COUNTING ON
VANCOUVER:
Our View of the Region
Inaugural Report of the Regional Vancouver Urban Observatory
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Acknowledgements
Peter Abrams - Karin Albert - Ruby Socorro Arico - Joan Arnott - Ron Bain Jorge Barandiaran - Herb Barbolet - Paula Beltgens - Henrik Beune - Sean Blackman
- Alicia Blancarte - Sara Blenkhorn - Elizabeth Bowker - Nicolette Brinkhoff Mike Bruce - Nathan Cardinal - Lianne Carley - Duncan Cavens - Christian Dahlberg
- Terri Evans - Jon Eben Field - Dara Edmonds - Bonnie Fenton - Paula Gallo Daniel Garrison - Patsy George - Bill Gibbens - Eileen Gilette - Scott Graham Mitchell Gray - Hon. Michael Harcourt - Lisa Hartford - Nancy Henderson - David
Hendrickson - Holly Herald - Sean Hodgins - Salima Jethani - Barbara Joughin - Shirin
Kalyan - Raymond Kan - Holly Korstad - Kristen Kozuback - Xiaomai Li - Clark Lim Steve Litke - Chris Lindberg - Metropolis Commission 5 - Jason Lyth - Anna Mathewson
- Sheila McFadzean - Donald McKenzie - Chris Miewald - Shiva Mojtabavi - Alastair
Moore - Janet Moore - Jennie Moore - Eduardo Moreno Lopéz - Ryan Noakes - Nancy
Olewiler - Avril Orloff - Thomas Osdoba - Susan Papadionissiou - Ardath Paxton Mann
- Anthony Perl - Anka Raskin - Mark Roseland - Kevin Ryan - Lynn Adam Saffery
- Sagarika Saha - Janine de la Salle - Nola Kate Seymoar - Rebecca Siggner - Natasha
Silva - Lisa Slakov - Patrick Smith - Maria Stansborough - Leslie Stern - Kennedy
Stewart - Kevin Stock - Lynda Taylor - Joe Thompson - Dagmar Timmer - Vanessa
Timmer - John Tylee - the UN Habitat Global Urban Conservatory - Robb Utendale
- Rob VanWynsberghe - Tracy Vaughan - Gloria Venczel - Vince Verlaan - Eva Wadolna
- Darryl Walker - Rob Whitlock
Writing: Meg Holden and Clare Mochrie
Research Assistance: Ruby Socorro Arico, Lian Liu and Sylvain Xié
Photographs: John Goldsmith
Design: Sharkbite Art & Design
RVu would like to acknowledge as well the generous support of the
following sponsors
A publication of the SFU Urban Studies Program.
Printed on acid-free 100% post-consumer recycled paper in Vancouver.
Copyright © Regional Vancouver Urban
Observatory, Simon Fraser University,
2006
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
Table of
Contents
Forewords............................................................................. i
Executive Summary ...................................................... iii
Purpose of This Report ................................................. 1
OUR INDICATORS
Mobility ............................................................................. 8
Poverty .............................................................................. 14
Economy ........................................................................... 21
Governance ..................................................................... 25
Community ..................................................................... 31
Environment .................................................................. 36
Food Systems................................................................. 42
Arts and Culture .......................................................... 48
The RVu Approach .......................................................... 53
Our Framework ................................................................. 54
Endnotes & Citations ..................................................... 57
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Foreword
The report Counting on Vancouver: Our View of the Region appears at a time when
there is increasing awareness that city information is fundamental to understand
conditions and trends, to avoid and correct mistakes, and to rethink ineffective policy.
Many cities in the developing world lack appropriate data. But, the developing world
is not an exception. These cities are like ships on the high sea sailing without adequate
navigational tools, having poor chances of reaching their desired destination. Without
the knowledge of their bearing and current positioning, these cities may either go round
in circles or find themselves in an unintended destination.
In today’s world, accurate pilotage calls for the use of appropriate instruments.
Consistent monitoring mechanisms, clear and meaningful set of indicators for
sustainable development and good communication strategies are such navigation tools
in the sea of development.
“I believe that this
observatory will be
able to fulfill one of
the most important
functions: bringing
the ship to the
desired destination
in a safe harbor.”
The United Nations Global Urban Observatory appreciates the efforts developed by
the Simon Fraser University of Vancouver to establish a Regional Vancouver Urban
Observatory. This first urban observatory in the developed world is a clear recognition
that advanced countries and cities have also their own problems and challenges. There
is also an explicit recognition that reliable, accurate, timely information is fundamental
to address these challenges. City managers, policy-makers, business persons, and citizen
groups have earnestly yearned for this information system.
I congratulate the Regional Vancouver Urban Observatory for creating a local
information system on urban sustainability issues and demonstrating that it is possible
to develop a multisectoral and multi stakeholders monitoring mechanism within its first
year of existence.
The Global Urban Observatory welcomes the RVu as part of our network of
observatories. I believe that this observatory will be able to fulfill one of the most
important functions: bringing the ship to the desired destination in a safe harbor.
EDUARDO LÓPEZ MORENO,
Chief, Global Urban Observatory
UN-HABITAT
i
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
Foreword
There is a growing realization in Canada and around the world that our future demands
an updated set of values and renewed commitment to good urban governance.
Ensuring that we continue to have vibrant, creative, prosperous and dynamic places
to live requires that we adopt an integrative and forward-looking perspective that
appreciates the way different systems interact and impact one another. In addition,
the sustainability of the communities we call home demands the participation and
collaboration of all communities, institutions and different levels of government.
The Prime Minister’s External Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities, which
I chair, was established in 2004 to set a more meaningful place at the federal table for
Canadian cities and communities – and to help the Prime Minister’s office see their
work through cities and communities. This major policy initiative, the New Deal for
Cities and Communities, signed by Canada, British Columbia and Union of British
Columbia Municipalities in April 2005, represents a meaningful step toward integrated
action among orders of government and reliable long-term funding for cities. In taking
this step, the New Deal provides some of the necessary tools that cities need to confront
big issues like environmentally sustainable infrastructure, affordable housing, and
public transportation. Canadian municipalities across the country have now committed
to do Integrated Community Sustainability Planning, to develop and maintain a longterm vision of the future, and to report on their progress regularly.
The province of British Columbia, first signatory to the New Deal, is a leader in
this initiative to create more sustainable urban centres, accountable to citizens for
unsurpassed quality of life, to the world for innovations in sustainable development,
and to future generations for natural, economic, social, and cultural legacies. The
Regional Vancouver Urban Observatory is similarly positioned to take a leadership role
in the field of urban indicators. This publication of Counting on Vancouver could not
come at a better time.
Integrated Community Sustainability Plans are intended to put in place the necessary
benchmarks, indicators and monitoring systems to both inform and test the impacts of
our actions and policies. ICSPs are meant to ensure that policies are monitored in a way
that includes and resonates with the communities that are affected by them. Further it
exacts measures to hold governments accountable to our commitments and see to it that
our efforts are having the intended effect.
“The value-based,
participatory
approach that RVu
has employed has
resulted in a set
of indicators that
reflect the deep
values of local
residents.”
Through its work in engaging communities around indicators, RVu stands to play a key
role in ensuring that these various commitments translate into action. The value-based,
participatory approach that RVu has employed has resulted in a set of indicators that
reflect the deep values of local residents. They also capture the integrative elements of
sustainability. The RVu indicators outlined in Counting on Vancouver will likely be an
inspiration to urban communities across the country that are looking to implement their
commitments under the New Deal. More importantly, they will serve as an excellent
basis for monitoring progress in Vancouver region.
THE HONOURABLE MICHAEL HARCOURT
Chair, Prime Minister’s External Advisory Committee on Cities and Communities
ii
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Executive
Summary
As the first
local urban observatory
in the UN-Habitat Global
Urban Observatory network
from the developed world, RVu
presents a model and a rationale
for considering local and global
accountabilities, goals and
indicators as utterly
connected and in need
of alignment.
Counting on Vancouver: Our view of
the region reports on the results of the
Regional Vancouver Urban Observatory
(RVu)’s first year of intensive expert
and citizen based work toward a new
set of indicators for a future sustainable
Vancouver region. As a contribution to
the World Urban Forum 3 in Vancouver,
this report puts these indicator
recommendations in the global context
of the Millennium Development Goals,
the most ambitious commitment made
to date by member states of the United
Nations to eradicate poverty and
ensure environmental sustainability. It
demonstrates the linkages between our
local and global priorities and argues that
these goals demand simultaneous action
across scales if they are to be achieved.
