Frances Bula header image 2
← →

Open forum on Metro and Vancouver issues: bring on your topic, except for bikes and bike lanes

August 15th, 2013 · 267 Comments

I still have a few days of low gear left, so here’s your chance to start a conversation on whatever you like — except bikes, because I think we’ve beaten that to death for the month.

Categories: Uncategorized

←  Older Comments
 →
  • Chris Keam

    @Leghorn:

    I speak of equality in terms of opportunity. My fault for not being more clear. I’m hard pressed to find an argument that one is more deserving to reside in one’s place of birth than someone who moves here; that doesn’t smack of a misplaced sense of entitlement and taking personal credit for dumb luck.

    “In our case there was nothing random about it. We chose the neighborhood we wanted our children to grow up in.”

    But do your children have more right to live there than an outsider? If you feel that’s the case, please elaborate as to why.

    Absolutist? Not at all. Let’s aim for more than two paragraphs before we start in on the silly characterizations shall we? 🙂

    cheers,
    CK

  • Waltyss

    Foghorn, ole buddy. Iam with you all the way. My wife grew in the University Endoment Lands. Her parents chose to live there. Now we choose to live there; after all, she grew up there. Despite our choice to live out there, we can’t come up with the $4 million to buy a lot.
    Clearly, you understand our dilemma; we are entitled, after all. Foghorn, ole buddy, please help. help.

  • jenables

    Hmmn, my great aunt just sold her place for way less than half of that. Maybe your expectations for what you can afford in the uel are not realistic. Of course there is a difference between not being able to buy a house in the expensive side of town and not being able to afford to rent within reasonable means anywhere in an entire city. That’s a scenario that someone who grew up in a more advantageous time long ago may have difficulty understanding, which clearly applies and bears repeating in your case. Talk about entitlement, you had to buy in Dunbar because you couldn’t afford endowment lands at 4 million?

    Ck – am I correct in thinking that you believe that the time, energy and money citizens invest into their communities are meaningless? If everything in our “free market capitalist” society worked this way, you’d be paying through the nose for health care, education and any public works. I love how Dave’s comment about how he was being obviously facetious landed directly after yours saying you thought he made sense. Enough said.

  • Jay

    I have to take a deep breath before reading these posts. It truly is difficult.

    I’m fairly new to these city planning processes and OCP’s, and I’ve only seen the ones in easier neighborhoods, usually the eastside. I’m looking forward to the Shaughnessy,West Point Grey, and Dunbar–Southlands official community plan. What are these fat cats willing to contribute to the growth of our city… if anything.

  • brilliant

    @Way 254-why loom forward to those community plans? Vision has shown they are not worth the paper they are printed on.

  • Chris Keam

    @Jenables

    Your question was preemptively answered in #247. Since you reference #247 in your post, one can only conclude you either deliberately misrepresented my comments, or suffer from a lack of reading comprehension. Which assumption is more accurate?

  • Waltyss

    Jay, @ 255, you are already seeing densification in the wealthier areas. Look at the development at granville and 16th. Point Grey has had development at about 4500 on 9th.
    Are these highrises ? No. But if the goal is more affordable housing, you do not start with the most expensive property in town without great rapid transit connections. If a line is built out to UBC, that would change.
    Jenables, if as Foghorn suggests, children have a right to live in the neighbourhood their parents chose for them to grow up in, why are those who grew up in wealthy neighbourhoods any less entitled than Foghorn’s kids wherever they grew up. You got something against the privileged. You seem not to have noticed that I have my tongue planted firmly in cheek.

  • Dave

    Jenables, I think CK was referring to my comments about the free market dictating the cost of real estate and rents not to my over the top facetious comments made in post #65 You also missed walyss’s tongue in cheek comment too. You should lighten up a bit.

  • Chris Keam

    “I think CK was referring to my comments about the free market dictating the cost of real estate and rents.”

    In partic. #130, 178, some of 185, most of 206 (which I suspect to be more facetiousness, but nonetheless a position some people might take).

    Having said that, back to lurking and laughing.

    Toodles,
    CK

  • jenables

    Dave, I don’t think most people can tell when you are being facetious – a better word would be trolling.
    Ck – so the answer is yes. free market forces beat all and forcing less wealthy people out of their communities makes everyone more equal? Money is the great equalizer? Hahaha, how “quaint” you are. I hope I DO have a reading comprehension problem, maybe we both do because I also didn’t say anything about entitlement by birth, though I did say residents have contributed to what makes cities desirable by spending money locally so businesses can survive and paying taxes and creating community over the years. In my opinion that is undervalued and deserves some measure of protection rather than the opposite. Also, again, I was talking about this as a city wide problem and not specific neighborhoods.. working people being pushed out of the city of Vancouver “proper”, not people whining because they can’t afford whatever they want. You seem to have a bone to pick with me, non?

  • Bill

    Can this be true? Chris Keam, defender of free markets and property rights? Proponent of equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes? Is he really coming over to the dark side or just concerned about preserving his home equity? What’s next, endorsement of the economic benefits of the oil sands?

  • boohoo

    Or maybe Bill, just maybe, he and other people on this blog are not the simplistic characters you frame them to be. Maybe people are ‘left’ about certain issues, ‘right’ about others and the vast majority sit somewhere in the middle.

    Maybe, just maybe, people are more complex than you wish they were. Cause it’s so easy to just dismiss someone when you take what they say and assume you know everything about how they think and what they think so you can just dismiss them out of hand. Very easy, but not helpful and quite dumb.

  • Dave

    Jenables, I think your definition of trolling is anyway who doesn’t share your point of view. I’m just saying that it’s inevitable that the lower end of the economic scale will eventually be pushed out of the city of vancouver. Is it right or wrong? Doesn’t matter, it’s just what will happen when you are looking at a limited desirable land base. Just like Manhattan the only economically less advantaged people remaining are those in social housing and there is talk of ending that.

  • jenables

    Ooh, except it’s not “just like manhattan”. I guess you weren’t being facetious then, right?

  • Bill Smolick

    > I am also curious about this ‘if the card is lost it
    > will not lose its value the dollar amount will be
    > retained’. Great, I would think if the card is lost,
    > whoever finds it can easily use up what $$ are left
    > on it

    And if you loose the tickets that you’ve bought and don’t notice what happens? Wait…what was that? I didn’t hear you.

    You dummies need to think these answers through sometimes.

    Yes: if you loose your ticket you are *guaranteed* to lose the fare money you spent.

    Here’s a question: what happens if you lose your monthly pass?

    What a dummy.

  • Dave

    Jenables, I don’t even know how to respond to you. I want to put the best interpretation on your responses so instead of nasty, I will go with intellectually challenged.

  • Norman

    Well, well. Every household in Grandview Woodlands just received a letter from Councillor Andrea Reimer trying to soothe feelings about the community plan. I think the penny must have dropped – this isn’t “Norquay Village”, it’s a cohesive stable community made up of politically active people. I can say this for sure: I my many years here, I have only seen one other issue that activated the community as much, the drug dealers who tried to colonize the area around the SkyTrain station. They are gone now.

←  Older Comments
 →