Ideological constructions of place: The conflict over ’s

Cory Dobson University of Calgary

I – INTRODUCTION As global real-estate and finance markets have become increasingly fluid and governments at all levels have embraced neoliberal policies, pressures of large-scale and redevelopment of our inner-cities have become increasingly prevalent. With these relatively new developments, there has been a great deal of debate surrounding the most effective way to deal with the dilapidated areas in our cities. Seen as a visual and moral blemish to the marketability of the city, many neoliberal proponents have called for a ‘cleansing’ of these regions, through an opening up of inner-city housing to the forces of the market, thereby ensuring the ‘highest and best use’ for all parcels of land. As the guiding ideological outlook continues to align itself with this objective there has been increased pressure placed on the neighbourhoods of the poor. What are the causes and consequences of such ideological constructions, and how has the embrace of these anti-social motives affected the livelihood of the poorest in our cities? Few neighbourhoods in have been as adversely affected by the discourses and pressures of redevelopment as Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in . This neighbourhood, and the constant struggle endured by its occupants, is the focus of this paper. Vancouver is one of Canada’s leaders in attracting foreign investment. The Downtown Eastside faces a great deal of uncertainty as capital investment promisses further redevelopment and social change. The struggle over the Downtown Eastside is currently being staged by two primary groups: Those individuals who subscribe to the neoliberal ideology that calls for the complete liberalization of all markets, believing that the goal of achieving ‘world-class’ city status should be the primary objective of all Vancouver citizens; and those individuals who see this monetary achievement as a secondary priority at best. This paper will attempt to provide an understanding of these two positions and will highlight the way in which the dominant ideology has negatively impacted the residents of the neighbourhood boasting the “poorest postal-code in Canada” (Steele, 1997).

II – FRAMING THE COMMUNITY: history & trends in the downtown eastside a history of decline The Downtown Eastside, Vancouver’s original townsite and oldest community, is located just east of the City’s central business district and has become one of the most marginalized regions in Canada (Hasson & Ley, 1994; figure 2.1). Although the working-class residents of the community have experienced a long history of conflict and struggle, the present day pressures of socio-spatial polarization present a violent threat to the livelihood and history of the long-time residents of this community. With the economy of British Columbia historically rooted in resource extraction, the original townsite of Vancouver was constructed to house, service, and act as the big city home for the miners, loggers, fisherman, and railway workers who flowed into the community after

figure 2.1 - Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (adapted from www.vancouver.ca) months in bush camps (Layton, 2000). With the function of the district focused on servicing the desires and needs of these single men, the Downtown Eastside became a site where ‘in- between job’, seasonal labourers could not only find dollar-a-day accommodations but also the entertainment they desired (Blomley, 2004). As the economy of the city grew and the majority of new investment capital shifted west, this transition facilitated the separation between the middle- and upper-class west-side from the working-class eastside. With this shift the affluent members of society migrated out of the community and the Downtown Eastside became a physical extension of the provincial resource economy (Hasson & Ley, 1994). Canneries, sawmills, meat-packing, and metal-working facilities all agglomerated within the region (Hasson & Ley,

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1994), creating, due to this concentration of blue-collar labourers, a sense of working-class pride within the community. This agglomeration of sawmills and the lumber industry provided the context for the creation of the label “skid road”, which originally lacked any of the negative connotation attached to the term today. In its infancy, “skid road” expressed the pure function of the roadways within Vancouver and where logs were ‘skidded’ on their way to the numerous mills that lined the strip (Shier, 2002). Later this expression came to invoke a sense of excitement and vitality as it was applied to the vast agglomeration of bars, hotels, and bordellos that congregated around logging camps and mills to service and entertain the single workers. The energetic, and not yet stigmatized nature of the early term is illustrated by the name of the 1913 midway at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver, “Skid Road”, which instilled a sense of frontier fun and excitement (Sommers & Blomley, 2002). At the outset of the First World War, the vibrant Downtown Eastside continued its function as the centre of warehousing and transportation for the city, as well as the main shopping corridor for the working-class (Blomley, 2004; image 2.2). Following the Second World War however, the community began a slow and continual decline as its central role in warehousing, transportation and manufacturing operations based on resource extraction of the hinterlands began to fade

(Sommers & Blomley, 2002). With figure 2.2 – A Once Vibrant Community this process of decline under way, two specific trends further ensured an era of disinvestment within the region: First, the mass exodus of industry from the community, which fled in search of cheaper land far from the downtown core; second, as the era of the migrant worker came to a close, the once part-time residents of the hotels were now out of work and left seeking permanent residence within the community (Blomley, 2004). By the end of the 1940’s the region had become home to a concentration of retired resource workers, a surprising number of whom had been handicapped in industrial accidents (Hasson & Ley, 1994). The decline intensified following wartime recovery as the community became even further marginalized from mainstream society. By the 1960’s had become increasingly noticeable as the community of retired and unemployed resource workers were joined by a “transient population of middle-aged and elderly men, some alcoholic, native, and youth” (Hasson & Ley, 1994, p.175). With the community’s further removal from the remainder of Vancouver, the Downtown Eastside became increasingly identified, not through the work ethic and achievement of its once proud resource workers, but rather through the morally deviant activities which were becoming more frequent (Sommers & Blomley, 2002). With the community now “coded as a place of dubious morality, racial otherness, and masculine failure” the discourse of “skid road” as we know it today became readily applied (Blomley, 2004, p.34).

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With the socio-spatial make-up of the community already greatly altered, the events surrounding the 1986 World Exposition () provided the impetus for another significant shift in the residential profile of the community (H. Smith, 2003). A number of long-time tenants of the residential hotels in the neighbourhood were given eviction notices as landlords anticipated an influx of tourists. Estimates of the actual number of individuals displaced during the event range anywhere from seven hundred to one thousand (City of Vancouver, 1995). This drastic eviction, which left up to one thousand of Vancouver’s residents homeless or in search of housing is often overlooked by critics of the Downtown Eastside community activists. The main reason for this denial is the relatively modest change in the total number of low-income (SRO)1 units lost due to Expo 86. However, this discrepancy reflects not the lost units for the period of the exposition, but rather the total change over time, from year to year. So, due to the fact that many of these hotels reverted back to low-rent units following the events, the impacts experienced by the residents are often ignored through statistical analyses of total units (City of Vancouver, 1995). While the outside observer, focused on statistics may consider these impacts modest, to the neighbourhood the effects were sizable (Hasson & Ley, 1994). Although many of the residents found housing again following the event, their sense of comfort, security and ownership in their homes was fundamentally altered. The reality of how close they were to in the City of Vancouver was now clear. Although this loss of security in one’s home is troubling, the squalid living conditions in the Downtown Eastside are equally disturbing. Jack Layton (2000) provides insight into these horrid living environments from an interview with a 73 year old World War Two veteran, living in the neighbourhood who describes his home: It’s steep for a little room. I’m paying $375. It’s hot, smelly and noisy. It’s filthy. Badly in need of a good coat of paint. No hotplate, busted fridge. Everything is busted here. The sheets and towels fall apart in my hands. Mirror is off the wall, can’t shave. I found a hypodermic needle underneath the bed, so druggies have used it... It’s full of cockroaches. I don’t know how they get away with that. Why aren’t the inspectors around more often? (quoted by Layton, 2000, p.119) This description sheds some light on the living conditions in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and evokes the sense of helplessness and isolation felt by residents of the neighbourhood. Although the causes for this neglect may be debated, one thing is clear: As these conditions worsen, long-term tenants face possible eviction as their homes deteriorate beyond the limits of the building code (H. Smith, 2003). As more and more of these rental units succumb to closure, the housing stock in the city for low income individuals is decreasing rapidly. In the five years leading up to 1997, the area lost nearly four hundred units of affordable housing, most being renovated into tourist hotels or closed due to by-law infractions (Steele, 1997). As the market continues to squeeze residents into homelessness, it is important to remember that there is no other area in the city to which people in this low-income group can migrate to. Due to zoning by-laws and the fact that most non-market housing consists of multiple dwelling units, the affordable housing in the city is restricted to residential areas that are zoned for higher densities (City of Vancouver, 2003b). As a result, we see the bulk of non-market housing in the city concentrated within the Downtown Eastside.

1 These SRO units are directed at the lowest income individuals and are seldom over 100 square feet.

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At the outset of the new millennium, the Downtown Eastside consisted of nearly 80% of the low-income housing in the downtown core of Vancouver (City of Vancouver, 2001). While non-market housing accounts for only 8.5% city wide in Vancouver, in the Downtown Eastside the proportion of non-market housing is roughly 50% (City of Vancouver, 2003b). Over 90% of neighbourhood residents are renters (City of Vancouver, 2002), leaving any profits or benefits from gentrification or redevelopment in the hands of speculative landlords and developers. Although the housing situation in the Downtown Eastside is bleak, it is only one of the struggles faced by these residents. More problematic to the livelihood of these individuals is the flourishing drug trade within the neighbourhood. With its proximity to the Vancouver port, the neighbourhood acts as a gateway to the Canadian drug market, resulting in drugs not only being readily available within the neighbourhood, but also very cheap (Shier, 2002). This concentration of the drug trafficking and its related problems was made clear in the LeDain Commission on non-medical drug-use. This commission estimated that in 1970 there were 4000 addicts in Canada, 62% of whom lived in British Columbia, with the majority frequenting the market in the Downtown Eastside (Shier, 2002). Statistics such as these confirm that the Hastings corridor is one of the largest drug markets in the country (image 2.3). This fact has been cited by a Vancouver City Police inspector as the root of a lot of the neighbourhood’s problems, forcing addicts within the region into criminal activity to feed their habits (H. Smith, 2003). Although the Downtown Eastside has a long tradition of tolerance towards the challenges and behaviours associated with the drug trade, the introduction of injectable crack in the early 1990’s brought an extremely troubling element to the area’s drug culture. As a result of these cheap and plentiful intravenous drugs, the makings of an HIV/ AIDS epidemic were well known to local officials by the summer of 1994 (H. Smith, 2003). By autumn of 1997, close to half of the six to ten-thousand addicts that either resided in or frequented the Downtown Eastside became infected with HIV (H. Smith, 2003). As fears towards these new health threats grew for the remainder of Vancouver residents, the success of the city’s police was increasingly measured by how well they could contain the city’s drug trade within the Hastings Street corridor, between Cambie and Main, where the least complaint could be expected (Shier, 2002; figure 2.3). As a result of this heavy drug concentration and its acceptance by the police force, the of East Hastings are now lined with pawn-shops and 24-hour convenience stores, many of which act as drug fronts (Sheir, 2002). Any legitimate ventures that had rented space in the region, such as restaurants and galleries, had fled the area by 1999 (Shier, 2002).

