My friend Chad Skelton at the Vancouver Sun — new dad, computer geek and great researcher — recently took a look at where children live in Vancouver. There are some stats in a recent City of Vancouver report but, as he noted, only with absolute numbers, not with any stats that give you a sense [...]

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As promised, here is my Globe story on my advance ride of the new Canada Line.
Not surprisingly, I wasn’t able to include even half of the details and observations from my two hours riding the line, but I’m sure some of you are out there now critiquing it with your sharp eyes so I await [...]

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I got an email recently from a sad-sounding False Creek resident who recently witnessed city workers installing this piece of public art at Charleson Park in Fairview Slopes/False Creek.
I haven’t heard anything from anyone else besides what Michael Ferreira has to say here. Anyone else noticed this and have thoughts on it? Here are Michael’s

The [...]

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You may not know this out there in non-media-land, but a major frenzy is about to break out over the opening of the Canada Line. It’s all hands on deck for the opening Monday, where about 40,000 are expected to ride the line in the eight hours it’s open and free. It sounds like parties [...]

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Get ready for it. By the time everyone gets back to work in September in Vancouver and Whistler city halls, it’s essentially going to be all Olympics all the time.
As part of that, those two cities, along with others that have venues, like Richmond, have also been identifying who among their staff is going to [...]

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A fascinating story here in Street Roots by a former student of mine at Kwantlen, Steve Smysnuik, who has done a solid job of reporting on the sex-trade problem that no one has paid much attention to for a few decades in this city.
(I don’t claim to have taught Steve any of his reporting skills, [...]

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This just out from city hall, where apparently some poor wretch is still employed to put out news releases while everyone else is on holiday.
Howe Street shelter closes two days early
The Howe Street shelter has closed two days ahead of schedule thanks to the availability and acceptance of alternate housing by shelter residents, Vancouver Deputy [...]

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As anyone who reads this blog even passingly knows, I love markets and street stuff in cities. So I’ve been watching with interest to see how the city’s car-free Sundays, aka Summer Spaces program, is going.
I went down to Commercial Drive yesterday, where they had their first non-car-free day of the summer (Main also scheduled [...]

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Vancouver council is expected to approve laneway houses today, which will give 65,000 homeowners in the city’s RS1 and RS5 (single-family) zones the right to build a 750-square-foot house at the back of their lots.
I have a story on this move, which others across the country are watching with some interest and some bemusement, in [...]

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In another ring of the Vancouver city hall circus these days, the city’s proposed bylaw changes to noise, graffiti and other bylaws is generating all kinds of heat and light.
Here’s just one small sample of the exchanges going on.
—–Original Message—–
From: Michael Healey
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2009 10:39 AM
To: Anton, Suzanne; Cadman, David; Chow, George; Deal, [...]

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