Key indicators and trends found in
Counting on Vancouver were recommended
by the residents of the city region of
Vancouver, Canada in eight areas:
mobility, poverty, economic development,
governance, community building, the
environment, food systems and culture.
Each indicator area is discussed in the
Vancouver context and in comparative
context, in terms of what we know and
what realities remain hidden, and in terms
of data collection priorities to enhance our
accountability.
iii
Highlights related to each of the indicator
areas:
• Sustainable mobility means creating
choices for our children. Transit
ridership in the region increased 37%
from 1999-2004 but only 42% of our
children get to school by bus, bike, or
foot, while 80% of children walk or
cycle to school in Oslo, Norway and
other cities.
• Poverty in our midst is a tragedy
we must overcome, but the income
gap between the richest and poorest
across Canada is felt most severely in
Vancouver, where the wealthiest 10%
took 19 times the income share of the
poorest 10% in 2000.
We don’t want a static report card
or benchmarking process here, I
think we really want to be looking
at ways of engaging people to come
along and start working on that
transformational change that we
want to see. So . . . indicators need
to be mobilizing, they need to be
motivating, and they also need to
be magical, we need to give people
that sense of inspiration. And I
think that the RVu public process
has been enormously positive
because of its public process.
- Nancy Henderson, Executive
Director, SPARC BC (Social Planning
and Research Council)
• An economic system that supports
sustainable development takes
development rather than growth as its
metric. Our per capita consumption of
energy demonstrates our need to be
much more energy efficient in powering
our economy and our lives. A 150
pound Vancouverite burns more than
100 times their weight in oil equivalent
annually.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
We want this help. I would love
to have an indicator that we can
all agree on that we can point to
and say, if that’s going down, we’re
not going in the right direction.
It doesn’t matter what the GDP is
doing, if this is going down, there’s
a problem. [The RVu process is] a
great start, but now we’ve got to
get tough to make it work.
- Peter Ladner, Councillor, City of
Vancouver and Vice-Chair, Greater
Vancouver Regional District
• Sustainability governance is a question
of inputting many voices and injecting
a culture of learning into better public
decisions. Voter turnout rates are in
decline in Vancouver, but of greater
concern is that some groups are not
participating at all. We need more
mechanisms and better measures to
ensure governance is representative and
participatory.
• Our region is a living organism that
deserves respectful treatment and
creative solutions to eliminate waste,
sprawl and pollution. We recycle just
over half our waste but the average
Vancouver resident still sent over 27
lbs to landfill each week in 2005. The
region’s main landfill is scheduled to
close in 2008.
Executive
Summary
• Hunger is the worst manifestation of
a growing problem of food insecurity
in our region, which is all the more
shameful given the richness of our
agricultural production. While food
is now cheaper than it has ever been,
buying nutritious food is still too
expensive for many in our region,
even as our best agricultural land gets
converted to other land uses.
• Arts and culture should be brought
in from the margins of sustainability
action, and we can do this by
recognizing the contribution that
culture and the arts make to our
increasingly multicultural region,
including generating a 3.7 factor
multiplier for the region on every dollar
invested by government.
• Building community from the bottom
up provides a counterweight to
sustainable governance systems, but
polarization of the rich and poor works
against strong civic spirit and social
supports. In our view, the region needs
a new focus on its ‘third spaces’ and on
generating ‘true dialogue.’
We’re missing something if we just look at monitoring [indicators using]
quantitative data like affordability and cost of living and even personal
safety, like is my house going to flood. I think there is more to human
beings than that and we need to give credit to and inspire people to think
beyond data . . . all the study groups have really struggled with this
question of how do we capture and encapsulate that which really matters.
- Karin Albert, RVu study group member
iv
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Purpose of
this Report
HOW TO READ
THIS REPORT
This report has been produced by the
Regional Vancouver Urban Observatory
(RVu) for the World Urban Forum 3.
RVu’s objective in this report is to present
the case for a new set of value-based,
publicly-driven regional indicators.
We demonstrate the potential of these
indicators to motivate change locally
toward a sustainable Vancouver region,
and globally toward the Millennium
Development Goals. Importantly, we
argue that local and global urban and
regional development goals are not as far
apart as they may seem. In this report, we
present RVu’s indicators in the context of
our complex city-region systems, where
masses of information do not always lead
to more informed decision-making, and
in the global context of the Millennium
Development Goals, where Vancouver as
a world city has an important role to play
in eradicating poverty and improving
environmental sustainability. We do this
with strategic solutions in mind.
OUR RATIONALE
At the Regional Vancouver Urban
Observatory (RVu), our view is of a
sustainable urban future. We are counting
on our Vancouver region to meet local
and global expectations for a high quality
of life as well as new social, cultural,
and economic opportunities. We are
committed to advancing local priorities
in a way that does not compromise
the integrity and astounding beauty of
our natural environment. To achieve a
Vancouver that we can continue to be
proud of into the future, we believe that
we must be accountable, to one another
within the region and also to the world
around us.
RVu’s objective is thereby to track our
progress at local and global scales,
injecting values into measures, holding
ourselves accountable and motivating
positive action.
This report is designed to present critical indicators for the Vancouver region, while
examining their connection to global trends and responsibilities, and the Millennium
Development Goals in particular. Following the rationale for and background to
this approach, indicators will be presented in eight key areas: sustainable mobility,
overcoming poverty, sustainability governance, community building, natural
environment, sustainable food systems, and arts and culture. In each of these eight
sections, you will find:
• An introduction to global and local driving forces behind trends;
• Discussion of what Vancouver currently measures to assess trends, in comparative
perspective;
• An understanding of what remains hidden;
• Indicators proposed by RVu, presented with data where available, and with our
recommended approach where data are not available; and
• An outline of steps toward solutions at global and local scales.
Following the presentation of the eight indicator areas, the report ends with more
information about the process pursued by RVu to date and where RVu fits in the
regional landscape of interest in indicators of sustainable development.
At all times, we proceed in search of the new perspective that RVu can
add to local-global responsibility and developed-developing
world responsibility.
1
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
LOCAL AND
GLOBAL
ACCOUNTABILITY:
A MAGNIFYING
AND TELESCOPING
LENS
At the local level, RVu creates forums for
residents to input values and motivation
into goals and measures for regional
sustainability. At the global level,
RVu considers our contribution to the
Millennium Development Goals (see
below and on page 4). The focus of these
local and global goals may seem at first
glance to be very far apart. In our view,
they are utterly connected and must be
clearly aligned.
SHARED STANDARDS, SHARED
ACCOUNTABILITY
Introduction
In Vancouver, we are fortunate that no
one in our midst needs to live in extreme
poverty, that infant mortality rates are
among the lowest in the world, that access
to emergency health services and primary
education are supported by a stable
governance system, and that the other
basic conditions for life and advancement
are available as a matter of right. Still,
our region is far from a perfect model of
sustainable development.
Increasing numbers of households suffer
from relative poverty, preventing them
from living full and satisfying lives by
Canadian standards. A growing income
gap raises questions about who we are
becoming, and who we are coming to
exclude. Further, we are not doing enough
to protect our natural environment and
overcome our wasteful habits. On top of
these challenges, which are laid out in this
report, we need to ask ourselves:
How are we contributing to meeting
global goals to end poverty and achieve
sustainable development?
The Millennium
Development Goals
(MDGs) are a global set of goals,
along with targets and indicators, that aim
to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. The
MDGs aim at basic human rights for the poor
– income, food, shelter and infrastructure, freedom
from disease and social exclusion – and promote gender
equality, education, health, environmental sustainability,
and a reinvigorated global partnership for development.
If the world can achieve the MDGs in less than a decade’s
time, 500 million people will be freed from extreme poverty,
300 million will be free from hunger, another 350 million
will have safe drinking water, and 30 million children
will be saved from dying before their 5th birthday.
Less quantifiable, meeting the MDGs would mean
the achievement of a true global partnership
for development and new hope across the
developing and developed sides of the
world alike in our common fate, in
the promise of sustainable
development.
