As a tribute to the UN Habitat World Urban Forum taking place in Vancouver this week, Vancouver
weekly The Georgia Straight dedicated many of its pages to articles related to cities, urban planning, and sustainability.
There is an excellent article on the role streetcars played in Vancouver’s urban development, and the potential benefits that re-introducing the “streetcar city” concept could have for the city.
There is also a piece comparing the 2006 World Urban Forum to Habitat ’76 (also in Vancouver and the first time the UN hosted a conference on urban issues) and Jericho Beach (the alternative conference happening at the same time).
One thing the article points out is a considerable lack of sexiness and riskiness at today’s Forum compared to Habitat ’76. They had Pierre Trudeau, Buckminster Fuller, and “wackos who talked about things like styrofoam housing”, after all. I’m in Vancouver right now, and have managed to attend some of the Forum, and I’d have to agree. This year we had Stephen Harper give a keynote address that sounded more like list of campaign promises, and we have security checkpoints all over the convention centre. However, the place is full of enthusiastic delegates from all over the world, and the rest of the city is getting into the spirit — there are lots of less formal talks, performances, and exhibits going on throughout the city that are inspired by urban issues and urban culture.