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figure 2.3 – the Hastings Corridor beginning of change: and the formation of a dual community A sizable shift in the social makeup of the community began to take shape with ’s 1965 plan for the area known as “Project 200”. The railway company, an owner of a vast portion of the land in the Downtown Eastside, proposed an immense redevelopment in the community that would have cut a large waterfront roadway through the heart of present day Gastown (Hasson & Ley, 1994; figure 2.4, 2.5). With fears of losing the historic heart of the city to the automobile, preservation activists were mobilized and took aim at creating a heritage site in Gastown to celebrate the founding of Vancouver. In 1971 the provincial government conceded to protect the Chinatown and Gastown regions of the Downtown Eastside by designating them as historic preservation sites (H. Smith, 2003). With this new designation, investment and renovation in these once neglected neighbourhoods of the city took hold, shaking the socio-spatial make-up of the community. Over a hundred new businesses entered the Gastown neighbourhood and as the economic benefits of investment were felt, a number of the long time, lower-class residents were evicted from their homes (Hasson & Ley, 1994).

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figure 2.6 – Enclosing Borders: the internal pressures of figure 2.4 & 2.5 – The Downtown Eastside’s Gastown redevelopment & gentrification in the Downtown Eastside

The “success” of this heritage designation initiated gentrification has spurred the city to implement similar strategies in other corners of the community, thereby tightening the borders of affordability around the low-income residents. (figure 2.6). In March 1993, approved the development of a concept plan for Victory Square which deliberately encouraged commercial and residential revitalization in another targeted area of the Downtown Eastside (H. Smith, 2003). While the redevelopment and reinvestment continues to induce a transformation on the fringes of the community, the over-concentration of socially assisted and non-profit housing in the neighbourhood ensures the presence of a low-income and service dependant population in the area for years to come (H. Smith, 2003). As these two differing demographics continue to converge upon the same community we see an intra-community polarization that results from the simultaneous occurrence of downgrading and upgrading within the Downtown Eastside (H. Smith, 2003). With the conjunction of , old age, and physical or mental handicaps within the neighbourhood, residents in areas such as the Downtown Eastside have become some of the least empowered citizens in (Hasson & Ley, 1994). Adding to this lack of power, the neighbourhood faces increasing pressure from external forces as the remainder of society and the processes of gentrification move in on the fringes of the neighbourhood. This produces a boundary between the traditional residents suffering from disinvestment and poverty, and the new middle- and upper-class residents who have been gentrifying the community since the historical designation of Gastown in 1971.

III – GROWTH MENTALITY: the pursuit of a ‘world-class’ city global trends & the embrace of neoliberal politics Much like any other city in the world, Vancouver is facing new challenges and prospects brought about from the acceptance of a neoliberal ideology. Certainly this is not the only ideology guiding the growth in the city; in fact Vancouver has long been the site for progressive social implementations and policies. However, despite these cases the acceptance of neoliberal

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belief provides the dominant foundational outlook for decisions made within the city (Blomley, 2004). Therefore to understand the external economic forces that are encircling the Downtown Eastside and driving the socio-spatial conflict within the community we must first realize some of the world-wide trends of the past few decades. As the Western world has become increasingly accepting of the postulates of neoliberal thought, the processes of gentrification and the displacement of neighbourhoods has become increasingly common within the Canadian context. With a neoliberal insistence that this is the ‘only alternative’, the Downtown Eastside is being encircled by the processes of capital, where the motives driving this socio-spatial conflict are seldom questioned. One of the major influences in the neighbourhood’s predicament is the fluidity and rapidity by which globalization has shifted the structure of the labour and property markets over the past few decades (Harvey, 1989). As barriers to trade fell, a number of policy shifts were adopted which have led to growing wage polarization and a loss of manufacturing jobs within the community. By implementing such policies a number of other problematic trends have plagued the residents, including the reversal of many social programs, attacks on trade unions, and a decrease in the real value of minimum wage (Levine, 1995). Driven by the fear and rhetoric of neoliberal politicians and business interests, cities such as Vancouver have accepted the need to remain competitive in this new economic world order. Also motivated by the central concern of falling behind, a number of Canadian cities accepted a neoliberal agenda towards the close of the 1980’s, suggesting an entirely new direction for Canadian society on the whole (Mitchell, 1996). This acceptance signaled a transition in the nation’s identity: Canadian society began to evolve from one that prided itself on the standard of living for all of its citizens, to one which now seems focused upon staying economically competitive, regardless of social costs. Included in this agenda is the ideological belief that the market should decide what the greatest social good is. With this mentality as its impetus, the Canadian government in 1993 followed the lead of ‘Thatcherite’ attacks on social programs and completely cut funding to new units in their award winning social housing program (Layton, 2000). With the retraction of the country’s social programs, the housing and well being of Canadians on the margins became the primary responsibility of the provinces. As this transition developed provincial bodies were placed under great stress, forcing many of these governments to continue the process of downloading, passing responsibility for housing onto the cities themselves. With this ideological stance now well-rooted, urban housing markets became important sites for neoliberal policy as rent controls were dropped and speculative investment flourished in the inner-city (Blomley, 2004). One of the central components of this new economic environment was the belief that capital investment was beneficial to all, and any deterrent to the free-flow of this capital should be removed, including any policies to retain a certain level of non- market housing2. Under circumstances of open trade and increased private investment, local players in real estate were replaced by national and international conglomerates, while the significance of the national economy was reduced due to an increased focus on individual urban places (Logan, 1993). According to Sassen (2001), the idea of place has increasingly focused on the urban realm, as investment searches the globe for the most beneficial location for operations. As a result, cities have felt a need to take their future into their own hands; desperately trying to create an attractive location for investment. Within this context of new globalism, Neil Smith

2 The City of Vancouver refused to accept this line of thinking wholeheartedly and has, through a number of policy implementations, insured at least a modest level of affordable housing within the City (City of Vancouver 2003a).

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(2002) argues that we are experiencing an emergence of a new urbanism: where our traditional ideas of the urban are being as fundamentally recast as our ideas of the global have been. influence of the growth machine In this new urban structure, where money is believed to flow unhindered, a pro-growth ideology is beginning to dominate the political environment of cities world-wide. Harvey Molotch (1976) argues that it is increasingly a conglomerate of interlocking pro-growth associations and governmental units – what he calls a “growth-machine” – which is guiding the development of cities today (Logan & Molotch, 1987). For growth oriented individuals, “gentrification, neighbourhood revitalization, the new service economy, and white collar job growth” have all been embraced as optimistic “catch-words” and are symbolic of this process of change (Wiewel & Nyden, 1991). Although a number of the individuals who make up Molotch’s growth machine may disagree on the application of some principles, they all tend to agree at one level: They stand united behind the doctrine of “value-free development” where the market alone is left to determine land use, and where any interference of the state towards property is viewed as harmful to not only the site favoured for production, but society on the whole (Logan & Molotch, 1987). As is clear, this embrace of pro-growth ideology is inherently accepting of uneven development and the production of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ as a by-product of economic progress (Wiewel & Nyden, 1991). As a result, the negative ramifications that plague the lives of many inner-city residents are over-looked and glossed over as being the ‘only alternative’ (Mitchell, 1996). This process is viewed as natural, inevitable, and simply the way things must be for the good of the ‘entire city’. As a result, when proponents of the growth machine are given control of development at the local level, communities and long-time residents forfeit control over both the content and the location of production (Logan & Molotch, 1987). Instead, capital is freed to make virtually anything, virtually anywhere that it sees fit. According to Molotch (1999), there are a number of different political conditions that enhance the potential for growth machine dynamics. The most fundamental of these is the degree to which buildings and land are allowed to operate as commodities. With a high level of commodification, owners are justified in their manipulation of land-use laws, politicians, and others’ locational decisions, providing the basis of ‘structural speculation’ and improving the value of their commodity (Molotch, 1999). In this regard, the investor is no longer investing in property per se, but rather in the ability to influence the future socio-spatial structures that determine the value of property (Molotch, 1999). This mentality becomes clear with respect to the Downtown Eastside where investors claim that the neighbourhood would be improved through an in-migration of middle-class individuals, displacing the present low-income residents and driving up property values. Once the functions of land and property have become completely commodified, and free from governmental control, an owner would then be free to buy, sell, or rent their property at whatever the market allows. With this commodification in place, an owner would be expected to manipulate their property in anyway they see fit in search of what the market would deem the “highest and best use” (Molotch, 1999).

