marching with the Olympics Resistance Network though, because whether they want to accept it or not, this whole party became a force of nature the moment Vancouver won the bid.

It took me a few days to realise it, but despite our own transgressions mentioned above, there's still considerable good to come out of this and those who oppose(d) this event would do well to consider it. For the first time in over twenty years, Vancouver is actually multicultural again. There are Greeks, Swedes, Koreans, and even a few Ghanaians in this city for a few remaining days. Real German food can be sampled in their "house" and Russia has commandeered Science world to showcase itself to the planet.

We made the wrong choice. We should have supported our fellow citizens and used that fortune to build a city of which we could be proud. We didn't and we will reap what we've sewn for years to come, but there's no sense in shouting at the rain: take advantage of the fact that the world is here! Meet with foreigners, ask them how they build their cities and care for their people, and maybe, we'll find some opportunities to learn something new about how problems are tackled differently. Clearly, we could use some pointers.

The VPSN is holding a fundraiser / movie night this thursday that promises to be both interesting and fun. I'm going to go, and if you'd like to come along, let me know eh?

City Shorts: A Public Space Film Festival – Thursday June 18, 2009

Mark your calendars and join us for our first annual VPSN Film Festival and Fundraiser.

We've assembled an excellent set of short films that look at public space issues, Vancouver's urban scene and city life. Included in this diverse package are movies on urban greening, public art, urban exploring, parkour, billboards and corporate presence, graffiti, and more!

This is the VPSN’s first film fest and fundraiser and we hope you can all make it. It’s part of our strategy to use this excellent series of shorts to remind everyone that great city-making still lies within the hands of its citizens. Not only will you be getting an evening jam-packed with films on the public realm, but you'll also be helping the VPSN too. Silver screen action with an added benefit!

Thursday June 18, 2009. Doors open at 7:00pm, show starts at 7:30pm. Tickets: $10 / $8 Students and Seniors. VanCity Theatre, 1181 Seymour Street

Liquid refreshments will be available for purchase. And there will be some lively post-film entertainment to take in as well.

I had a rather confusing experience last night that caused me to rethink a lot of the assumptions I'd made about this city.

Poesy and I had spent the evening in Chinatown's night market and were waiting at Terminal station to go our separate ways when an older gentleman appropached us and in very broken English asked us if we knew where he might find a hotel.

After some thinking on our part, we decided that the closest one we could think of was the Sandman near Stadium station and given the man's sketchy understanding of the local language as well of the area, I offered to take him there myself. It was sort of on my way anyway.

But this post isn't about Good deeds for strangers, it's about what it's like for tourists to try to experience this city and more to the point, what we can expect in 2010 when the world comes to our door.

This city is an embarrassment in the area of tourism. The transit system aside, just finding an intersection in this city is near impossible without accosting strangers, and in many cases, the strangers are hesitant to stop and help given their past unpleasant experiences with panhandlers.

There are so few wayfinding maps in Vancouver and a complete absence of them available in any other language but English. There are no tourism kiosks anywhere, especially after 5pm and all of this means that something as simple as finding a place to crash for the night becomes increadibly difficult -- even if English is your first language.

As someone who's done a reasonable amount of travelling in countries where he spoke even less of the local tongue than the aforementioned visitor, I can assure you that none of the places I visited, with the exception of Yeosu, Korea (a tiny town in a moncultural, insular country) did a poorer job of helping tourists than this one.

Now here's the kicker: the man who was curious about Vancouver and came here to experience this beautiful city but couldn't even find a place to sleep wasn't from Poland or even France. He was from this country, a little town east of Quebec City. In a nation that prides itself on having two official languages and in a city that claims to be multicultural this is very, very sad.

I'm open to suggestions here. Melanie has a plan to make wayfinding on Skytrain easier by creating (actually useful) route maps and pasting them up all over the place, but I'd like to hear some more ideas about how we could help guests like this man in the future. I'll bring these ideas to the next Mapping & Wayfinding VPSN working group.

For those of you who have landed here looking for my official Green Party page, it's now up, complete with a bio and headshot.