2
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
The Millennium
Development
Goals Connect
... TO OUR LOCAL GOALS
The developed world stands to gain from
the attainment of the MDGs, and we in
Vancouver have an important role to play
as a region.
RVu is helping bring the MDGs home
to Canada by localizing larger poverty
and environmental sustainability goals.
Experience has shown that results
improve when policies are translated to
the level closest to the intended recipients
of the new policy – and for us, this means
urban communities region-wide.
In one recent survey, 77% of Canadians
in major cities believe their civic
governments are more accountable than
federal or provincial governments.1
Much farther afield, the World Bank’s
Global Monitoring Report showed that
in Uganda, although initially only 20
cents per dollar invested at the national
level reached the poor, an effective
communication and accountability
campaign at the local level raised this
amount quickly to 90 cents on the dollar.2
Poverty and environmental degradation
are not third world problems, even
though that is where they are felt most
severely. They are the world’s problems,
in several different respects:
• International development policy,
in which Canada has a history of
leadership, establishes the need for
multilateral and bilateral action as an
integral part of our national policy
agenda.
• By advancing the means to a productive
life for more people around the
world, we advance our most personal
commitments to human rights. We also
increase the chances that our ambitions,
ideas, and travels throughout the
world will be met with understanding
and welcome from the greater human
community.
• We may reap the profits of our
economic activities, but too often we do
so by exporting and burying the costs
in the developing world. The world
provides us with global public goods
that we share to our benefit, and divide
to our peril. We have only one climate
system, that we must do a much better
job to protect, and one global network
of knowledge and its cultural and
technological fruits, that we are only
beginning to learn how to share.
• Perhaps most practically, eliminating
poverty is the surest means to promote
global security.3
In meeting and matching global goals
with local values and means, we are
also committed to the valuable role that
partnerships of civil society groups,
individual citizens, government entities,
private business, and research universities
can play in making a difference and
keeping us accountable to our
highest goals.
3
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
Over 80% of Canadians live in urban
areas and most of our population growth
is concentrated in our three largest cities:
Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
Urbanization rates can be much lower
in the developing world, but cities of the
Global South are urbanizing at a rapidly
accelerating rate. In many countries,
urban growth is synonymous with the
growth of slums: up to 80% of the urban
populations of cities in some Sub-Saharan
African countries are slum dwellers.4
In developed and developing world
contexts alike, this urbanization carries
with it significant environmental costs
and “the current phase of globalization
puts a new set of pressures on cities as
part of the overall race to the bottom.”5
Indeed, these costs add up to an
environmental crisis of global proportions
and, in many cases, a crisis of equity and
human rights to match.
However, eliminating cities would not
solve this crisis. Our cities are centres of
artistic and intellectual creativity, engines
of economic success and innovation, focal
points for technology, higher learning,
and scientific discovery, and arenas for
the interaction of diverse peoples and
cultures. Our cities are the homelands of
our future, socio-econo-ecological systems
that weave our different behaviours,
practices, and policies together
inseparably and often unpredictably
at scales from the most personal to the
widest and most global.
The notion of ‘the city’ for RVu is not a
single scale, but a meeting place of many
interlocking and interwoven scales,
from the minute and personal to the
encompassing and global. The cityregion is our unit of analysis because
of its many boundaries, the many ways
urban processes jump across scales in
economic, social, cultural and political
life, and the intricacies of feedback loops,
in environmental damage as well as
environmental restoration.
Cities: Homelands
of Our Future
MILLENIUM DEVELOPMENT
GOALS (2000)
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equity
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Comabt HIV / AIDS, malaria & other
diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainablity
8. Develop a global partnership for
development
4
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Matching Global
and Local Steps
... TOWARD SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD) to inform the development
of indicators appropriate to these five
different stages of the knowledge-action
continuum.1
The Millennium Development Goals
(MDG) are unprecedented in the breadth
of international commitment involved
and in the ambitious rates of progress
that they target. Yet the MDGs do not go
far enough toward understanding and
engaging with the complex relationships
between pressures, states and responses
in urban and national systems. The
complexities of these relationships are
such that we could well have – and often
do have -- growth that makes us poorer.
Moving doggedly toward achieving
some of the Goals could actually work
against others; the realm of the natural
environment on which urban life depends
stands to be neglected in particular. We
need indicators and targets of quality, not
just quantity.
To move from each of these stages to the
next, critical resources are needed and
conditions must be met.
The figure also shows how the RVu
indicators presented in this report are
driven by regional driving forces related
to the challenge of sustainability, just
as the MDGs have driving forces at the
global scale.
• The global sustainable development
agenda emerged at the Rio Earth
Summit of 1992, and the MDGs are
a more recent specification of that
agenda.
• The regional sustainable development
agenda emerged from the Livable
Region Strategic Plan, passed in 1996,
and the Sustainable Region Initiative
passed in 2001 is an expansion of that
plan to which RVu contributes.
The figure below shows how global and
local needs match at different phases of
the ongoing process needed to move us
out of damaging development cycles.
The Driving Forces – Pressure – Impact
– State – Response framework was
developed by the Organization for
(UN)SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: POVERTY&
ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION2
LEGEND
Regional feedback loop
Global feedback loop
FO
RL
OC
A
ILITY
TAB
DRIVING
FORCES
NEE
D
FO
R
CO
NS
E
NS
US
L-
O
GL
N
OU
CC
LA
BA
NE
ED
S
AL
GO
(UN)SUSTAINABLE
URBANIZATION
&
RS
IZE
CIT
NS
5
MDGs (2000)
INFO
RMATION
24 RVu INDICATORS
(see this report)
STATE
IMPACT
SCALED UP
CHANGE STRATEGIES
PRESSURE
OOD
DE
LEA
REGIONAL, MUNICIPAL,
NEIGHBOURHOOD AND
INDIVIDUAL CHANGE
STRATEGIES
LIVABLE REGION
STRATEGIC PLAN
(1996)
SUSTAINABLE REGION
INITIATIVE (2001)
OR
G
PUBLIC, PRIVATE
AND NGO ACTIONS
FOR SYSTEM CHANGE
NE
ED
F
RESPONSE
IRED
NEED FOR INSP
SCALED UP
ACTIONS
AND
INSTITUTIONS
FOR
SYSTEM
CHANGE
ES
NEED FOR EAR MANDAT
CL
48 MDG INDICATORS
(see http://unistats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi-goals.asp)
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
While 6 of 8 of the MDGs rightly focus
on breaking extreme poverty in the less
developed world, our corresponding
focus has been on overcoming the relative
poverty that is growing in our region.
We relate most directly to MDGs 7 and 8
-- Ensure Environmental Sustainability
and Develop a Global Partnership for
Development, and we believe that
the two are inseparable. We also find
that in turning the MDGs into policy
recommendations for action, many of the
indicators that RVu has identified have
international resonance: good governance,
economic vitality, quality jobs,
development planning, transportation
infrastructure and mobility, sustainable
food systems, engagement and the role
of civil society, and the role of arts and
culture.
OUR REGIONAL CONTEXT
This report introduces and presents
some surprising information about
the Vancouver region in key sectors of
interest. To provide an initial overview,
the Vancouver region houses over 2.1
million people in 21 municipalities, one
electoral area, and ten Indian Reserves,
with the City of Vancouver as the cultural
and economic hub. The region covers
2,930 km2 (282,066 ha), and is responsible
for about 57% of the Province of British
Columbia’s GDP.3
Counting on
Vancouver
Vancouver is a steadily growing region,
with 21% population growth over the
past decade, or about 1.6% annually.4
Approximately 28% of land within our
region is developed, and approximately
half of this developed land is residential.5
But, this is changing as the region
accommodates more people, housing and
infrastructure.
The region is at once densifying and
sprawling. While downtown Vancouver
is heralded for its densification successes
that have earned it nicknames from the
‘vertical miracle’ to ‘Hongcouver’, only
16% of growth over the past decade
has been accommodated in the City of
Vancouver.6 The large majority of growth
has been absorbed by cities and towns
outside the centre, putting pressure on our
farmland, forests, and fragile mountain
slopes from the tops of which our
drinking water flows.
6
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Counting on
Vancouver
Accompanying this population growth are
economic and social changes.