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becoming a world-class city Unfortunately for the residents of the Downtown Eastside, the dominant property discourse in Vancouver today aligns tightly to the ‘growth machine’ model and relies on certain assumptions regarding the ‘natural evolution’ of the land market (Blomley, 2004). As a result, the neighbourhood is locked in a constant battle with the remainder of the Vancouver which is pushing to achieve ‘world-class’ city status (Mitchell, 1996; figure 3.1). The advocates of this movement stress the importance of this competitive position, not only for the City of Vancouver, but for the economy of the entire province of British Columbia (Mitchell, 1996). In this push for ‘world-class’ status, inner-city populations are being displaced to not only make room for incoming middle- and upper-classes, but also as a method of polishing the image of Vancouver in order to make it more attractive to global investment .

figure 3.1 – the ‘Marketable’ Vancouver: the pursuit of ‘world-class’ city status

When striving for ‘world-class’ status, driven by the “high income lifestyles” of those atop of the urban structure, there is the inevitable creation of a class dualism within the city (Sassen, cited by Levine, 1995). Similar to the move to suburbia, we now see that “the new middle-class of professionals, technical experts, managers, and entrepreneurs of the post-industrial service and information economy, seeks to order a rather messy inner-city into a consumption pleasure zone” (Sommers & Blomley, 2002, p.47). To achieve this goal, these new members of the inner- city attempt to distance themselves, and remove from “their” streets the social outcasts – the poor, the beggars, the drug addicts, and the sex workers. Once the middle- and upper-classes are established within a neighbourhood they utilize their status to retain their acquired privileges and occupy the most desirable places in the city, further displacing communities of those less affluent and reducing their access to amenities and services so crucial to them (Logan & Molotch, 1987).

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This growth mentality and embrace of globalization has been in evidence in the political decisions surrounding the City of Vancouver for decades. Since the 1980’s, all three levels of government in Vancouver (local, provincial, and federal) have engaged in neoliberal policies of privatization, deregulation, and global integration (Mitchell, 1996). The scale and number of mega-projects, or what Smyth (1994) calls “flagships”, proposed for Vancouver in the 1980’s was chiefly the result of boosterism from the provincial and local governments, in an attempt to attract fluid global finance (Mitchell, 1996). The persuasive rhetoric of these pro-growth enthusiasts can be seen in a number of local newspaper articles. Here Mitchell (1996) found examples of media stressing not only the importance of unfettered market forces, but also the way in which those who oppose growth are cast as “condemning their city to a future without a viable economy” (p.491). Other studies have shown the way in which the pro-growth camp simply belittles opponents as being “wild-eyed idealists who have no sense of how the economy works” (McCarron cited by Wiewel & Nyden, 1991, p.9). In an attempt to avoid having these slanderous claims directed at them, many individuals simply accept this rhetoric and embrace this vision of growth above all else. As society accepts this as the rational way forward, residents of the Downtown Eastside find themselves socially isolated from the remainder of the city and surrounded by the forces of redevelopment and the invasion of the well-off. As global finance and other investments have flooded into the city there has been an unprecedented demand for inner-city living within Vancouver. Since 1989, the city has added housing for 25,000 new residents, furthering redevelopment (Sommers & Blomley, 2002). This highlights the increasing pressure facing the Downtown Eastside from outside capital. The borders of the neighbourhood are being squeezed in from all directions: The pursues redevelopment to the north; to the west, Gastown induced gentrification and the expansion of downtown functions; to the south, the Expo lands and the multi- billion dollar Concord Pacific redevelopment; and residential gentrification in Strathcona to the east have all served to reduce the Downtown Eastside spatially for the traditional low-income residents (Blomley 2004; figure 3.2). By framing the issues of intravenous drug use and HIV infection with a decidedly “eastside” focus, Vancouver’s biggest fears are equated with poverty and marginality. Out of fear, residents of Vancouver are quick to cite the neighbourhood’s concentration of figure 3.2 – External Development Pressures poverty as neighbourhood struggles for acceptance within the remainder of Vancouver society (Blomley, 2004). Although the ‘others’ of the neighbourhood for years have been ignored, but accepted, Sommers and Blomley (2002) claim that the recent moral panic and fear over drugs and HIV have fueled the social conflict

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surrounding the neighbourhood. These fears of Vancouver residents have placed the impoverished population of the Downtown Eastside at the heart of the city’s social and moral conflict, greatly magnifying the neighbourhood’s problems.

IV – DAMAGING DISCOURSE: the ‘urban other’ & the ‘underclass’

Accompanying this constant attempt to create a marketable city for global investment has been an increased acknowledgement, fear, and resentment of the ‘urban other’. The Downtown Eastside, one of the only concentrations of extreme poverty and ‘otherness’ in the City of Vancouver, is often presented through hegemonic rhetoric as a threat to the remainder of the city. Long addressed as being synonymous with criminality and marginality, the the root cause of the City’s problems, making the displacement and removal of this demographic a morally accepted alternative. Once the population begins to see drugs, HIV, and poverty as one in the same it effectively pathologizes the poor (Sommers & Blomley, 2002). As Sommers and Blomley (2002) point out, once this condition is allowed to develop, the pathologization of the entire neighbourhood follows, thereby leading to a situation where the population of the district is sweepingly dismissed as “a bunch of dope fiends” (p21). Once the neighbourhood has been stigmatized and pathologized, the remainder of the city has a tendency to view it as a threat to commonly held societal values, and the residents of the Downtown Eastside become presented as remote, but potentially menacing. The moral panic that this creates in the remainder of the city is explained by Stanley Cohen: a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests: its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media... ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears... or deteriorates and becomes more visible. (quoted by Sibley, 1995, p.39.) By stereotyping the entire neighbourhood in this way, and then trying to eradicate the cause of the problem, society tends to isolate the residents even more and further exacerbates the social ills of the city as a whole. An attempted solutions that is often embarked upon in such situations, is the push for ‘spatial purification’ of the region in question, with the hopes of making the city more marketable for investment. In his examination of modern advertising and the city, Sibley (1995) shows how society’s fears of this polluted urban underclass are often contrasted with the safety and security of the pure. The imagery of advertising promotes cleanliness, purity, whiteness, and spatial order within the built environment of our cities, while attempting at the same time to remove, through the purification process, the dirt, germs, and disorder in our cities (Sibley, 1995). In this context ‘spatial purification’ plays an integral role in the organization of social space and the structure of power as the dominant urban discourse demands ‘clean space’ (Sibley, 1995, p.77). He continues by claiming that in this regard, “the built environment assumes symbolic importance, reinforcing a desire for order and conformity if the environment itself is ordered and purified; in this way space is implicated in the construction of deviancy” (p.86). So by creating a single faceted definition of the norm we also imply a fixed definition of the deviant. One of the key components to this definition of deviance, and a powerful tool for the dominant members of society, is the common sense assumptions that guide and control social

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interactions. “Thinking of culture as ‘our common way of life’ allows lifestyle and the habits of everyday life to be normalized and reconstructed through the process of ideological production” (Mitchell, 1996, p.493), thereby rendering the actions of the dominant classes as the norm. Some theorists who focus on the construction of these ideologies claim that the power of the dominant is created through these types of common sense assumption, which are thought to be beneficial to all involved (Gramsci and Bourdieu, cited in Cresswell, 1996, p18). What is considered common sense becomes a powerful mechanism for the domination of ‘others’. According to Bourdieu, for an established order to develop and find success it must adhere to commonly held assumptions and therefore make its world appear to be the ‘natural world’ – the common sense world (Cresswell, 1996). Once this imposed social world is accepted as the natural world it becomes extremely difficult to shake the dominantly held assumptions of society. One of the most fundamental of these ‘common sense’ assumptions regards the role and function of private property. The institution of private property in our society is rendered as a means for preventing discord: “property brings certainty, and certainty brings peace” (Blomley, 2004). The ideological underpinnings guiding private property provide a great deal of order to our world through the coding of spaces, and by extension those who exist within these spaces (Blomley, 2004). Proposals of displacement can be easily removed from moral debate by ignoring the inherent rights of the marginalized population in exchange for the “common-sense” assumptions about property and ownership. With these definitions of difference and common sense, explicit boundaries are erected as a way of separating ‘us’ and ‘them’; with boundaries being constantly policed as a way of retaining this difference (Blomley, 2004). As Sibley (1995) points out, this type of separation can be seen as a ‘process of purification’; thereby presuming that “one group is pure, while the other is defiled” (p37). Once separation dissolves in this regards, and mixing begins to occur, the threat of contamination of, and a challenge to the hegemonic values becomes apparent (Sibley, 1995). In this context spatial boundaries become explicit to moral boundaries. In communities such as Vancouver, where there are vast inequalities in the distribution of status, power, and material rewards, feelings of insecurity surrounding this acquired wealth results in the erection of borders and the rejection of the ‘threatening other’ (Sibley, 1995). This treatment serves to isolate the majority of the City’s ‘underclass’ – those with low incomes, sex trade workers, and drug addicts – into the bounded space of the Downtown Eastside. This type of segregation can be seen as an important method of producing and maintaining power and order within the city (Oleksijczuk, 2002). One thing that is important to keep in mind during this discussion, and something considered by Cresswell (1996), is the fact that there are two sides to every border, and in many ways the differing regions manifest different accounts of ‘the right way to act’. He emphasizes the importance of geographical context in the construction of ideological judgments of actions, and states that in every situation there are two groups, “the dominated and the dominant” (p15). One of Cresswell’s (1996) important points is that these two categories are in no way static and mutually exclusive, but rather that differing geographical contexts provide different definitions of who is being dominated. So this awareness of being ‘in place’ is one of the easiest ways of recognizing urban otherness, or being ‘out of place’ (Cresswell, 1996). This creates a sense of resentment in many residents as they feel uncomfortable and out of place within ‘their own’ city. When the average, middle-class Vancouverite crosses the boundary into the Downtown Eastside there is a stark contrast to the affluence and wealth they experience in the remainder of downtown, creating a sense of discomfort, thereby placing the individual on the defensive and in direct conflict with ‘otherness’.

