By Alan Boniface from Canadian Architect

Vancouver is often regarded as a city that made the right decisions; dense urban living, no freeways, miles of public waterfront and a walkable and liveable downtown. So when Mayor Sam Sullivan set out to engage the citizenry in an exercise that sought to add an ecological component to the city's longstanding acceptance of downtown density, one would have assumed that the debate would have been fairly one-sided. Observers would likely surmise that Vancouver's laid-back sandal-clad beach crowd would be ripe for action. Reality has embraced a different stereotype; one of a city and province split along political and philosophical lines. The endeavour has exposed that many Vancouverites have proven no less short-sighted or unwilling to tackle the most significant issue of our time in a determined and meaningful manner than most other Canadians and much of the nation's leadership. However, recent moves by British Columbia's, Ontario's and Quebec's premiers are signs of an important shift.

EcoDensity is a well-reasoned proposal. It is an ambitious document which captures a series of initiatives undertaken by the Vancouver Planning Department under the direction of the Mayor and Council. The draft Charter lays out a series of neighbourhood planning and building regulations to be implemented over the next few years that seek to address climate change issues as they relate to city-building and with a specific focus on density as the vehicle to deliver compact, walkable communities with smaller footprints. It is premised on the fact that "climate change represents the most significant environmental, economic, social, liveability and quality-of- life threat to the city's future." It sets out initiatives "to manage change, to choose and design our future, in the face of these threats." It establishes sustainable strategies for transportation and parking, green energy and waste systems, affordable housing, parks and the public realm, food systems and urban agriculture, heritage conservation and urban health.

The ultimate threshold is "carbon neutrality in all buildings by 2030," but carbon targets and other numeric measures are not specified, representing a potential weakness of the document in the minds of some.

Among these, it is the "density" component that has spurred the most debate. Density has triggered a plethora of fear-based responses. The discussion, therefore, has strayed from purely intellectual discourse to positions often centred upon one's opinion of the politics of the Mayor's office. With this as a contributing factor to the Mayor's demise, the adaptation of EcoDensity, in policy terms, remains a very open question leading into Vancouver's fall municipal elections.

One can't help but be amazed at the preponderance of NIMBYism and the seemingly endless biological imperative of humans to protect the here and now in the face of daunting, perhaps catastrophic change. And similarly, how local politicians have turned on the Mayor irrespective of the merits of the initiative, in an aggressive and at times disrespectful attempt to discredit him. This acrimony has occurred, despite overwhelming evidence about the benefits--both socially and ecologically--of appropriately considered increased density and its profound realization in Vancouver itself, where it has been illustrated that density can be dramatically increased with a simultaneous reduction in car traffic, commuters and crime rates. This is a well-documented phenomenon of the downtown.