• Real estate development provides
an endless hum of activity. In early
2006 alone, home prices in the City of
Vancouver rose 21.7%, pushing average
home prices above $500,000.8
• Vancouver is cultivating its niche as
a global city through significant new
infrastructure and cultural investments.
Two such investments that stand out
are a $3 Billion ‘Gateway’ project to
build new roads, bridges, and public
transit infrastructure, and hosting the
2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic
Games.
In other areas, Canada is failing to
make needed investments in important
infrastructure, putting cities and urban
citizens at a disadvantage.
• Canada is the only developed country
without a comprehensive national
housing strategy and significant
national transit funding.
In a number of ways, this country is also
failing certain populations.
• Life expectancy for Aboriginal peoples
in Canada is more than 7 years below
that for the non-Aboriginal population9
and, while conditions are improving,
the Aboriginal population in Greater
Vancouver continues to exhibit lower
levels of health, education, income and
employment.10
7
As in all city-regions subject to the pull of
globalization, Vancouver’s growth results
in both winners and losers.
Canada has always been a country of
immigrants. Since 1991, this country has
welcomed over 3.2 million immigrants
from cities all around the world. The vast
majority of these people have chosen one
of Canada’s three major cities to be their
new home and today, our cities depend
on immigrants to fill labour demands and
to balance the impacts of our aging native
born population.
By 2017, close to one-quarter of Canadians
will be visible minorities – and more
than half of Vancouver’s residents will
be.11 Multiculturalism represents one of
this region’s integral assets. At the same
time, as 40%of Vancouver residents speak
a first language that is not English, we
face increasing challenges with respect to
communication, representation, service
provision and inclusion.11
Increasingly, although not without
conflicting ideas, Vancouver is creating
this global niche around a penchant
for urban and regional sustainability.
Vancouver’s interest in sustainability
dates back a long time and is reflected in:
• The incubation of the original
Greenpeace in this region;
• Our abundant and beautiful nature, full
of forests and rivers and rich farmland;
• Our region’s original inhabitants, the
Coast Salish people;
• The wide array of new sustainability
policies and initiatives, such as green
building, long-term planning and
biodiesel fleets, that have been brought
to life by Vancouver’s government
bodies, businesses, universities and notfor-profit sector.
At the same time, some question the
region’s sustainability intentions, which
often seem to be driven more by altruism
than by “need.”
SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY:
CHOICES FOR OUR CHILDREN
8
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Mobility
• Growth at the outskirts of the region
has been accompanied by development
and employment booms leading to
an expansion and spread of the urban
landscape across the region.1
• People, communities, services and
recreation opportunities have become
more widely spaced.
• We are traveling greater distances in the
course of our daily activities.
As a result, the ability for people of
different financial and physical capacities
to ‘get around’ the region in a manner that
does not impact negatively on others, is of
growing concern.
SUB GOALS:
• Make getting around more fun
• Implement more complete
communities
• Reduce the time/money/energy
spent on moving people and
goods
• Account for all costs of
transportation
• Increase awareness of and societal
commitment to sustainable
mobility
• Reduce the use of fossil fuels
9
The world is replete with cities that
sprawl into the hinterlands, in which
residents spend hours commuting to
and from work on a daily basis and
the air is thick with smog, resulting in
decreased visibility and escalating rates
of respiratory illness. The transportation
sector represents an important factor
in the process of economic growth and
development. In the province of BC, it
contributes approximately 6.5% to the
provincial GDP2 and accounts for 114,000
jobs, or 5.3% of employment3. However,
fossil fuel-burning forms of transportation
– and vehicles specifically - also represent
the single largest source of greenhouse gas
emissions: 42% in the province of BC.4
OUR LOCAL AND GLOBAL
GOALS
Globally, lowering the environmental
impacts of current practices in mobility
and transportation are a major priority.
Indicators related to MDG #7: Ensure
Environmental Sustainability include
energy use and per capita greenhouse gas
emissions.
To date, the cities of Vancouver and
Burnaby have been relatively successful
in rebutting the trends of car-clogged
freeways and smog alerts in favor of
more complete, walkable communities.
However, residents of Vancouver face
increasing challenges in ‘getting around’,
with important implications for safety,
health, the environment and the economy.
Reflecting this local reality, the local goal
for mobility is:
Our mobility system will optimize
equitable access while developing
positive social, cultural and
economic systems as well as healthy
populations, while mitigating
negative environmental impacts.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
OUR CURRENT FOCUS AND
WHAT IS HIDDEN FROM VIEW
In line with the regional transit authority’s
vision of “a transportation future
where people and goods move in a
way that promotes a healthy economy,
environment and quality of life for
generations to come”, data are collected
on a number of trends related to mobility.5
At the same time, opinion polls indicate
that change is not happening fast enough
and that more needs to be done to ensure
that Vancouver is accessible, safe and easy
to move around in.
• Between 1996 and 2001, most areas
of the region saw an increase in the
number of workers employed in their
home subregion, resulting in a small but
notable drop in the median commuter
trip length in the region.7
• Transit ridership increased by 37% in
the region between 1994-2001, with
comparable increases in the number of
average trips per person.8
• Transit ridership is much greater among
populations living in the city centre;
those living or working outside the core
are less likely to use public transit to
reach their destinations.9
• Results of an opinion poll conducted
in 2005 showed transportation to be
the ‘number one issue’ for Greater
Vancouver residents.6
Mobility
• Existing data do not go deep enough
to reveal many of the key issues and
trends related to mobility.
• The data do not do justice to the
integral linkages of mobility trends
to data in health, housing, urban
planning, employment, income, social
behavior, and politics.
• The common measures of mobility
trends fall short in targeting the key
drivers and levers of change.
• Vehicle ownership per household
declined last year, although it has
remained at almost the same level for
the past five years.11
• Greenhouse gas emissions in the
province have increased overall but per
capita emissions dropped 6.3% in the
province between 1991 and 1999.12
• We are becoming an increasingly
sedentary society; less than half of
children and youth meet the minimum
daily physical-activity requirements
and rates of child obesity are on
the rise.13
• Vancouver lags far behind cities such
as Oslo, Stockholm and Barcelona with
respect to the proportion of residents
that use public transit, walk or cycle to
work and school.10
10
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
INDICATOR
Mobility
1
The number of children who walk or cycle to school
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
Children are in many ways testaments
of our past successes - and they are in
every way keys to a sustainable future.
Focusing on the behaviour of our children,
this indicator is therefore forward-looking
and active in its approach.
It also speaks to a broad sweep of values
related to environmental sustainability,
safety, health, household economics, and
community.
• As social behaviours are a key driving
force of mobility and transportation
trends, increasing the proportion of
children who power themselves to
school by either walking or cycling as
opposed to by car, will help develop
habits in future generations with
the types of practices, choices and
behaviours that contribute to a more
sustainable environment.
• Reducing the number of car trips made
per household will alleviate pressure
on our road systems; as much as 26% of
morning traffic can be school-related.14
LOOKING
AHEAD…
• Fewer vehicle trips and time spent
in front of schools idling will reduce
harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
• The most polluted air in any Canadian
city can be found on car-clogged raods;
children are particularly susceptible.
• As gas prices rise, less driving also
means reduced transportation costs for
households.
• From a health perspective, people who
spend less time sitting in their cars may
spend more time being active outside.
• As the presence of vehicles actually
reduces – not abets – the level of safety
around school yards, an increased
number of children getting to school
by other means will foster safer
environments.
• At the same time, this indicator is also
a measure of perceived safety in a
community.
The Greater Vancouver Regional District
(GVRD) currently tracks the number
of children driven to school and those
that use other means, including public
transport. As shown in the graph below,
the proportion of children walking or
biking to and from school has dropped
by 16% since 1985. The percentage taking
transit has also decreased and at the
same time, the proportion being driven
to school has increased by 20%.16 These
trends are discouraging, particularly
when held up to data from cities such as
Oslo where close to 80% of children walk
or cycle to school.17
Trends In How Our Children Get To School15
25%
20%
Change (1985-2004)
In addition to continuing to
monitor this indicator, we should
break down data on school trip
mode share by geography within
the region to gain a sense of trends
at the municipal level.