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The stronger the classification or recognition of boundaries in a place, the stronger the objection to the ‘other’ is likely to be (Sibley, 1995). Strong classification of boundaries results in strong beliefs of what actions and personalities are ‘in’ and ‘out’ of place. Weak classifications on the other hand are associated with integrated social mixing and a tolerance of difference, with little interest in the maintenance of boundaries (Sibley, 1995). As Mike Davies puts it: “the greater the search for conformity, the greater the search for deviance; for without deviance, there is no self-consciousness and vise-versa” (quoted by Sibley, 1995, p.39). In other words, “total repression of deviants would rob society of a means of defining itself; there must be room for “them” and for “us” to exist as well” (Sennett, 1970, p.43). When addressing the discourse of deviance it is important to remember that any acknowledgment of difference is controlled by the existing power structure (Cresswell, 1996). The idea of deviance rests on the assumption that something is recognizably different and breaks from the established norm (Cresswell, 1996). When outsiders are suspected of being troublemakers it is often because they are seen as being out of place and unable to conform to the established order. In nearly every case of border erection in our cities there is some ambiguity of where the edge of one zone ends and where the other begins (Sibley, 1995), and this is no different in the case of Vancouver. Within these transitory zones, those individuals who have been socialized into believing that the separation of zones is necessary or desirable are often confronted with a great sense of discomfort and anxiety (Sibley, 1995). It is this anxiety, in the presence of the stigmatized other, that has placed the Downtown Eastside in conflict with the remainder of the city. In the battle over the community, the pro- gentrification group justifies their position by claiming that the retired resource workers who had built the community have given way to a socially marginal and criminalized population (Blomley, 2004). Within this view, the residents who occupy the Downtown Eastside are seen as mobile and transient; attracted to the neighbourhood by the high concentration of “social services or with the acquiescence of the police” (Blomley, 2004, p.91). Once the residents of the neighbourhood have been stigmatized in this manner displacement not only seems relatively benign, but would presumably be an improvement (Blomley, 2004).

V – REDEVELOPMENT PRESSURES: gentrification & the ‘revanchist’ city

The inner city region of Vancouver is an amenity rich area; one that is extremely attractive to the middle-class, with this desirability extending beyond the mere proximity to employment. The city is home to a number of attractive elements; from its major parks, beaches, and marinas, to lively cultural and retail activities of the downtown areas (Ley 1981). It is this vast bundle of features that drives demand for inner-city living in the City of Vancouver, and it is these amenities that are giving form to the socio-spatial conflict within the city. With a growing demand for property, and the resulting explosion of land values, the city has experienced an increased acceptance of the merits of the contemporary neoliberalism. This evolution in values has supplanted the merits of community and neighbourhood with the unfettered adoption of the ‘highest and best use’. In the discourse of neoliberalism and urban development this ‘highest and best use’ is often projected as inevitable, natural and beneficial to the city as a whole (Blomley, 2004). In the case of low-income housing, this conversion or

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‘upgrade’ is often embraced as an improvement or revitalization of a “formerly depressed or wasted area” (Blomley, 2004, p.86). As this trend towards the open market persisted, there was an increased denial of social responsibility towards the homeless and impoverished which led to a “blame the victim” psychology (Layton, 2000). The poor, as mentioned above, were stereotyped by extreme behaviours – healthy lazy men, drunks, addicts, and street criminals – leading to the pathologization of the entire community of the Downtown Eastside (Crump, 2002). Public opinion of social programs and poverty at large began to highlight the combative stance of the middle-class. To this end, claims were made that public resources were being used by crack dealers, that beggars were earning professional wages and that “there (was) more free food than the homeless (could) eat” (John Stackhouse, Globe & Mail reporter, quoted by Layton, 2000, p61). This view of the poor has fueled NIMBY3 politics, where even in there have been attempts to stop social housing due to a fear that the presence of the poor will lead to depressed property values (Gzowski & Todd, 1992). This fear of the ‘other’ created an inversed NIMBYism in the 1980s, where the incoming middle-class gentrifiers migrated into previously low-income regions of the inner-city of Vancouver, and then placed a claim on ‘their’ new neighbourhood, calling for the removal of the previous occupants. The middle-class desire for a ‘purified’ urban realm, coupled with their inherent political clout, placed a great deal of pressure upon the police to ensure a ‘cleansed’ environment for the new lifestyles. As a result of this political pressure, the police adopted a strategy that attempted to confine the narcotics and markets to the East Hastings corridor (Sommers & Blomley, 2002). The success of this new policing strategy was measured in how well these activities were contained within the politically weak neighbourhood of the Downtown Eastside. This problematic concentration of vice reinforced the belief that poverty caused pathology. The Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, the City’s confinement area for anything immoral, was ironically addressed publicly as the source of Vancouver’s problems. In 1998 A Vancouver Sun television critic claimed that it was “Vancouver’s worst neighbourhood... probably Canada’s worst neighbourhood” (quoted by Sommers & Blomley, 2002, p19). Reports of the neighbourhood grew even worse as two Vancouver Police constables claimed that the “escalating anarchy and open drug market” had transformed the Downtown Eastside into an area that was not only outside of “civilization” but beyond “the boundary into hell” itself (Walter McKay & Tony Hinton, quoted by Sommers & Blomley, 2002, p19). These public claims extended beyond the pathologization of the individual and began staking claims on the neighbourhood itself, as it was seen as a “disease-ridden enclave of filth and desolation... where the price is humanity and their dignity” (quoted by Sommers & Blomley, 2002, p23). The ‘sickness’ of the poor was now seen as infecting the local environment as it was leaching out and contaminating the entire city. With the combination of increased market demand, and the public belief that the Downtown Eastside was a parasitic enclave, the processes of gentrification were embraced and continued to impinge on the fringes of the Downtown Eastside. The term gentrification, like so many other terms in the urban discourse, has faced a number of differing views and ambiguous definitions throughout its history. The definition of terms central to inner-city revitalization become quickly politicized as there is a lot at stake at the way in which they are defined. If landowners and politicians can cast the term in a positive light, then the gentrification of

3 NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard)

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dilapidated communities will be embraced and the revitalization of neighbourhoods will be encouraged. The gentrifying city has been seen in this optimistic light since the 1980s as their “hostile landscapes are regenerated, cleansed, reinfused with middle-class sensibility; real estate values soar; yuppies consume; elite gentility is democratized in mass-produced style distinction” (N. Smith, 1996, p.13). This embrace of gentrification over the past couple decades has been extremely influential, depicted as providing positive “economic development; neighbourhood improvement; a better quality of life; improved housing; more opportunities for employment; stabilization of the tax base; rejuvenation of neighbourhoods; and revitalization of the city” (Wiewel & Nyden, 1991). Yet if we address the term from its original conception, as was done by Neil Smith (1996), we find a much less celebratory definition. Originally coined by sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964, the term contains an underlying class conflict that is often overlooked when it is optimistically accepted: One by one, many of the working-class quarters of have been invaded by the middle-class – upper and lower. Shabby, modest mews and cottages – two rooms up and two down – have been taken over, when their leases expired, and have become elegant, expensive residences... Once this process of “gentrification” starts in a district it goes on rapidly until all or most of the original social character of the district is changed. (quoted by N. Smith, 1996, p.33) While often explained by societal change and an evolution in consumer demands, Smith (1996) claims that the process of gentrification and the ‘back to the city movement’ was not stimulated by cultural forces, but rather by economics. To explain the economic structure that stimulated gentrification Smith (1996) puts forth the theory of the “rent gap”, replacing the notion of a ‘back to the city movement’ of the middle- class with one of capital. As continued disinvestment plagues the inner-city communities there is a growing gap between the “potential ground rent” of a property (the maximum return that could be reached through an application of ‘the highest and best use’) and its “capitalized ground rent” (the monetary amount received for rent in its present condition). When the gap between the two is large enough we see reinvestment in the area as capital flows back in (N. Smith, 1996). Once these inherent class dimensions of gentrification were realized and accepted, the term faced an assault by academics and the public alike and became known as somewhat of a ‘dirty’ word, centered on displacement (N. Smith, 1996). As the processes of gentrification slowed down, the real estate professionals used this downturn to their advantage by attempting to erase the word, and the memory of the word’s politics, from popular discourse (N. Smith, 1996). In an attempt to avoid this controversial language, redevelopment interests adopted the terminology of ‘urban regeneration’. It is under this heading that redevelopment has garnered its greatest support; both in the urban literature and within governmental bodies. Through the language of regeneration the negative elements of gentrification have been relegated to the periphery, with the process itself being recast as a positive and necessary urban process. However, one problematic assumption made by this process is the assertion that the area to be regenerated “will have come to the end of its useful life” (Smyth, 1994); thereby claiming that the area in question, no longer serves any function for the city. By focusing on the development of ‘brown-field’ sites, or the redevelopment of previously developed land, the process is cast in a positive light and as an environmental necessity, embraced as a part of the solution to curbing the continued development of urban sprawl (N. Smith, 2002). In these positive regards, mega-developments are considered successful if they

