The purpose of this paper is to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of Vancouver. Vancouver is a beautiful coastal seaport city on the main land of British Columbia, Canada. It has great diversity due to international immigration, efficient city planning, and advanced technology companies that recruit global talents. However, the high cost of living, threats of earthquake, and containment of urban sprawls continue to be major concerns for the general public—these factors prevent the city from becoming the most desirable city to live in. Vancouver is a city with various strengths, such as high walkability, great diversity, and modern technology. Theses merits interact with each other and contribute to the vibrant economy. High walkability, one of Vancouver’s defining strengths, is the result of efficient urban planning. Walking improves health, saves money, supports the environment and increases community interaction. According to Jeff Speck’s the General Theory of Walkability, a great walk has to satisfy four main conditions: it must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting. Usefulness and practicality of streets and sidewalks are the main focus of Vancouver’s government. There are about 3,689 restaurants, bars and coffee shops in Vancouver. Thus, within 5 minutes, residents in Vancouver can walk to an average of 8 restaurants, bars and coffee shops . Additionally, the city ensures the safety of the pedestrians. Although the city’s population has increased approximately 20% between 1996 and 2010, the total number of collisions involving pedestrians had declined by 34% . Vancouver continues to promote pedestrian safety by conducting an research in 2012, and making engineering improvements and incr... ... middle of paper ... ...ing commuting expense, growing stress and rage, and decreasing time. While growth and development have both diversified and strengthened its economy, Vancouver is challenged by the containment of urban sprawl. Therefore, the government should focus on curbing urban sprawl by planning smart, sustainable growth and provide livable spaces over the coming decades. Vancouver is a great place to live because of its strong economy and high living standards. The city inspires businesses and attracts talents from different parts of the world. However, its strengths and potentials, such as high walkability and immigration policies, may also be potential weaknesses. In addition, Vancouver faces high risk of earthquakes and urban sprawl. Therefore, Vancouver is not only one of the most walkable and beautiful cities to live in, but also an expensive and risky city to live in.
Ontario Provincial Police . (2009). Provincial Traffic Safety Program. Retrieved from Ontario Provincial Police: http://www.opp.ca/ecms/index.php?id=51
There are many examples of cities reforming itself over time, one significant example is Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. More than a hundred years after the discovery of gold that drew thousands of migrants to Vancouver, the city has changed a lot, and so does one of its oldest community: Downtown Eastside. Began as a small town for workers that migrants frequently, after these workers moved away with all the money they have made, Downtown Eastside faced many hardships and changes. As a city, Vancouver gave much support to improve the area’s living quality and economics, known as a process called gentrification. But is this process really benefiting everyone living in Downtown Eastside? The answer is no. Gentrification towards DTES(Downtown Eastside) did not benefit the all the inhabitants of the area. Reasons are the new rent price of the area is much higher than before the gentrification, new businesses are not community-minded, and the old culture and lifestyle of the DTES is getting erased by the new residents.
Therefore, a lot of young professionals and working class would move out and live outside the city. Vancouver is well known as the expensive city around the world: "The city has just been ranked the third most unaffordable housing market in the entire world" (Matheson 2016). There are a lot of young professionals
The article explains that gentrification of City of Toronto is “a socio-spatial process that is highly unsustainable and socially unjust.” The author explains that the condominium boom is the result of the municipal and provincial policies incorporated to waterfront Toronto, which transforms the existing urban fabric of the city. The article argues that City of Toronto needs to
Toronto: A place for everyone. Toronto is the 5th largest city in north america, a
The city I chose was Las Vegas, NV that ranks 298 on the Building Resilient Regions website. The Spanish named this huge valley that was full of wild grass and minerals “The Meadows” that then translated into Las Vegas. Now, Las Vegas is very different among U.S cities for it is famous for the luxury casinos and the shows. It has the title of being the “Entertainment Capital of the World” and is very prosperous in cultivating a diversified economy. I chose this city because it is a city that truly never sleeps and always has some sort of resource going in or out. Another reason why I chose Las Vegas is because it is one of the strongest economic cities in the United States and certainly takes up a lot of resources to fuel this never stopping city. I was very interested in researching to see why Las Vegas wasn’t resilient and what could be improved.