GVRD SCHOOL TRIP MODE SHARES - 2004
20%
Walk/Bike
36%
15%
10%
5%
Auto driver
4%
0%
-5%
-4%
-10%
-15%
Transit
6%
-16%
-20%
11
Other
4%
Auto Passenger
Transit
Walk/Bike
Auto
Passenger
50%
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
INDICATOR
2
Percent of household income spent on transportation within the
region (broken down by neighbourhood and by mode)
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• Costs and expenditures represent
another key driver of mobility trends.
• The costs of moving around the region
relate to issues of equity and access.
• How individuals and families
apportion their money can be a critical
indicator of their values.
• Awareness of the cost of different
modes of mobility can also be an
effective motivator of social behaviour
change.
Mobility
As illustrated, we presently know that
the average household in the region
spends approximately $9,287 - or 18.5%
of their total consumption - per year
on transportation-related costs and this
percentage saw a marginal increase
between 1997 and 2004.18
Exhibiting the relative costs of alternatives
could be a powerful stimulant of behavior
change in favour of more sustainable
transportation practices. Neighbourhood
level data would also serve to underline
the benefits of denser, more complete
communities.
LOOKING
AHEAD…
This indicator could be expanded
to show:
Household Transportation Expenditures
(Vancouver, 1997-2004)
19
% TOTAL HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURES
20%
19%
18%
17.9%
17.2%
18.7%
17.5%
18.6%
17.3%
17.8%
18.5%
17%
16%
• How these expenditures differ by
neighbourhoods, and by housing costs,
in the region.
• How the financial burden that mobility
places on families and individuals
differs depending on where you live in
Vancouver.
• These figures also do not reveal the
cost discrepancies of different modes
of transportation (i.e. cars vs. bikes vs.
public transport vs. other).
15%
14%
13%
12%
11%
10%
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
YEAR
12
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
INDICATOR
Mobility
3
Level of agreement with the statement: “I live in a neighbourhood in which I
can walk to work and to meet my personal needs.”
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• The notion of people living close to the
things they need is one that supports a
variety of values related to neighbourly
interactions, sense of community, and
mobility choices.
• Data on community perceptions of
walkability currently do not exist for
the Vancouver region.
• Perceptions about people’s ability to
walk to meet their needs speak to a
sense of personal safety.
LOOKING
• Neighbourhood density and mixed use
promote environmental benefits.
AHEAD…
• This indicator ties the issue of mobility
to the design of the urban landscape.
• It recognizes the importance of
individual perceptions in both
motivating and evaluating change.
Information could be gained by way
of resident survey that asks for level
of agreement with the statement: “I
live in a neighbourhood in which I can
walk to work and to meet my personal
needs” – and tabulates the results at the
neighbourhood scale.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Globally….
• The 1992 United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change and
the 1997 Kyoto Protocol amendment
are two of a series of recent agreements
through which countries around the
world are banding together to address
the impacts of climate change and
reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• This, and other such agreements
represent positive actions that can
be taken at the global level to ensure
our movements on this planet do not
compromise the environment and
generations to come.
13
Locally…
• Try cycling or walking to
work or school for a week
– take part in Bike Month!
• If you drive, by reducing
the amount of time you idle your
car by five minutes a day, you will
save fuel and money and eliminate
10,000kg of greenhouse gases; that’s the
equivalent of taking your vehicle off the
road for 11 days.20
• Help our region plan for world-leading
electric rail infrastructure to match the
mobility successes (in km per capita)
of cities like Barcelona, Stockholm, and
Geneva.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
CAN VANCOUVER OVERCOME
POVERTY?
14
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Poverty
At home and around the world, the
persistence of poverty belies honest
attempts at sustainability. The World Bank
estimates that between 1990 – 2001, the
proportion of people living in extreme
poverty fell from 28% (1.2 billion) to 21%
(1.1 billion) in the developing world.1Yet
an estimated 900 million people live in
slum-like conditions worldwide and the
number of people living in slums and
slum-like conditions in the world’s cities
is growing.2
Slum-like conditions are rare in Canada.
However, many in our cities suffer from
relative poverty in the face of increasing
wealth disparity. In 2002, 72% of North
Americans surveyed said the gap between
the rich and the poor had gotten worse
in the past 5 years.3 In Vancouver, this
perception is corroborated by data which
show growing disparities particularly
with respect to income, health and
housing:
• The income gap between the richest
and poorest Canadians is growing
and is currently more severe than in
continental Europe, though less severe
than in the US and the UK.4
• In 2000, the richest 10% of urban
Canadian families had after-tax
incomes 5.5 times that of the poorest
10%. In Vancouver region, the poorest
10% earned only 1.5% of the region’s
total income, while the wealthiest 10%
took 19 times that much (see figure:
Total Regional Income Pie).
• Median income in the Vancouver region
fell 1% from 1980-2000, but median
income for low-income residents fell by
13% to just $10,900 annually, a bigger
drop than in any other Canadian city.5
• Low income rates grew more in
Vancouver than in any other Canadian
city, 3.3 percentage points from 19902000, to 19.1%. Compare this with
Toronto, where the low income rate in
2000 was 17.7%.6
15
Total Regional Income Pie
Poorest
10%
Wealthiest
10%
Middle
80%
OUR LOCAL AND GLOBAL
GOALS
In recognition of the need to combat
poverty head-on, MDG #1 calls for the
number of people living in extreme
poverty to be reduced by half by 2015.
This priority is also reflected locally. In
Vancouver, overcoming poverty is seen by
many to be the biggest problem we face
as it magnifies all our other sustainability
challenges. The following goal describes
our local goal:
Exact a holistic and continuous
response, to the full capacity of our
socioeconomic systems, to the root
causes of poverty.
We must take action in whatever way
we can to challenge and eliminate
the effects of poverty in our
communities.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
The growing gap in income separates
us along ethnic, gender and cultural
lines as well.
In 2003, Canada ranked eighth on the
United Nations Human Development
Index. However, this ranking masks the
disparity between Aboriginal people
and the rest of the population; if the
index were to be recalculated solely
for Registered Indians in Canada, the
ranking would drop to 48.7
• Over one third of all Aboriginal people
in Vancouver live in the Downtown
Eastside, an area with some of the
poorest conditions and highest rates of
HIV/AIDS in Canada.8
• In 2005, 30% of all homeless
respondents identified themselves as
Aboriginal, even though they account
for less than 3% of the region’s total
population.9
• Between 1996 and 2001, 111% more
new HIV and AIDS cases were reported
among Aboriginal people in the
region, compared to 52% for the nonAboriginal population.10
• The 2001 census showed median
household income for Aboriginal
households in the region to be $37,621,
$12,000 less than the median household
income overall and less than $5000
above the low income cutoff rate.
Significantly more of this income came
from government transfers than in the
population as a whole.11
The nature of the response necessary to
overcome poverty is illustrated in the
model of a “safety net trampoline” below.
This model shows that by tightening the
edges of the social safety net, we give it
better balance and more bounce-back.12
Poverty
The model consists of 3 key interrelated
components:
1. Effective emergency response is a
crucial path in this system, helping
people out of crisis toward individual
empowerment. Empowerment means
having the desire to change and the
supports to feel like you have options.
2. An improved transitional system can
help people reduce the conditions of
poverty through stable employment, a
steady address, and other ways to make
up for lost opportunities.
3. Prevention of the conditions that create
poverty demands more awareness of
the causes and effects of poverty. Here
we all play a part, although leaders and
the media play very key parts.
Safety “Trampoline”
Emergency
Response
Prevention
Overcoming
Poverty
Elevated
Awareness
Individual
Empowerment
Reduction of Poverty
Conditions
16
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Poverty
Homelessness in Greater Vancouver
is an increasingly visible problem,
but the invisible side of households at
risk of becoming homeless should not
be ignored. Immigrants stand out as
over-represented among those at-risk of
homelessness.
• In 2001, recently arrived immigrants
made up 16.5% of the overall
population of the region and 30% of
them were in core housing need, over
2.5 times the rate of housing need in
the overall population. Vancouver is
no exception to the “new landscape
of precariousness” for immigrants in
Canada’s major cities.13
The maps to the right illustrate where risk
of homelessness is concentrated in Greater
Vancouver.14
• The neighbourhood clusters identify
hot spots which contained nearly
half (43.7%) of all renters live in core
housing need while representing only
15.1% of the region’s population.