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play a catalytic role in urban regeneration, attracting other investments (Smyth, 1994). Supporting these benefits of regeneration, Smyth (1994) contests that any declaration of the process producing many “losers” is fallacious, and asserts rather, that in these large-scale redevelopment projects there are either “winners” or the “unaffected”, with only those in the direct path of demolition categorized as a ‘loser’ in the process (Smyth, 1994, p.90). Another claim of regeneration discourse is the affirmation that it will bring “people back into our cities”, stressing a “social balance” (N. Smith, 2002, p.445). Smith (1996) astutely questions however, who is coming back to the city, and who is the social balance for? Rarely does one encounter the idea of bringing low-income, impoverished individuals into the wealthy areas of our cities. Instead this constant claim for the need of “balance” is unidirectional and focused on the derelict regions of our cities; the call to cleanse and whiten the ‘dirty’ areas through the introduction of the middle- and upper-class. By examining the history of gentrification Neil Smith (2002) identifies three distinct phases, with the third, “gentrification generalized”, being where we find ourselves today (N. Smith, 2002, p.440). It is in the language of “urban regeneration” that this phase of gentrification finds it most developed expression, and the open embrace of this process plays an integral role to the definition of what Smith (1996) has termed ‘new urbanism’. This ‘new urbanism’, characteristic of the contemporary Western city, is dominated by an entirely new scale of displacement and gentrification, as local governments have joined partnerships with private capital to fuel the massive-scaled redevelopment projects around the globe (N. Smith, 2002). Despite their large-scale, the most prominent and surprising element of these new developments is the rapidity in which this process has evolved; changing from the initially marginal urban process identified by Glass in the early 1960s, to the multi-billion dollar scale of the process found in contemporary urbanism (N. Smith, 2002). This evolution has been accompanied by a transition in the agents of gentrification; where developments in the 1960’s were dominated by individuals, gentrification became the domain of governmental, corporate, or corporate-governmental partnerships (N. Smith, 2002). A crucial aspect of urban regeneration, leading to its general acceptance, is the fact that the process greatly reduces the spending of central government while still providing the benefits of urban revitalization (Smyth, 1994). In this period of ‘gentrification generalized’ real- estate developments have become a centerpiece of the city’s productive economy, viewed as an end in itself and justified by the creation of jobs, taxes, and tourism (N. Smith, 2002). Within these partnerships however, the social elements are often addressed only in theory; when the final tally is taken it is clear that the real concern is of city’s image, not the well being of the local population (Smyth, 1994). Performance in fact is seldom gauged by the non-economic benefits to the individual and community, but rather focused directly on the economic bottom line (Levine, Torjman, & Born, 2003). In this new urban landscape, global capital increasingly dictates the development of the city, encouraging the acceptance of the large-scaled gentrification as a global urban strategy to attract investment from abroad, jump-starting citywide gentrification (N. Smith, 2002). The impacts of this new urbanism are being felt in the Downtown Eastside, as pressure from billionaire, Li Ka-Shing’s Concord Pacific mega-development are compressing the boundaries of the neighbourhood (Smith & Derksen, 2002). The successes of urban regeneration are indicative, not only of the next phase of gentrification, but also a considerable victory for the neoliberal vision of new urbanism (N. Smith, 2002). ‘Gentrification generalized’ has clearly taken hold in the City of Vancouver, and as has already been highlighted, the Downtown Eastside is becoming encircled by a property frontier.

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But what becomes increasingly troubling to the socio-spatial conflict within the community is the gentrification within the neighbourhood itself. With a concentration of downtown educational campuses locating in and around Victory Square, the neighbourhood has seen an influx of students into the community, greatly altering the demographic makeup in the community and accompanying the already gentrified Gastown (Steele, 1997). As these two locations of increased affluence continue to exude pressure, the many rooming houses on the fringes of the Downtown Eastside, zoned for intensive use and plagued by depressed real-estate values, are gaining attractiveness to developers and land speculators. Another impetus for this transition and unbridled acceptance of gentrification in cities like Vancouver, is the growing trend to refer to middle-class inner-city migrants as “pioneers” moving into a “new urban frontier” (N. Smith, 1996). Through this frontier language and imagery, these “brave urban pioneers” are encouraged to move forth into the unknown and “tame the wild city” (p.18). According to Sommers and Blomley (2002) it is this ‘frontier mythos’ that explains the conflict at the heart of Vancouver’s social divide, where these middle-class “settlers” have entered “the urban wilderness” in hopes of finding a way to “domesticat[e]... urban life” (p.45). The vocabulary of the frontier myth not only displaces the inherent social conflict present in the gentrification of the neighbourhood, but it also reiterates and reinforces the class-specific social norms that structure the dominant ideology. Once the frontier myth is firmly in place within the views of society, it allows the developers to rip apart communities, rationalizing the violence and displacement of this form of entrepreneurial exploitation (N. Smith, 1996). With the popular ideology claiming that the presence of poor people, drug dealers, addicts, prostitutes, and social agencies are not only signs of decline, but also causes of this decline there has been, what Smith (1996) has called, an unabashed “revanchism” of the city. This revengeful reaction, brought on by a terror and fear of the other can be seen as a type of anti-urbanism, where those in power attempt through justifications of fear to ‘cleanse’ the city. As Hasson and Ley (1994) point out, redevelopment and gentrification has always been justified by outsiders through the discourse of , and the revanchist city is no exception to this rule. According to Smith (1996) the present movement in the city represents a 1990s reaction to the failed urban optimism that was present in the 80s; where hopeful gentrification has been replaced by the revanchist city (N. Smith, 1996). This anti-urban reaction can be seen as a lashing out towards the perceived “theft” of the city, expressing more than anything the: race/ class/ gender terror felt by middle- and ruling-class whites who are stuck in place by a ravage property market, the threat and reality of unemployment, the decimation of social services, and the emergence of minority and immigrant groups, as well as women, as powerful urban actors. It portends a vicious reaction against minorities, the working- class, homeless people, the unemployed, women, gays and lesbians, (and) immigrants (N. Smith, 1996, p.211). Revanchism, therefore, becomes a way for the middle- and upper-classes to blame issues plaguing the entire society on one specific group, or community; thereby morally justifying the ‘reclamation’ of the urban environment: “We have all felt the pervasive influence of the (Downtown Eastside) when we become victims of break-ins, car thefts, and other crimes” (Vancouver Police constables McKay & Hinton, quoted by Sommers & Blomley, 2002, p.45). Comments of this nature fuel the revanchist view that without the Downtown Eastside the City of Vancouver would be free of deviance and crime, as though poverty and criminality are one and the same.

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The role of this revanchist city has been explicitly justified as creating a ‘safe’ environment for this “third-wave” of gentrification and has transformed entire regions of the urban realm into new landscapes of consumption (Smith & Derksen, 2002). The new urban pioneer has set out to “scrub the city clean of its working class geography and history” (N. Smith, 1996, p.27), and pave the way for vast investment. With our guiding ideologies focusing on the need to remain competitive for global finance and the creation of a “good business climate”, it is not surprising that the measures of successful urban policies are all too often based upon the expected impact on these factors (Wiewel & Nyden, 1991). Within this political climate policies and laws against the poor are seen as beneficial, as they increase the comfort level of consumers in the city. Under these conditions, it is of little surprise to find that in the revanchist city “the criminalization of more and more aspects of the everyday lives of the homeless is increasingly pervasive” (N. Smith, 1996, p.225). Smith (1996) continues by pointing out the drastic shift in the discourse of homelessness; “from the sympathetic albeit patronizing stance of the late 1980s to the brazen indictment of homeless people, not just for their own predicament but for larger social ills” that we see today (p.227). Jack Layton (2000) likens this recent trend to the fact that “when people are tired of feeling guilty.... stigmatizing the poor and blaming the victim becomes the course of least resistance” (p.198). However, when we adopt this ideology as public policy, as was done when Vancouver passed bylaws that controlled begging, we invoke a “soft psychological rhetoric” which not only blames the victim, but in this case, suggests that begging and homelessness is somehow linked to larger crimes and (Sommers & Blomley, 2002, p.21). When this vision infiltrates the dominant ideology we see larger claims against the situation of the impoverished leading one observer to state that: If it is illegal to litter the streets, frankly it ought to be illegal... to sleep in the streets. Therefore, there is a simple matter of public order and hygiene in getting these people somewhere else. Not arrest them, but move them off somewhere where they are simply out of sight. (George Will, quoted by N. Smith, 1996, p.28) Unfortunately even our political leaders have adopted this mentality which can be seen in former BC Premier Bennett’s declaration that the 1986 World Exposition was able to accomplish something that the city could not, to “get rid of the slums” (quoted by Hasson & Ley, 1994, p.190). When these types of spatial cleansing solutions are seen as valuable and when the removal of the undesirable from public space becomes viewed as the answer, we must begin to ask the moral questions about who should be where (Blomley, 2004). This political view has been readily accepted throughout society as the dominant middle- class has constantly accepted the ideological underpinnings of the revanchist city, seeing the boarded up, and apparently abandoned buildings as “symbolic of a lost neighbourhood; taken from Vancouver society by the nameless, alien, and scarred bodies of the urban underclass” (Blomley, 2004, p.82). In the views of these individuals the Downtown Eastside is no longer “ours” and the only way in which we can save the valuable land and history is through the removal of that which threatens it – the poor (Sommers & Blomley, 2002). Although most individuals would not deny the need for affordable housing and support networks for society’s poorest residents, the conflict in Vancouver’s inner-city is driven by the location of such services. A number of business interests and neoliberal pundits, intent on the revitalization of the area, have suggested that, given the price of inner-city land, policy would be better served if poor residents were simply relocated to peripheral areas where land is cheaper (Blomley, 2004). One individual bluntly expressed this wish in the case of the Downtown Eastside claiming:

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neighbourhoods change over time and land values change...in Dunbar (a middle-class Vancouver neighbourhood), I would have trouble buying there if I had to; certainly my kids can’t. So middle-class people have to commute. They go to Tsawwassen or Surrey (suburban areas). Why shouldn’t the poor? Why should the poor be guaranteed to live downtown, right in the middle of what is becoming a high rent district... (If displaced, the poor will) move around, just like everyone else does. (Jonathan Baker, quoted by Blomley, 2004, p.87) class conflict and the contestation of place With political and ethical battle lines firmly drawn in Vancouver, the clear leaders in the formation of the dominant ideology are the merchants, developers, and residential ‘pioneers’, all of whom call for the clean-up of the ‘empty’ and ‘abandoned’ neighbourhood. The success of this movement has been facilitated through the media, where suggestions of alternatives, such as citizen movements that interfere with the free flow of capital, have been disregarded as “chaotic” (quoted by Mitchell, 1996, p.483). This denouncement is justified as being best for the whole of the city: “citizen crusades can be dangerous because they do not focus on the broader issues and tend to dismiss the rights of the larger community” (Seelig & Arbutise, quoted by Mitchell, 1996, p.494). This would ensure the rights of the majority – the middle-class landowner – at the expense of low-income resident who are fighting to retain the one place they know as home; the one place where they ‘belong’ in this city of affluence. Unless these underlying social implications are understood, these “don’t rock the boat” denunciations appear to truly address the greatest good for the entire city. One of the difficulties faced by low-income individuals in this battle remains the fact that our present day society lacks a broad-based media to communicate alternative approaches to these issues (Fainstein, 1999). As a result the “highest and best use” rhetoric, which confronts a community-first approach, dominates the debate over land-use and redevelopment. Unfortunately for the lower-class citizens in the Downtown Eastside, in our contemporary, capital dominated society they are extremely overpowered. With issues of revitalization we must therefore understand that the debate is heavily loaded with moral implications; the primary one being that the community in line for revitalization is not already vital. As a result, the proponents of redevelopment cite one of their primary motives as a desire to improve the life of the residents, despite the fact that this is seldom the outcome. Nearly every single case of urban redevelopment “is a two-edged sword between manipulation, even exploitation, and genuine benefits for the city population, particularly for the most disadvantaged” and this needs to be considered when making decisions regarding the future of our inner-cities (Smyth, 1994, p.266). The Downtown Eastside is one neighbourhood that refuses to simply lie down and allow the forces of capital to wipe out the existing community they created. Mainstream media focuses on the problematic actions of the minority, while considering the “neighbourhood as buildings, not as people, as an empty, speculative site, rather than a viable community space” (Blomley, 2004, p.95). It is these very accounts and the discourse of ‘skid row’ that led to the formation of DERA (the Downtown Eastside Residents Association) to demand the recognition of the area as a residential community in 1973 (Sommers & Blomley, 2002). One of the main objectives of DERA is to combat these claims of the ‘skid row’ discourse and to re-image the neighbourhood, drawing attention to the fact that the ailing residents in the community were the same individuals that helped build the country – “loggers, miners, seamen, railroad workers, waitresses, cooks, longshoremen, millworkers, and others associated with the economic expansion of the west” (Sommers & Blomley, 2002, p.39). Journalist Mark Hume attempted to express this fact by

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claiming that “they are poor now, but before their bodies grew old and began to break they were working to help build this country” (quoted by Sommers & Blomley, 2002, p.39). These types of claims combat the hegemonic assertions of transience and criminality that are plaguing the neighbourhood. In 1970 the Downtown Eastside was the second most stable community in Vancouver, with 40% of its residents living in the community for over ten years; transience was visible but formed a small minority (Hasson & Ley, 1994). Although social conflict has always been present for the residents of the Downtown Eastside, the conflict and debate surrounding the socio-spatial makeup of Vancouver erupted with the closing of a Downtown Eastside landmark, the giant Woodward’s department store, in 1993 (figure 5.1). With this event came an intense battle between the rights of the property owners, readily supported by societal institutions and the views of the majority, and the claims of community ownership held by the tenants and residents in the Downtown Eastside (Blomley, 2004). The battle lines were laid out through the discourse of private property, which in Canadian society is often aligned with what is known as the ownership model (Blomley, 2004). The strength of this dominant model of property ownership is the fact that there is always a clear and definite owner. This individual is the one who, in the view of our society, has the right to more or less do whatever is wanted. With a constant desire for a “settled” and orderly city, the ownership model garners a great deal of support for its persuasively settled appearance (Blomley, 2004). Under this model there is little doubt concerning who is in control of each parcel of land, rendering the model nonsocial in its very character. The relatively uncontroversial nature of the term leaves it commonly uncontested. With very little questioning and a great deal of support from dominant ideology, the ownership model easily dismisses alternative claims of ownership and inner-city activism (Blomley, 2004). Under such a system of ownership some have argued that “the physical and intellectual landscape have been completely purchased and ‘to exist today means to tread on the property of others’” (Blomley, 2004, p.49). In such a system our very enjoyment of property is based upon the dispossession of others, and is controlled by rationalized and intentional actions: “displacement isn’t like the weather. It’s not a force of nature. It’s done for very specific reasons” (a figure 5.1 – Woodward’s Department Store DERA leader, quoted by Blomley, 2004, p.97). Despite the influential strength of the ownership model, the Downtown Eastside residents are unwilling to buy into its guiding principals. As private developers began to lay the groundwork for the large scale influx of middle-class residents in the Woodward’s building the community fought back with claims of communal ownership, which directly contrasts the rational and orderly claims of the ownership model (Blomley, 2004). In the views of the neighbourhood residents, the proposed development not only “stole” the historical building from the neighbourhood, but would be outright hostile to these individuals. According to Blomley (2004),

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when the activists claimed that the “Woodward’s building belonged to the neighbourhood”, they challenged the property model we subscribe to in two powerful ways. First, they highlighted the way in which private property, when left entirely to the forces of the market, can have socially negative implications on individuals without the requisite economic clout. Second, these private ownership claims threaten the more positive property relation, a claim to collective ownership. The building, according to this line of thought, belonged to the low-income residents of the Downtown Eastside; its history was something they had created. Blomley (2004) continues by explaining how the local activists rationalized this alleged ownership by claiming: First, due to collective investment the neighbours considered themselves to have a partial ownership in both the Woodward’s building and the neighbourhood on the whole. Through a history of co-present use and habitation the residents had enacted a claim of ownership on an area of the city that others had abandoned and it is for this reason that they should have an input in the direction of its development. Second, the entire landscape of the region had been locally produced through collective action and political struggle (Blomley, 2004). With these assertions of communal ownership the neighbours did not claim an economic stake in the property, but rather that local residents should be recognized as having some rights in decisions over their neighbourhood’s future, in its development and use (Blomley, 2004). These citizens were making claims that their neighbourhood, long considered collective property in the minds of locals, should continue in this regards, and be free from any development that proceeded with exclusionary intentions. When these activists staked their claim in the community, they did more then simply complicate the question of what property is; the local residents raised the moral question of “what property ought to be” (Blomley, 2004, p.74). Throughout his book, Unsettling the City, Nicholas Blomley (2004) presents an alternative to the socially dominant ownership model and presents other possibilities to this orderly, clear-cut approach to property. The fact that the ownership model renders other modalities of ownership invisible, makes claims like “the Downtown Eastside is home to militant community activists who view the district as their own, despite the fact that few of them own property” (quoted by Blomley, 2004, p.45), so persuasive.

VI – DIVERSIFICATION & SOCIAL MIX: the unfinished debate

Before a solution to the conflict and battle over the Downtown Eastside can be reached, the debate about the merits of creating a ‘social mix’ or ‘social balance’ must be resolved. The push for achieving this diversity in our cities has become commonplace in today’s neoliberal planning discourse; with the underlying assumptions made by advocates of this movement that under such conditions there will be a better balance characterized by positive interactions between varying classes. Social isolation in our cities intensifies the ills associated with poverty, including crime (Leo, Shaw, Gibbons & Goff, 2003). This exacerbation occurs when socio-spatial divisions channel the poor into, not only the worst housing, but into those areas in the city with the least opportunity. Although this social isolation hinders the life chances of the poor, far more damaging is the halted interaction between groups that is facilitated by spatial segregation. Lack of contact fuels ignorance as: the very development of the [North] American city has removed poverty from the living, emotional experience of millions upon millions of middle-class [individuals]. Living out in

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the suburbs, it is easy to assume that ours is, indeed, and affluent society (quoted by Harris, 1984, p.33). This lack of interaction promotes a mutual ignorance between classes, while facilitating increased levels of intra-class contact, fueling indifference and apathy. Within this type of ‘dual city’ there is scarcely any upward social mobility, as residents in the impoverished areas are separated by different economic conditions, and increasingly inhabit different neighbourhoods and belong to different social systems (Van Kempen, 1994). These individuals, trapped in ‘pockets of poverty’, are not only cut-off from employment networks, but also have difficulty locating conventional role models within their neighbourhoods (Van Kempen, 1994). These calls for social diversity in our cities are persuasive, and it is this very thing that is spurring claims for a ‘balance’ of the classes in the Downtown Eastside. Proponents of this argument contest that by creating a concentration of social housing in the Woodward’s building, or anywhere else in the neighbourhood, it would simply perpetuate problems by furthering the “warehousing” of the poor (Blomley, 2004). This claim echoes the widespread agreement among policy makers that urban pathologies are related to the spatial concentration of poverty. Under the banner of ‘social mix’, advocates of renewal or gentrification find momentum as there is a push to replace a portion of a “marginal anti-community” with an “active, responsible, and improving population of homeowners” (Blomley, 2004, p.89). Despite the persuasive nature of this argument, those opposed to this influx of middle- class claim that these spatial metaphors, chiefly the ‘concentration of poverty’, simply disguise the social and political processes behind poverty itself and help provide the justification for simplistic spatial solutions to these socially, economically, and politically complex issues (Crump, 2002). Those who challenge the dominant push for a social mix point out that the concept is not as innocent as it seems. If we accept the notion that bringing the affluent into a neighbourhood improves it, than it must be equally so that bringing the poor into a neighbourhood impedes its progress (Blomley, 2004). This leads to the socially one-sided problem of the social mix argument. If it is good to bring a mix into an impoverished neighbourhood, why then is the influx of the poor into a wealthy area not embraced as a beneficial development?4 The proponents of social balance always provide a ‘self-serving’ return of the middle-class whites into neighbourhoods of good proximity (Smith & Derksen, 2002). By accepting the need to disperse poverty, gentrification and the displacement of the lower-income population becomes justified; facilitating the infiltration of the middle-class to dilute the demonized and stigmatized population. In many previous examples of attempted social mixing in the lower-income regions of cities, we see that these initiatives often fail to improve the lives of the renters and in many cases actually led to greater social segregation and isolation. Social-diversity is used as a tool for residential purification, designed to exclude the ‘antisocial’ and ‘deviant’ elements of the old neighbourhood (Blomley, 2004).