For those of you who live(d) in Toronto, and for those who are long-time readers of this blog, you're probably familiar with the concept of the Reverse Easter Egg Hunt. Newmindspace has been doing them for years and this time 'round Melanie has got it in her head that she and I should put one together of our own... so here it is:

Picture it: 3am on Sunday morning, a completely empty Granville Island, and a bunch of mischievous Vancouverites running around hiding plastic Easter eggs stuffed with happyfuneaster messages.

You could be a part of that. Doesn't it sound exciting? Sure it does.

We'll be meeting at 3am under the Granville Island sign. Bring some pre-stuffed plastic eggs of your own, or grab some of ours, and then start running around the island and depositing them anywhere that suits your fancy.

This event is free and open to anyone who wants to play, and will take place whatever the weather. We'll have plenty of eggs to share, but if possible please bring some of your own eggs, stuffed with fun and clever messages.

Some Do's

• Do tell your friends and invite them to come along!
• Do bring some of your own plastic eggs, if possible.
• Do dress warmly - it will be the middle of the night and probably a little chilly.

Some Don'ts

• Don't fill the eggs with any food items. People don't want to eat strange food they find lying around, and it may end up spoiling and attracting vermin.
• Don't write messages that are hateful or offensive. The idea is to bring a smile to someone's face, so please write something that would make you smile.
• Don't make a mess or cause any damage to the island. We want to brighten people's days, not piss them off.

If you're on Facebook, you can sign up for this event.

Yes, it's going to be at 3am, but it'll be really fun I swear. You should come! Bring your friends even! And if you're so inclined, we could really use the help actually stuffing the eggs this Thursday between 4:30pm and 9pm (come for all or a portion of the night) at UBC's Instructional Resource Centre (IRC), in front of the Woodward Library.

If you have questions just email me or comment here and I'll hook you up :-)

I'm going to participate. I'm not really concerned about the effectiveness of that single hour's darkness on energy consumption as a whole, rather I'm more interested in taking a moment (or in this case, an hour) to reflect on our habits and maybe even convince others to slow down a bit. Besides, who doesn't love a party in the dark?

As always, Toronto is having a party in Nathan Phillip's Square while Vancouver still lacks any real public space capable of such an event. If you know of anything that Vancouver is doing that's interesting please let me know.

One of the groups I sometimes work with, The Vancouver Public Space Network has been putting together a big competition that I thought I'd share with you called Where's the Square?. The idea is fun and Good things could come of its results so if you have a creative streak, you might be interested:

Have you ever dreamed of what Vancouver might look like if it had the type of celebrated public square or plaza that characterizes other cities around the world? Think of the festivals, markets and concerts, as well as the opportunities to meet friends, have a coffee and people watch! There's no shortage of reasons why good public squares are the most popular and memorable places to congregate.

So what about our city? Here's where you come in.

The Vancouver Public Space Network is currently running a Design Ideas Competition. The "Where's the Square?" contest is open to anyone who feels like they have a plan for a grand gathering place inside the city boundaries.

We're looking for ideas from city-lovers, planners, artists, philosophers, architects, urbanists, students of any discipline and visionaries from all walks of life. The competition has some fairly straightforward parameters covering the size, accessibility, programming and utility of the square... but after that, it's all up to you. Most importantly, we don't have a set location in mind. Instead, we're looking for entrants to come up with a plan for where the square could be situated.

The "Where's the Square?" competition runs until March 20, 2009 and is open to individuals or teams. There will be two prizes, based on a juried review of the entries as well as a "people's choice award." A variety of other supporting events will also be taking place throughout February, March and April.

Interested in participating? The Competition Brief and other related materials can be accessed at http://www.WheresTheSquare.ca.

One more thing: we're asking participants to send us an Entrant Form to let us know that they want to submit a plan. We're looking to get these by the end of the month. According to one of our participants, the record for completing and submitting an Entrant Form is under 60 seconds. If you feel so inspired (and we hope you do!), you can try and beat this time by downloading the form here.

For more information, please email info at vancouverpublicspace dot com or call 778-239-7544.

Hand made with silicon, this cellphone camera shot doesn't do it justice. See more here

This guy was about 3' tall and looked so real you'd swear that he was going to walk out of the room any mintue to put some clothes on. Again, my cellphone camera fails to convey the detail.

I went to the East Side Culture Crawl yesterday and thought that it might be fun to share with you some of my experiences.