• Recent immigrant renters in core
housing need are a sizeable presence
in very specific locations, namely,
the four inner suburban areas of
Metrotown, Edmonds, Burquitlam,
and Richmond Centre. These areas
contain approximately one-third of
the regional total of recent immigrant
renters in core housing need in just 4%
of neighbourhoods.
17
The map below shows neighbourhood clusters where low-income and immigrant
renters intersect. In the neighbourhoods identified, recent immigrants comprised an
average 30% of the population and low income rates averaged nearly 50%. This is 25%
more concentration of low income than the Canadian standard for an extreme poverty
neighbourhood.15
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
OUR CURRENT FOCUS AND
WHAT IS HIDDEN FROM VIEW
• Since 2001, sizable cuts have been
made to the government programs and
services on which the poor depend.
• Despite the fact that welfare benefits
were already inadequate to help
families out of poverty before the cuts,
welfare benefits have been reduced and
eligibility rules tightened.
• In 2004, single parents have been
particularly hard hit; a single parent
with 2 children has lost $406 per
month.16
The number of homeless people in our
region nearly doubled from 2002 to 2005,
up to 2,174 persons. One third of that
population has been homeless for over
one year.17
Poverty
• Less than half (45%) of these people
had a steady income source like
income assistance, pension or disability
benefits.18
• As of June 2005, 13,000 households in
the region were on the BC Housing
waiting list for social housing (this
registry list includes about one third
of the total social housing stock in the
province).19
INDICATOR
1
EMERGENCY RESPONSE: Availability of emergency services (food, beds,
detox) as a proportion of demonstrated need for these services.
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
Emergency shelters, food banks, and
detox beds are services of last resort for
those most at risk in our region.
• The total number of bed-nights
available in the region was 41,926 in
2003. This has been increasing by just
under one-third per year since 2000
– but has still not kept pace with the
growth in the homeless population.
The overall average occupancy rate was
90% and this is on the rise.20
• In the seven months from October 2004April 2005, shelter providers reported
approximately 26,527 turn-aways,
including men, women and children.
For a single night, March 15, 2005, this
means that shelters, safe houses and
transition houses turned away 169
adults and 6 children; the same count
registered 111 turnaways on one night
in 2002.21, 22
• The Greater Vancouver Food Bank
provides food to approximately 25,000
people per week. One-third of those fed
are children.23
• At least two-thirds of the street
homeless have severe drug or alcohol
addictions. However, as of 2003, there
was a total of only 84 detox beds
region-wide. There was almost no
change in the availability of detox
beds in the region from 2000-2003,
with the exception of 2 new beds in
Vancouver.24,25
26,527 Total
Turn-aways
Turn-aways from shelters
due to no vacancy
Turn-aways from shelters due to appropriate
bed-gender/age/access
Turn-aways from shelters due to
substances/safety barred etc.
LOOKING
AHEAD…
Better information about needs and
availability of emergency services
is badly needed, particularly for the
coldest and wettest nights.
The Lower Mainland Cold/Wet
Weather Strategy for Vancouver has
identified that first among its areas
of ongoing challenge is the lack
of needs assessment to determine
shelter resource requirements.26
18
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
INDICATOR
INDICATOR
Poverty
LOOKING
AHEAD…
• As a wealthy city in a wealthy nation
with a commitment to an adequate
social safety net from the nation’s
very origin, we cannot accept a target
less than 100% of households in the
region able to meet their basic needs.
• The print media play a powerful
role in creating people’s perceptions
about the causes and conditions
of poverty. An informed public
and decision makers comfortable
addressing poverty are essential to
its progressive elimination.
• This indicator would act as a media
watch, ensuring poverty is not a
dirty secret but a regular headline of
dedicated action.
19
2
REDUCTION OF POVERTY
CONDITIONS: Percent of
households in the region
consistently able to meet their
basic needs.
3
PREVENTION: Quality of
media coverage of poverty as
a regional sustainability issue,
via judgment of a panel of key
leaders from a sample of key
media sources.
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
A range of interpretations of “basic needs”
exist – from basic physical necessities
of food, clothing, and shelter, to the
inclusion of social, cultural and emotional
supports for participation in community
life. Public transportation, health care,
communications like telephone, television
and internet, access to nature and some
cultural events can be critical in this
broader view.
In a global survey, 68% of respondents
indicated their own government was
doing too little to help people in poverty
within their own country and 63% blamed
poverty on unfair treatment by society.32
Our regional homelessness plan identifies
a lack of information about people who
are homeless and at risk of homelessness
in the region as a priority for action.33
We need more, quality, information and
awareness around the causes and effects
of poverty and homelessness.
• In 2000, BC had a poverty rate of 16.5%
using LICO and 20% using MBM (see
box for definitions) . Vancouver’s low
income rate was 19.1% overall.27
• Most poor families are far from meeting
their basic needs. On average, BC
families with low incomes had incomes
that were $9115 below the poverty line
in 2000.28
• Median income for the poorest 10% of
Vancouver’s residents in 2000 was at
least $8000 below LICO.29
• Median household income in
Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhood,
the Downtown Eastside, was just
$11,029.30
• In 2000, 25% of the region’s poor, or
about 105,000 individuals with low
income, were children.31
Low-Income Cut-Off is a measure set by Statistics Canada, based on average
expenditure for food, clothing, and shelter, for a given community. LICO is set at
20 percentage points above average expenditures on these items, as percent of gross
income. As LICO likely understates poverty for the population as a whole and for
families with children, Human Resources Development Canada calculates the Market
Basket Measure. The MBM is the amount of disposable income families require to
purchase needed items, after taxes, child or spousal support, spending on childcare,
non-insured health expenses are paid for. MBM includes food, clothing, shoes,
transportation, shelter, personal care, household needs, telephone, school supplies,
furniture, and modest reading and recreation expenses.
While the level calculated by each of these measures differs, both tend to show
the same broad trends over time.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Globally . . .
Poverty
• Support progress toward MDG #1,
Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger.
• Access to entitlements – or what
Canadians know as the social safety
net – is in decline almost everywhere
it exists. The rising costs of these
programs, including access to and
quality of health care, education,
housing, and employment, and (in
developing countries) structural
adjustment programs recommended
by the International Monetary Fund,
are all contributing to this decline. Find
out how much overcoming poverty
depends on these supports.34
Locally . . .
• The Vancouver Agreement was
renewed in 2005 to improve community
health and safety, economic and social
development, and community capacity
building in the Downtown Eastside.
Find out what progress the Vancouver
Agreement is making to eradicate the
region’s worst poverty hot spot.35
• Legislate reform to provide adequate
levels of income for the most
vulnerable.
• The City of Vancouver Homeless Action
Plan calls for 8,000 new subsidized
housing units by 2014. How many more
units are needed region-wide?36
• The Centre for Native Policy and
Research’s 2005 Indicators Report
on the Quality of Life of Aboriginal
People in Greater Vancouver highlights
the need for a more comprehensive
approach to tracking homeless in the
Aboriginal Community.37
20
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY:
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT BEYOND REGIONAL GROWTH
21
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
People in all parts of the world desire
to live amidst economic prosperity.
How much, how made and maintained,
and how distributed, are much more
subjective questions.
At the same time,
• Economic indicators like these do not
account for the full range of social,
environmental and cultural factors that
determine our quality of life.
Surveys of world values suggest that
economic development leads to greater
perceived happiness as countries
transition from subsistence to advanced
industrial economies. Above a modest
level of gross national product, however
– about $14,000 – the direct relationship
between income level and well-being
vanishes. In other words, there is more
to well-being than continued economic
growth.1 We make a key distinction
between ‘old school’ economic
growth and people-centred economic
development.
• In many cases, indicators of economic
growth relate more to abstract global
markets than local priorities and needs.
Vancouver displays high standings in
most conventional economic indicators:
• GDP is well above the Canadian
average and continuing to rise.
Vancouver accounts for 57% of the
Province’s GDP.2
• Investment spending has increased by
$4 billion since 2003 and manufacturing
shipments rose by 33% between 2003
and 2005. Although Canada’s economy
is historically associated with resource
industries, today only about 13% of our
total economic output comes from this
sector.3
• Residential and non-residential
construction markets are booming.
• The region continues to support a
vibrant tourism industry and attract
a dynamic array of financial, legal,
scientific, creative industry and
technical service companies.