4 Despite the opposition to the introduction of lower-income residents into established middle- and upper-income neighbourhoods, the City of Vancouver has taken positive steps in the remediation of the segregation issue, by encouraging that 20% of all new developments in the city are free from the market. The advantages of this point will be expanded on later in this paper.

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VII – MOVING FORWARD IN VANCOUVER’S DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE

As these various influences and forces continue to contest the boundaries of the once healthy neighbourhood, a number of questions should be addressed regarding the motives and directions of these changes. We cannot deny the fact that we live in a globalizing, or globalized world. Cities today are immersed in a new complexity of interactions and connections which extend far beyond the traditional borders of the regional city. It is undeniable, statistically at least, that international finance is today more able to probe the globe in search for the greatest return on investment (Sassen, 2001). Although the political culture of Vancouver is slightly more favourable to the situation of its worst off citizens than most North American cities, it is important to stress that the neoliberal tendencies that have highlighted the politics of the world lately remain influential within this Canadian city. The fluidity of capital and the relative transparency of international borders have created an environment far different than the ones our grandparents lived in, and yet despite this fact, it is important to resist falling victim to the fear and uncertainty propagated in the ‘doomsday’ predictions of the neoliberal camp. The advantages and gains of an unfettered market are certainly not universally felt and where shortcomings exist, society needs to remediate them. On a smaller scale it is important to point out that even within the boundaries of a single city the benefits of such a system are increasingly felt by a diminishing percentage of the population. Consequently, there are few options for those communities and individuals that find themselves excluded from these benefits (Levine, Torjman & Born, 2003). It has become clear over the past decades of neoliberal rule that the market is simply incapable of providing for every citizen in our cities. The claim that if left alone and given free reign, the forces of the market will create a utopian environment for all is something that can no longer be accepted within our society; this simply will not happen. Instead, what this line of thinking has led to is a situation where the economic gap between the rich and poor is rapidly expanding, while the size and power of those in the middle-class continues to diminish (Harvey, 1989). In the neoliberal world, without either a guarantee of an immediate payback or at least the expectation of one, the private sector simply will not act (Smyth, 1994). The economic bottom line dictates investment and under such conditions how can it be expected that private capital will invest in the livelihood of the poorest Canadians? In light of these situations, where the market has failed to create a livable and just city for all, it becomes the province of the government to correct these failings. Measuring result solely by the immediate economic impacts is problematic to say the least, and certainly not the way forward in the Canadian city. The appeal of the neoliberal rhetoric and the benefits of globalization need to be keep within a certain context; one that refuses to relegate the objectives of remaining globally competitive above all else. Claude Beland, the president of a powerful Quebec financial institution, has pointed out that the fetish for global competitiveness quite often overshadows the most important policies affecting the economic wellbeing of the city – neighbourhood and regional development (Levine, 1995, p.106). It is time that Canadian society takes note of this reality. There is a real need for Canadians to dismiss this ‘growth-at-all-costs’ mentality, because then, and only then, will the most problematic issues impeding the betterment of the lives of those in the Downtown Eastside be able to be addressed; the damaging discourse of the urban ‘other’. The fear of the ‘other’ has pathologized the conditions of poverty, and has created an entire population of criminalized poor. Even without the pressures of outside capital and competitive fears between cities, this type of discourse would continue to plague the

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neighbourhood. That being said, it is crucial that the first topic addressed in the rehabilitation of the Downtown Eastside is the elimination of the present discourse that relegates the neighbourhood and its citizens to a position of secondary worth. Regardless of the anxiety that is instilled in the average Canadian through this discourse of fear, the call for a ‘purification’ of our cities’ population needs to be resisted. Not only is this type of assertion anti-urban in the fact that it calls for the removal of diversity from our cities, but it has also become extremely problematic to the moral debate surrounding the Downtown Eastside. Urban critics since Jane Jacobs (1961) have been calling for the preservation and creation of diversity; and this author could not agree more in the merits of such a claim. An urban realm void of variation and difference is a sterile and stifling one. However, when the equation of poverty and criminality is accepted as one in the same this is inevitably the conclusion that we are headed for, as the dehumanized individuals in the Downtown Eastside are perceived as a threat to the remainder of the city. Driven by the misled perception that those in the worst off conditions in our society are there by choice, Canadians have increasingly relegated these individuals little sympathy and feel morally correct removing themselves from any sense of responsibility towards the impoverished. The societal flaws of this dehumanization of the Downtown Eastside population, driven by indifference and ignorance, become extremely evident in light of one of the greatest tragedies in the : The abduction and murder of over sixty Vancouver women. As the middle-class homeowners gentrified many of the other regions in Vancouver they placed a great deal of pressure on the police to remove drugs and prostitution from these ‘new’ residential areas. The ambiguities in prostitution law worked to create dangerous spaces to which many women were driven, cited as a “discourse of disposal” by Blomley (2004, p.151). Once these women are out of sight, they are also out of mind for society at large; confirmed by the fact that 63 Vancouver women went missing since 1978 with barely any mention or concern (Oleksijczuk, 2002). Due to the fact that many of these women were sex-trade workers and drug addicts, the tragedy garnered little public attention, especially since many of the missing people reports were cast aside as mere coincidences of life-style choices. Considered as transient and likely to move from city-to-city the vast proportion of society paid little attention to the missing women and to the developing situation. This apathy continued until 2001, when a series of explosive articles were written by Lindsay Kines and Kim Bolan in The Vancouver Sun proposing the possibility of a serial killer in the region (Oleksijczuk, 2002). Once public attention finally focused on this possibility it was discovered that there was indeed a serial killer, who has to date been charged with 16 counts of murder (Oleksijczuk, 2002). When addressing the impoverished in the Canadian city it is imperative to remember that “poverty discourse has maintained only a tenuous relation to the origins and demographics of poverty... How we think and speak about poverty... emerges as much from a mix of ideology and politics as from the structures of the problem itself” (Katz quoted by Crump, 2002, p.585). These discourses are created by outsiders of the community as a method of ensuring power over the politically weak, and in many instances the preservation of these stereotypical labels are often ensured by the views of society at large. Like so many cases, the negative ‘skid-road’ connotations were constructed by the outsider, where regardless of “whether social agency, business person, government, or suburban ‘yahoo’ looking for a night on the town; they have invented ‘skid-road’ and they intend to sustain the invention” (quoted by Hasson & Ley, 1994, p.190). Although the Downtown Eastside may be considered ‘skid-row’ to many, it remains ‘home’ to thousands.

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The only way to move forward in the disabling of this troubling discourse is by integrating the communities of our cities into regions where a vast social swath of the population is contained in each and every neighbourhood. It is commonly observed that people fear what they do not understand. Thus, when people are socially organized into neatly segregated compartments and allocated a location in the city according to social status, it is inevitable that a great deal of apprehension is held towards those individuals that people cannot identify with. In Canada, therefore, to create socially viable cities they need to be developed in such a way as to provide ‘stages’ for contact, where individuals, regardless of their income levels, can interact and assist those they regularly would not have the opportunity to. The creation of such an environment was the goal of the City of Vancouver when, in 1988, it introduced a policy that encouraged every new development in the city to provide 20% of its units free from the forces of the market (Gray, 2001). This initiative is one of the most positive affordable housing strategies in any Canadian city, and provides a real foundation for the creation of a diverse and successful urban realm. By providing non-market housing throughout the city’s new developments, the first step in the removal of the negative discourse of the ‘other’ and the segregating walls that accompany it has been taken. If the initiative is successful on a citywide scale then the advantages inherent in social mixing and diversity have a much stronger chance of success. Currently as it stands, the biggest hindrances to the debate surrounding the merits of social diversity and mix is its long history of serving those with the most political clout. Individuals lacking the influence to shape development have been historically uprooted from their homes and redirected to the periphery. Even in situations where there remains a small population of low income individuals, they are commonly relegated as outsiders within their own neighbourhood, and forced to conform to the norms of the dominant members of society. Following this line of thought, it is easy to understand the concern of activists in the neighbourhood that denounce the intrusion of the middle- and upper-classes within the Downtown Eastside. Such a process would inevitably lead to the vast displacement of the lowest income Vancouver residents, with little or no place to turn for comparable rents. It is important to remember the crucial role that the Downtown Eastside plays in Vancouver. As one of the main regions of disinvestment and low-rents in the city, many of the individuals living there would be otherwise homeless (Layton, 2000). With this fact in mind, what needs to be accomplished before the redevelopment in the Downtown Eastside can take place? If social mix is to be considered beneficial to our communities, which this author believes it is, then the tainted belief that poverty results in crime and communities of vice must be broken down. It is not poverty that forces individuals into criminal activity but rather the situation of hopelessness, inherent in any neighbourhood where a concentration of the city’s poorest individuals are structurally suppressed, and forced into informal means of survival. Despite such difficulties, efforts to create mixed-income communities across the fabric of our cities, like the one in Vancouver, need to be maintained. Through such initiatives the urban ‘other’ no longer becomes a fearful and avoided member of society, but rather a community participant whose skills and views are accepted and utilized. If the creation of a diverse city can be achieved then the differing levels of jobs skills and income levels needed to operate the economy of our cities can be maintained within the city itself. This, according to the City of Vancouver, is one of the primary purposes for social housing in the city; the need to increase the diversity to “ensure that the economy has access to a full range of skills required to realize its potential” (Gray, 2001, p.7). Although it may be disheartening to see that such reasoning is