For those of you who have never heard of the Crawl, I suggest a perusal of the website (it's still on for one more day!) but here's the gist: Vancouver's East Side is home to a lot of really talented artists. Once a year, these people open their studio doors to the public so we can see what they've been doing, sometimes even take part in the creation of art ourselves. It's a family-friendly event and some of the stuff you see is just awesome -- in the literal sense of the word.

The highlights for me for the evening were Avatar and Kurve, both very talented designers, an honourable mention going to Grace Lee who had some really nice photography and some pretty jewelry that Melanie picked up.

The night was really quite exciting, despite running headlong into a mirror on the bus and cutting my head open... that part was no fun. Anyway, I took some pictures of the cool stuff from Avatar, so I'm including them here, but I encourage you to check out all three pages linked above as well as the site for the Crawl itself. Good fun ;-)

What better way to spend a Remembrance Day than to exercise my civic privilege and research whom I should support in the upcoming municipal election?

After hours (and this is by no means exaggeration), I've finally come down to a list of all the people I'll be supporting in this Saturday's election. For those of you not living in Vancouver, you may be interested to know that Vancouver doesn't have a ward system, instead we elect our representatives at-large. In other words, we get a list of a bunch of people looking for our vote and we pick ten of them.

On the surface, it looks all very democratic, even holistic if I can use that word in this context. While in a ward system you have to deal with the perils of NIMBYism, Vancouver councillors must theoretically represent the whole of the city which should lead to decision making that places the betterment of the city first.

I don't really know if it all works out that way though. I'm still new here.

What I can tell you is that there's a very real division here between East and West. Acknowledged or not, culturally and economically Vancouver has been referred to as as a two-ward system. This fits well with the two-party system we have... well sort of:

There's the Non-partisan association, which is traditionally rather right-wing, and an alliance of left-ish candidates comprised of three parties: Vision Vancouver, The Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) and The Vancouver Green Party. The funny part is that alliance thing. Since this party system is all about who controls the council, Vision, COPE and Green have reached an agreement not to compete with each other and instead campaign as a sort of team. As a result, NPA is running 10 candidates for council, while Vision is running 8 and COPE 2. There are similar splits in the parks board and school trustee races.

The problem for me is that I really don't like COPE. I find many of their policies (and even some of their candidates) to be naive, and their priorities to be sorely misplaced. However, if I don't support the NPA (who brought us many notable problems like CCTV cameras in the streets, private police, panhandling bylaws etc.) then I cannot vote against that agenda without supporting COPE. Or can I?

There are independents running as well, many of them clearly unfit for office let alone my vote, and there is also the Work Less Party whose platform is very forward thinking and dare I say enlightened. Their only problem is that the group seams plagued with non-professionals incapable of actually doing the job for which they're attempting to get elected. Their policy paper is riddled with typos for chrissake.

So after much research and personal debate I have arrived at this list. If you think I've missed something worth noting, please let me know. Notably missing from here is Michael Geller, a charismatic, intelligent, well travelled candidate... who is running with the NPA. I couldn't in good conscience give my vote to someone who could potentially be motivated to support some of the more disastrous NPA policies either out of loyalty or political pressure. If he were running independent however, I'd support him in a second. Also, Lea Johnson, an independent, seems like a decent guy, but his website talked about his work in Ukrainia... He's probably best suited for working with RainCity anyway.

Notably on this list are Richard Mayencourt (independent) and two Work Less Party candidates: Geri Tramutola for council and Ivan Doumenc for park board. I had the opportunity to hear Tramutola speak last Friday at the VPSN's Last Candidate Standing event and was blown away by the passionate and eloquent nature of her arguments. It's clear that she knows her stuff and she's by far my favourite candidate. I only know Doumenc from his profile on the WLP's website, but his ideas for parks & rec appear to be in line with my own so I included him as well.

So that's about it. My basic strategy: Start with known favourites, then add Vision. If I needed more, I went down the list of independents and COPE people. If I needed fewer, I went through the Vision list and pulled out weak profiles. It's about the best I can do with 86 candidates and such a short period of time.

If you have different strategy, I'd love to hear it ;-) For those of you just wondering where you can get started, I suggest you take a look at the list of candidates and their profiles on the city's website.