By Erick Villagomez
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The Slow Emergency
The crisis in Vancouver’s housing system isn’t explosive—it’s quiet, procedural, and often disguised as progress. Recently made public, the Broadway...
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Entitled to Flip
In Vancouver today, rezoning doesn’t necessarily mean building. Increasingly, it means something else: securing entitlements — legal permissions that...
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The Trifecta of Control: Stealth. Speed. Complexity.
In the 1960s, planning decisions in Vancouver—like many North American cities—were made behind closed doors. Freeways bulldozed working-class...
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Book Review: A House Deconstructed
Authors: Mark Jarzombek and Vikramaditya Prakash (Actar, 2023) In an era of mounting ecological urgency and deepening social inequity, it has never been...
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Et Tu, Uytae?
In just one month, well-known YouTube personality Uytae Lee released three high-profile videos addressing the creation of new downtowns, taxes, and...
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When Local Planning Becomes Provincial Command: On Bill 13, Bill 15, and the End of Urban Democracy
In British Columbia, democracy is being redefined—not through elections or referendums, but through legislation with quiet names and sweeping...
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The Coriolis Effect, Part III: Reclaiming the Planner’s Toolkit
Parts I and Part II of The Coriolis Effect explored how market-aligned tools like the pro forma have subtly—but powerfully—steered urban planning in...
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The Coriolis Effect, Part II: Beyond the Spreadsheet
The Coriolis Effect, Part I went through a long gestation period as I humbly asked various people within the discipline for constructive feedback. I was...
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The Coriolis Effect, Part I: Planning by Spreadsheet
Just because there’s a number on it, it doesn’t mean that the number was arrived at properly…people gather statistics. People choose...
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Minority Rules: A Retroactive By-Election Game
With Vancouver’s by-election behind us, the post-mortems have begun—and this one might be more fun than most. One thing was clear: voters wanted to send...
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Downtown in Transition: An Interview with Sean Bailey
As downtowns adapt to shifting work patterns and rising public expectations, planners and designers are being challenged to think beyond traditional...
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The Governance Gap
In 2024, Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered the removal of bike lanes from some of Toronto’s busiest corridors—Bloor, University, and Yonge—claiming they...