If housing is not affordable, like in Vancouver, many people are forced to live far away from where they work just so they can have a home. In this way, the further you have to go for the necessary goods, such as food, supplies, or even go to work, the more stressful life is. Why? It is because many of the very basic and needed services are not available nearby, such as hospitals and various other medical services, this forces people from remote locations to travel long distance to have some of their basic needs met. Affordability has many linkages which is what makes it an essential part of planning and supporting a sustainable community. If the community cannot provide a sustainable living environment to those people living in there, how can the community be
to fund public programs or make general improvements throughout the community. Urban sprawl is expensive not only on people’s wallets, but is taxing on their health, the environment, their relationships. The.. After examining all of the problems associated with urban sprawl it is hard not to question how America lost the genuine communities of old and adopted the new community of
Westerville is a suburb located in northeast Columbus. It is well-known for its strict laws against alcohol. After Prohibition ended, the suburb remained dry for most of the twentieth century- deeming it the Dry Capital of the world. Apart from it’s interesting take on alcohol, Westville was also the smallest town in the nation to have a first class post office, which was a result of the anti-saloon league mailing 40 tons of mail per month.
Statistics Canada. 2001. “2001 community profiles. ” Accessed December 3, 2009 (http://www12.statcan.ca/en glish/Profil01/CP01/Details/Page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=C SD&Code1=5915022&Geo2=PR&Code2=59&Data=Count&SearchText=vancouver&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=59&B1=Population&Custom= ()).
When a city of Ottawa was chosen as Canada’s capital On December 31, 1857 it first originated as a request to find a new capital, from the fathers of confederation to Queen Victoria, and by her officials here in Canada and the United Kingdom. In addition to have a new capital there was a need to have a seat of the government that was protected from attack from the Americans, As a result Ottawa was chosen, as the nation’s capital. Today many Canadians are enjoying the benefits of that decision. Many cities served before as capital of the United Provinces of Canada: Kingston, Montreal, Toronto, (originally know as York, was burned to the ground by invading Americans forces in the war of 1812) and Québec City, those cities were vulnerable from attack because they were located not far across from the American border. When choosing a capital everybody must realize that the safety of a country is very important, and therefore the location of the nation’s capital needs to take many things into consideration before the final decision is made, for instance How far it is from the border? Do th...
These include encouraging commuters to use public transport, decongesting public transport, decentralizing businesses from the Greater Toronto Area, investing in transport infrastructure, passing relevant transport legislation and dialog with stakeholders in transport industry. These solutions aim at discouraging the use of private vehicles and increasing the effectiveness of public transport to increase the capacity and speeds needed to reduce congestion in Toronto. However, it is important to involve all relevant stakeholders when developing solutions to the transport congestion since as earlier discussed, these people may offer very effective solutions to this problem since they are the major road users. The general public will also be keen to follow changes made to improve the transport sector if it is involved in the change process. This will ensure that Toronto has one of the best transport systems not only in North America but across the
It needs to improve its areas of “walkability” and encourage health and environmental factors by adding bike lanes to the heavily biked Church Street. Its roads are not overburdened and its public transit systems are frequent, and highly accessible. One factor to be drawn from this conclusion is that Church and Wellesley’s overall transportation success is not indicative of the GTA as a whole. In fact, its success is the result of government policies that have abetted a focus on highly trafficked, highly populated, highly profitable areas such as the Downtown Core (Keil, Roger, Young, 2008). In the article, Urban Form and Travel Behavior as Tools to Assess Sustainable Transportation in the Greater Toronto Area, the authors conclude that the GTA is headed in a negative direction, and that the goal of sustainable transportation will not be met or improved in the future under the current policies and trends. Overall, the symptoms of Church and Wellesley, although beneficial to the BIA locals, could be seen as a symptom of an greater problem with the city’s transit system that needs to be addressed through political, bureaucratic, and organizational reform ((Zaidan, Esmat, Abdelgadir, Abulibdeh,
Kamloops has clear growth in cultural activities however, with expectations at riverside and new art activities such as (music in the park, Canada day, western Canada theater, and rib fest). The success of these sorts of activates are vital to the success of Kamloops, and that could be easily derailed if Kamloops sustainability is not taken seriously. Kamloops sustainability has is a largely impacted by the proposed Ajaxs mine, both environmental sustainability as well as sustaining the physical city. When deciding where to live many people would look at a project such as Ajaxs mine and decide against Kamloops this does not help the sustainability. This essay will discuss how the last chapters of “Happy City” and how they relate to the sustainability
Toronto city is one of the world’s most cosmopolitan, diverse and tolerant cities and is consistently ranked as one of the best cities to live in terms of life quality. Toronto located on the northwestern shores of Lake Ontario in the Southern Ontario district is home to more than 2.5 million residents. This Canadian city is unique melting pot of diverse cultural and ethnical immigrants from all over the world. The city is renowned for its high quality of life, economic and financial position and as an important socio-cultural center of North America.