By Erick Villagomez
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The (Ur)banality of Evil
“The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are...
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The Language of Uplift
In 2023, the Vancouver City Council recently adopted a motion titled “Uplifting the Downtown Eastside and Building Inclusive Communities that Work for All...
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Behind the Curtain: Rethinking the Role of the City Manager
In the intricate machinery of urban governance, one figure looms large but largely out of sight: the City Manager. Appointed by City Council, not elected...
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The Costs We Don’t See
Vancouver’s proposed 2026 Budget arrives with a promise that feels, at first glance, like a reprieve: a 0% property tax increase in a year when almost...
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When Density Meets Disgust
Walk down a crowded city street and you might marvel at its vibrancy—people brushing past each other, buildings packed like puzzle pieces, the hum of...
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Four Projections, One Crisis
What happens when four different reports give four different answers to the same housing question? Every few months, a new report is released with a...
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Who Gets to Lobby?
When most people hear the word lobbyist, they think of expensive suits, closed-door meetings, and backroom deals. In Vancouver, as in most Canadian...
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Book Review: A Moratorium on New Construction
Author: Charlotte Malterre-Barthes (Sternberg Press, 2025) In a world addicted to growth and building, a call to put the brakes on construction is to...
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The Slow Emergency, Part II: The Emergency Escalates
What began as a procedural memo has become a full-blown shift in how decisions are made. The City of Vancouver’s September 2025 rezoning...
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The Coriolis Effect, Part IV: When Viability Becomes Destiny
In my earlier Coriolis Effect series (Part I, Part II, and Part III), I argued that city planning has been quietly absorbed into the logic of the...
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Book Review – Histories of Ecological Design: An Unfinished Cyclopedia
Author: Lydia Kallipoliti (Actar, 2024) In an era when “green” is a brand and climate collapse is a backdrop, Lydia Kallipoliti’s Histories of Ecological...
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Defining “Viability”…and Who Decides What Counts?
There’s a word that shows up a lot in housing debates—one that tends to end conversations rather than deepen them: viability. I hear this word constantly...