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economically based and justified purely on such grounds, perhaps this is simply because this is the language, that of money, which the majority of society understands. The failings of the market, in the provision of affordable housing, are apparent across Canada. A study conducted by the Toronto Dominion Bank (2003) stated that over twenty percent of all Canadians deal with affordability problems. In the City of Vancouver alone, 17 000 individuals face the dire situation of paying over 50% of their income towards housing, placing these individuals on the cusp of homelessness (Gray, 2001). With such a proportion of Canadians in this predicament, it would be beneficial to reinstate a federal housing initiative, one that addresses the housing needs of all Canadians, and not simply those ‘most in need’. If a system was provided where affordable housing could become more widely available in cities where market values have skyrocketed out of reach for a vast portion of the population, such as Vancouver, then the stigma presently associated with non-market housing could be removed. As the only developed country lacking a national strategy for non-market housing (Layton, 2000), it will be interesting to see the ramifications of the proposed program suggested by Paul Martin; intended to address many of the issues of housing within the country. At the time of writing this paper, the extent and details of the Canadian Prime Minister’s new housing plan are not yet known, although it is unlikely in the present political culture to expect these changes to remediate the problems of housing facing Canadians at this present date. Regardless of whether or not a nationwide strategy for housing is adopted, the deconstruction of the fears fueling NIMBY politics in regards to social housing need to be addressed. Although certain examples of property value loss can be cited with the application of social housing in neighbourhoods, it is important to point out that it is not the introduction of social housing that results in the depression of property values, but rather the introduction of poorly designed social housing that has resulted in these trends in the past (Van Kempen, 1994). In fact, studies have shown that if designed thoughtfully, at a human scale and integrated into the remainder of the community, social housing can in fact increase land values (Van Kempen, 1994). When this realization is made maybe then the drive to integrate non-market or subsidized housing throughout our cities may become more openly accepted. Once the housing needs of all citizens can be met on the scale of the entire city, only then should the process of redevelopment of the Downtown Eastside be allowed to proceed. Social diversity must begin in areas of affluence, for this is the only way to ensure a just process and a truly diverse population. Claims for diversity that focus solely in the poorest neighbourhoods of our cities need to be rejected. If the process of gentrification is allowed to proceed, prior to providing the housing needed across the city, then the fears and concerns surrounding diversity of those in the Downtown Eastside will come through. Gentrification, by its very definition, entails the vast displacement of the lowest-income residents. If the requisite housing is not made available then the problems associated with homelessness in the City of Vancouver will become epidemic. Despite the efforts of the City’s 20% non-market housing initiatives in new developments, the social ‘upgrading’ of Vancouver has continued to create extreme problems associated with a lack of affordable housing. At the beginning of 1970, there were roughly 13,300 SRO units in the downtown core of the City; by January 1995 this stock had shrunk by 43% to 7,600 units (City of Vancouver, 1995). While the citywide numbers fell, so too did the number of units within the Downtown Eastside. In the past, decisions intended to improve the conditions for the residents in question, have actually added to their problems. In the early 1970’s the rundown Downtown Eastside hotels were the site of numerous fires that claimed the lives of a number of individuals (Hasson & Ley, 1994). In an attempt to remediate the increasingly common loss of lives (10

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men in 1973) the Downtown Eastside residents picketed City Hall for tighter fire controls and an increased enforcement of by-law infractions (Hasson & Ley, 1994). These increased measures caused a number of landlords to close their buildings rather then face the high cost of upgrades, while many of those who attempted to stay in business were forced to serve eviction notices and raise rents to meet the needs of these tighter safety regulations (Hasson & Ley, 1994). In the two years following the increased enforcement that began in 1974, 21 hotels and over 1500 rooms had been closed within the Downtown Eastside (Hasson & Ley, 1994). These problems of closure and renovation have continued within the ten year period from 1991-2001. During this period the stock of SROs decreased by 14%, or 812 units within the community (City of Vancouver, 2001). In an attempt to curb this trend, the City of Vancouver, on October 21, 2003 showed a commitment to the residents in the Downtown Eastside when they enacted the Single Room Accommodation By-Law to retain the SROs within the city. This movement was passed largely as a last effort response to remediate the impacts of the cancellation of the provincial housing program in British Columbia (City of Vancouver, 2003a). Despite the positive motives of these policies and by-laws the results have actually been a facilitation of growing pressures of downgrading within the area (H. Smith, 2003). In many instances policies that intended to “avoid the area polarization which would result from the operation of the free market have ‘unwittingly’ reinforced rather than countered social polarization and division” (Hill quoted by H. Smith, 2003, p.497). This fact presents the troubling and often contradicting conditions facing the Downtown Eastside in an economy guided by the forces of the market. Although there is persuasive urge to blame the decline of the Downtown Eastside on its long-time residents, this must be resisted. Despite popular rhetoric, drug , alcohol abuse, prostitution and crime are not the sole province of the poor but rather issues infecting our entire society. It is the morally unpleasant nature of these activities that has led to their concentration in a politically weak neighbourhood, and not the preference of its residents. Hiding the morally dubious actions in the alleyways of the city’s poor does nothing to address the underlying issues at hand. The whole of our society is at fault and these issues need to be addressed on a holistic level, treating every neighbourhood in the City of Vancouver the same. Although specific solutions to these problems are beyond the scope of this paper, it can be stated that whatever these decisions may be, it would be beneficial to apply them equally throughout the city, regardless of the political might of the varying regions. The decline of the Downtown Eastside can be attributed to many different players and these agents need to be recognized; from the incoming gentry who, with a desire for a ‘cleansed’ environment for living and the removal of the ‘deviant’, have forced the police to contain crime within the Downtown Eastside; to the landowners in the neighbourhood who, realizing that investment in their property prior to redevelopment is unlikely to provide any return, have left their land and their hotels to disrepair, clearing the road for the ‘urban pioneer’. Neoliberal claims, such as the one made by Smyth (1994), that ‘flagship’ redevelopment projects mainly produce only ‘winners’ and the ‘unaffected’, with only the small number of those in the direct path of the demolition being considered ‘losers’, should be addressed with due skepticism. Any ‘successful’ redevelopment scheme will bring a great deal more investment in the future, furthering the trend of displacement. Claims such as the one made by Smyth (1994) ignores the process of time and conveniently focuses instead on a single moment, thereby justifying the claim of very few ‘losers’. Therefore, although these claims are optimistic and persuasive they need to be cautiously addressed.

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Facilitating all of these trends, has been an attempt by those with an interest in the redevelopment of the Downtown Eastside to ironically claim that the neighbourhood, home to thousands, is “empty” and void of population (Blomley, 2004). Before subscribing to this doctrine the realization needs to be made that while the neighbourhood may be ‘mean and degrading’ to many middle-classed individuals in Vancouver, the Downtown Eastside remains a ‘home’ for many (Blomley, 2004). Through this denial of occupation the neighbourhood is relegated little concern by the rest of Vancouver as the “best way to make people powerless is to make them invisible.” (The Carnegie Community Newsletter quoted by Blomley, 2004, p.68): the City insists that the Downtown Eastside must be gentrified... one way they can do it is by eliminating the Downtown Eastside from city maps. By leaving a community off the map, they erase the people who live there and make them invisible. That way the neighbourhood is left open for whatever changes they have... in store. (p.68; figure 6.1) Rather than trying to erase a segment of our population, why not find the means for empowering them, in order to create a situation where once again these individuals feel as though they have a place in this global city. It is clear from past experiences and attempts to remediate the problems of the poorest citizens, that what is needed is not “more equal opportunity, [but rather] a society responsive to human needs. Without this goal, our work will just represent tinkering within a dehumanized city” (King, 1991, p.22). One way to achieve this responsive society is to include those “individuals we are trying to ‘help’; don’t look at them as the ‘underclass’, this perpetuates the status quo. Let the everyday residents become the planners, economic developers, and researchers” (King, 1991, p.22). If a process of inclusion can be achieved where the strengths and abilities of those individuals in the Downtown Eastside are utilized, then our cities would begin to provide not simply an open process, but a location of truly just outcomes (Fainstein, 1999). As the decision makers in our cities begin addressing the directions of development with regards to areas like the Downtown Eastside, the realization must be made that these decisions will have extreme consequences. As it currently stands Canada is at the cusp of one of two choices. First, we as Canadians can choose to integrate the entire population into diverse and healthy communities that provide opportunities for all Canadians, regardless of social standing. The second option for Canadian society is to give into current pressures of private capital and market forces, fostering a ‘dual cities’ of extreme polarization and thereby forcing those of affluence to viscously defend their acquired wealth, while they flee into their anti-urban, purified and ‘safe’ gated communities. The choice is ours.

VII – BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Wiewel, W. & Nyden, P.W. (1991). Introduction. In P.W. Nyden and W. Wiewel (eds.). Challenging Uneven Development: An Urban Agenda for the 1990’s. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

FIGURES 2.1. Adapted from www.vancouver.ca 2.2. Sommers & Blomley, 2002, p.46 2.3. Adapted from www.vancouver.ca 2.4. Adapted from www.vancouver.ca 2.5. www.littlewood.com/images/gastown 2.6. Adapted from www.vancouver.ca 3.1. www.vancouver-cruises.com 3.2. Adapted from www.vancouver.ca 5.1. Sommers & Blomley, 2002, p.48

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