• We are home to 40 of the head
offices of Canada’s largest 500
companies4 and corporate profits
are soaring.
Economy
• The numbers also do not accurately
reflect the experience of many who live
in the region and who, for whatever
reason, do not feel the effects and
benefits of the region’s prosperity.
The shortcomings of prevailing economic
systems and the uneven results of
conventional approaches are apparent in
the growing concentrations of wealth, the
vast disparities in health, education, and
income and the decreasing local control
that are being experienced in communities
all over the world. The imperative
to achieve more just and sustainable
economies also underlines the majority of
the MDG Goals.
OUR LOCAL AND GLOBAL
GOALS
“ We live in a world
in which immense
wealth and extreme
poverty live side
by side.”
– Koffi Annan
Around the world and here at home,
we are still searching for the meaning of
partnerships for fair, just, and profitable
global and local economies. This search as
it applies to Vancouver can be articulated
in the following goal:
Regional
development and growth
that is directed by citizens and
their elected representatives towards
enhancing long-term regional wellbeing
while ensuring that (1) social, cultural,
environmental and economic benefits and
costs are adequately balanced, (2) that regional
consumption of natural and socio-economic
resources does not compromise communities
elsewhere in the world or the ability of
natural elements or species to flourish;
and (3) that development decisions
are made by way of transparent,
inclusive and accountable
processes.
22
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Economy
INDICATOR
1
A Local Index for a Vital Economy
(LIVE) that measures
• The availability of venture capital, to
indicate the level of investment in the
region’s innovative capacity.
OUR CURRENT FOCUS…AND
WHAT IS HIDDEN FROM VIEW
Myriad statistics and indices relate to
various components of the economy.
However, in many cases, these numbers
hide the realities of people’s everyday
experience.
• While unemployment rates are at
historic lows, 5.7% in 2005 and dipping
down to 4.1% in early 2006, fewer
people have full time jobs and it is
increasingly difficult to obtain sufficient
income from a single job to live
comfortably in the region.5
• While the minimum wage in Vancouver
is $8/hour, this represents a shrinking
proportion of the amount actually
needed to live here.6
• While income levels may have risen,
consumer and mortgage debts have
increased dramatically, with a doubling
of per capita debt between 1982 and
2001.7
• While permit values and housing starts
have risen, the costs of housing have
outpaced income gains resulting in
rapid and significant deterioration in
housing affordability.8
LOOKING
AHEAD…
23
• Build on existing alternative
economic indices to reflect
the full complement of local
priorities.
• The living wage ratio, to indicate the
proportion of jobs offering a livable
wage by regional standards.
• Product and sector diversity, to indicate
movement away from the boombust cycle of dependency in any one
industry or job type.
• Housing affordability, a measure based
on the proportion of household income
required to service the average cost of a
mortgage, plus taxes and utilities
• Household debt loads.
• Under-employment, going beyond the
unemployment figures to shed further
light on the extent of hardship and
under-utilization of labour.
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• This index will combine a unique set of
indicators to provide a new measure of
people-centred economic progress.
• The components of the index provide
insight into how economic development
is being experienced by people living in
the region.
12% in 2005, about half of what was
disbursed in Montreal.10
• A living wage ratio for Vancouver could
be calculated based on a minimum
monthly budget, (see Poverty section
for explanation of Market Basket
Measure), and measured against the
percent of jobs that allow us to pay for
these minimum needs.
• Sector diversity is a measure of our
economic opportunities mix, as
represented by the relative contribution
of different industry sectors.
• The Royal Bank publishes a regular
housing affordability index for cities
and provinces in Canada.
• Statistics Canada collects annual data
on household debt through its Survey
of Household Spending.
• Statistics Canada also calculates rates of
under-employment with data collected
through the Labour Force Survey.
However, there is not a measure that rolls
these variables into a single index.
INDICATOR
2
Number of land use bylaws
passed by municipalities that
contravene the vision and
principles outlined in the
Vancouver region’s Livable
Region Strategic Plan (LRSP)
(see next page)
• It speaks to real and perceived levels of
economic security.
Data to support most of the measures
identified for inclusion in the LIVE
currently exist at some level:
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• Nationwide, we know that Canada
ranks third in the world for venture
capital activity (with 631 deals
brokered) and that these deals are
relatively small at $2.9 million on
average. Virtually all of these dollars
get invested in cities.9 BC disburses
only 30% of what Ontario does in
venture capital, for a total of $226
million in 2005. Vancouver received
9% of the dollars disbursed in 2004 and
As the GVRD currently tracks progress on
the four key strategies of the LRSP, major
Actions which contravene the vision
and principles contained in the LRSP
threaten to impede the livability and
environmental integrity of the region.
Such actions represent a rejection and
failure of the participatory regional
governance process. They also represent
critical setbacks to achieving our vision as
a region.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
INDICATOR
(1) Protect Greater Vancouver’s natural
assets, called the Green Zone;
(2) Build complete communities
that provide a wider range of
opportunities for day-to-day life;
(3) Achieve a compact metropolitan
region which accommodates
growth within the “growth
concentration area”; and
(4) Increase transportation choice.
departures from the plan’s strategies are
on record. For example, between 2003
and 2004, records show negative trends in:
• Participation in the regional ride share
program;
• The amount of protected agricultural
land; and
• The number and proportion of groundoriented housing inside and outside the
growth concentration area.
LOOKING
AHEAD…
• Build on existing information by
identifying where in the region LSRP
contraventions take place and to what
effect.
Economy
Increase in efficient resource
use in local municipalities (oil
equivalent per capita)
Annual Energy Use Per Capita
9000
8000
kg oil equivalent
The Livable Region Strategic Plan
(LRSP) is Greater Vancouver’s regional
growth strategy, adopted in 1996 with
the formal support of all municipalities
in 1996. The primary goal of the plan is
to help maintain regional livability and
protect the environment in the face of
anticipated growth. It consists of four
key strategies:
3
7000
WHAT CAN WE DO?
6000
5000
Globally….
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
Canada
Vancouver
Region
Geneva
At approximately 7135 kg oil equivalent
used annually per capita, Vancouverites
are not as severe energy hogs as the
average Canadian, but are almost
three times as inefficient as the average
Genevan. Taking a 150 lb (or 68.2 kg)
person as the average, we burn over 100 X
our weight in oil equivalent each year!11
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• Despite our region’s richness
in relatively clean energy from
hydroelectric dams, only 22% of our
total energy needs are provided by
hydro electricity. Much greater shares
of our energy needs are met by burning
natural gas (49%) and gasoline (22%).12
• We can do much more to develop
alternative energy sources, such
as wind, geo-exchange, solar and
hydrogen. For example, wind power,
that already generates 5% of Germany’s
electricity, represents only 0.4% in
Canada.13 None of this diminishes our
need to become more energy-efficient
overall.
• Work to tie data more closely to the
regional governance process.
• Track the competitiveness of our
region’s industries, institutions and
households based on the efficiency of
our energy consumption.
• Support the movement towards a more
sustainable global economy: one that
operates in relation to a triple bottom
line balancing social, environmental as
well as economic principles.
• Support the development of
integrated policies that emphasize
sound environmental management,
sustainable trade promotion, and
poverty reduction.
• Promote mutually supportive trade and
environment policies.
• Strengthen environmental management
and the implementation of multilateral
environmental agreements through
economic instruments and subsidy
reform.
Locally…
• Make an effort to support the regional
economy by purchasing goods and
services from companies that are owned
by locals.
• As not everywhere in world enjoys the
same standards of labour, purchase Fair
Trade products where available.
• As an investor, seek a “living return”
on your investments by putting your
savings into funds that are ethically
screened or community based.
• On June 13th, 2006, Vancouver’s mayor
proclaimed Vancouver a Learning City
to enhance our potential to contribute
to “the emerging knowledge-based
economy.” Decide for yourself what this
means for Vancouver.14
24
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
GOVERNANCE FOR
SUSTAINABILITY:
MANY VOICES, MORE LEARNING,
BETTER PUBLIC DECISIONS
25
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
‘Governance’ is how a community makes
public choices about the distribution of
scarce resources.
• Governance is best supported by a full
spectrum of human and social capital
supports – like education, health, and
strong neighbourhoods with vibrant
civil society – in addition to a fair and
democratic electoral system.
