Category — Uncategorized

In the wealth of reminisences of my friend Jim Green, these two stand out: an eloquent obituary by Tom Hawthorn and this 2005 radio profile by the CBC’s Stephen Quinn.

More evidence, if more is needed, that the City of Vancouver remains tireless in the pursuit of business efficiency:  a small lane at Thurlow and Melville is to be named Hailstone St. to facilitate the timely issuance of parking tickets.

As this report to the next council meeting explains:

“Due to the unique configuration of this lane, Parking Enforcement staff are unable to issue tickets with their palm pilots and must instead issue a manual ticket, causing delays in the ticket being entered into the electronic system. For that reason, the Street Naming Committee agreed to assign a name to the street. Since the “lane” is wider than 10.06 metres it will be named as a street rather than a lane.
“Subsequently, at its meeting on October 13, 2011, the Committee considered, among other suggestions, the name “Hailstone.” William Hailstone was, along with Sam Brighouse and John Morton, one of the original owners of District Lot 185 – essentially the entire West End. At the time, people in New Westminster thought the three gentlemen had made a bad investment based on inexperience, and nicknamed them the “Three Greenhorns”.
“Brighouse and Morton are already commemorated with street names in Greater Vancouver. Therefore the Committee agreed to recommend the name “Hailstone Street” for the subject street.”

Vancouver has scored number 31 in a new ranking of the top 50 cities in the world to be a student, well behind Montreal (10) and Toronto (26). This despite our city’s brutal housing costs, which clearly dragged down the rating.

Why should we care? Students are present and future contributors to our economy, a pool of skilled workers whose talents can make for a better city. If housing costs, weak employer markets and poor liveability drive them away, we’re the poorer for it.

Top city? Paris of course, with world class, low-cost institutions in the middle of a massive job market, served by cheap housing. Melbourne, a city to which Vancouver is often compared, ranked fourth.

Vancouver’s future economic success hinges as much on increasing the supply of affordable housing as it does on competitive taxes, the executive director of the Vancouver Economic Development Commission told council Tuesday.

It could also be more critical than a “rendering farm,” the massive computer hardware installation that makes data-heavy industries like digital special effects firms happy to be here. (The VEDC is working on one of those as well.)

Lee Malleau, who was unveiling the VEDC’s Economic Action Strategy, said Vancouver is emerging as a key hub of the video and digital special effects sector, along with Los Angeles and London. But unlike those two cities, Vancouver lacks reasonably-priced housing.

Creating that housing will be essential, Malleau said, if the city is to continue to attract international talent, whose wages will go much further in cities with cheaper homes.