Dream City

Book excerpt: Located at the edge of a continent and at the corresponding edge of national public consciousness, Vancouver has developed in unique and unanticipated ways. It is now emerging as an experiment in contemporary city-making, with international interest in Vancouver as a model of post-industrial urbanism increasing exponentially. Lance Berelowitz explores the links between the city's seductive natural setting, its turbulent political history and changing civic values, and its planning and design culture. He also makes the startling case that Vancouver is to Canada's imagination what Los Angeles is to the American -- a mythologized place of endless possibilities, while being grounded in an altogether more limited set of socio-economic and environmental limitations. Dream City is richly illustrated with both historical and contemporary photographs of many significant buildings and public spaces, as well as specially commissioned maps that reveal the underlying patterns of growth and change of Canada's youngest metropolis.