• Nations around the world with good
governance are synonymous with
wealthy nations.
• This relationship works both ways:
good governance helps achieve higher
quality of life, and higher quality of life
can support better governance.1
For some people in some places, it may
cost next to nothing to raise their voice
to help make public decisions that affect
their lives. For others, even within
democratic countries, the costs can be
prohibitive. For example, those who do
not understand English as a first language
and those who live in out-of-the-way
or overlooked neighbourhoods may
face significant challenges that prevent
them from participating in elections and
in public and citizen-based efforts to
influence government decisions.
There is evidence that all of this is true
in Vancouver, as it is around the world.
As urban citizens in Canada, even
when we can use our voice, we face
additional challenges. In our region,
citizens do not directly elect members
of the regional board for governance in
land use planning, solid waste, water,
electricity, and transportation. Because of
the way parliamentary seats are allocated
in Canada, an urban vote at federal and
provincial levels is worth almost
one-third less than a rural vote.2
As a result, we cast our ballots but have
less say.
The issue of fiscal imbalance – cities not
getting their fair share of tax revenue
to enable them to make the best public
decisions – also looms large in the
good governance debate. Municipal
governments receive less than 10% of
existing taxes. The primary sources of
these taxes, property tax and user fees,
do not rise at the rate that cities like
Vancouver are growing.
Governance
As our city-region tries to take on more
responsibilities to meet our expectations,
economic pressures climb. Amongst
urban Canadians, 70% agree the local
governments need access to additional
revenues (although not new taxes).3 In
a recent survey of Vancouver residents,
just under 80% answered higher levels of
government need to pay more attention to
the specific needs of Canadian cities.4
As the members of the
Big City Mayors’ Caucus (BCMC),
we represent 22 of Canada’s largest
cities . . . our ability to be initiators
and incubators of economic growth
and prosperity is challenged by
growing fiscal constraints that can no
longer be ignored by other orders of
government . . . We are ready to work
in partnership with our provincial/
territorial governments and the
federal government to right the fiscal
imbalance and ensure our
collective prosperity.5
26
Governance
OUR LOCAL AND GLOBAL
GOALS
The Government of Canada has struck
a New Deal for Cities and Communities
which may work to correct these
imbalances. Under the ‘Old Deal,’ we
might say, Canada’s cities grew and
prospered in spite of the priorities at
higher levels of government, because
immigrants, businesses and other
important institutions chose to establish
themselves there. The New Deal seeks
more money, more power, and effective
and accountable governance at the level
closest to people, our cities.
To RVu, tracking the progress of
governance in our region must mean more
than counting votes. In order to correct
the persistent losing that occurs in our
region when it comes to having all voices
heard, and to use our governance system
to full affect in advancing sustainability,
we need to:
• Recognize connections between
governance, stewardship and learning,
to broaden the scale of consciousness of
how governance affects our lives and
the lives of our children’s children.
• Measure the degree of separation
between public input and policy
making – and work to close the gap.
• Connect governance to sustainability:
take inventory of on-going
sustainability activities and public
awareness about sustainability in
the city.
• Bolster our courage to take
responsibility for our impact and our
solutions.
27
Our goal for the
Vancouver region is to
create governance systems
that are participatory, democratic,
and responsive to the present while
preparing for the future. Governance in
the Vancouver region ought to incorporate:
access to meaningful involvement in
governance for all people; accessible
educational opportunities; transparency,
accountability and fiscal responsibility.
Governance for the Vancouver region should
also include mechanisms to measure social,
economic, environmental and cultural
change, should represent the
region’s diverse values and link
explicitly to principles of
sustainability.
RVu’s interest is to develop indicators of
governance for sustainability that help us
achieve these goals.
“When binding decisions are
made no citizen’s claims as to the laws,
rules, and policies to be adopted are to
be counted as superior to the claims of
any other citizen.”6
OUR CURRENT FOCUS AND
WHAT IS HIDDEN FROM VIEW
Since 1996, the World Bank has published
good governance ratings for 209
countries. Several hundred indicators
are used to address six key themes: voice
and accountability; political stability
and absence of violence; government
effectiveness; regulatory quality; rule of
law; and control of corruption. The UNHabitat Global Urban Observatory has
worked to collect and publish comparable
indicators at the local level, but this
becomes a monumental task, mostly
because of challenges in data collection.
Collecting data on turnout to civic
elections seems like a simple starting
point, yet even this is fraught. Do we
count voters as a proportion of the total
population? Do we count only those who
register to vote, or those who are eligible
to vote? We lose comparability no matter
what choice we make, because different
countries and cities have different rules.
In the UK, for example, non-citizens
can vote in local elections under some
conditions; in Brazil, the voting age is 16.
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
In the City of Vancouver, we see in the
figure below that, keeping community
population constant (with an average
28% of those eligible participating in
Vancouver local elections), if an entirely
different set of residents participated in
each election cycle it would take four
elections (or 16 years) to guarantee all
community members cast one vote.
However, the most likely scenario is
that certain members of the community
always, or almost always, vote, where
other members never, or almost never,
cast ballots.
60%
Voter Turnout in the
City of Vancouver7
50%
40%
30%
20%
Turnout by Total Population
10%
Turnout by Eligible Population
0%
1984
1986
1988
1990
1993
1996
1999
2002
2005
“While ‘ballots cast’ is the most
commonly used numerator, there is
much debate over which denominator
generates the most appropriate voter
turnout measure. For example, 139,761
Vancouver voters cast ballots in 2002
(23% of the population) whereas
only 132,072 participated in the 2005
Vancouver civic election (25% of the
population): a difference of 7000.
Using ‘total population’ accurately
reflects this small difference between
the two elections, but artificially
lowers both scores by including noneligible residents (i.e. people under the
age of 18 and non-citizen residents).”8
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
INDICATOR
Exit poll information from the 2005
Vancouver Civic election suggests that
the voting population does not reflect
the overall composition of the city.
For example, while 27% of Vancouver
residents have a Chinese ancestry, polling
information suggests 14% of the 2005
voting population was Chinese. It also
suggests younger, less wealthy, and less
educated voters are turning out less than
their numbers would justify.9
INDICATOR
1
Empowerment: Percent of
Vancouver region residents
who feel that they have the
opportunity to voice their
thoughts on major community
decisions that affect their lives.
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
Feeling empowered to control one’s
own life is critically important for
long-term sustainability and, at the
same time, incredibly difficult to gauge.
One government may hold forums and
engagement opportunities day after day,
and another government may limit this
activity much more; depending on how
citizens seize these different opportunities
for voice, these two governments may
well have the same level of citizen
input reflected in decisions. Moreover,
as Vancouver has seen most recently,
changes in government can drastically
change municipal commitments to
seek and use public input (Refer to the
following section on Community Building
for an example of this change).
Empowerment is required for citizens to
be aware of opportunities to contribute,
whether it’s election day, a rezoning
application, or a community garden. This
indicator strives for recognition among
adult members of our community that all
voices matter in governance and adequate
opportunities for all to contribute to
decisions that affect our lives.
2
Strategic Planning Initiatives
that Foster Sustainability: The
success of a sample of attempts
by municipalities to reach
a diversity of groups of the
public in strategic work toward
sustainability.
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
Issues of governance are particularly
relevant when it comes to making difficult
trade-offs and long-term decisions to
support sustainability. Governance is
what holds the economic, environmental,
and social components of sustainability
together. Local governance systems
need to connect with the public and
communicate sustainability strategies at
all times, not just on election day. This
new indicator would gauge how well
strategic initiatives for sustainability
within the region are connected to
responsible and responsive engagement of
the public.
There are diverse opportunities for
engagement in decision making for
sustainability.
• The GVRD’s Sustainable Region
Initiative takes a partnership-based
approach to strategic sustainability
initiatives in social, environmental, and
economic realms, through a host of
committees, action teams, and public
fora like the Sustainability Breakfast
series that has run in Vancouver in
2006.
• Other initiatives are brought out
in public through partnerships
with business associations, like the
Urban Development Institute, local
universities, and nongovernment
organizations.
• One remarkable example of citizen
engagement for sustainability within
the City of Vancouver has been
the Southeast False Creek (SEFC)
Stewardship Group, a committee of
concerned citizens struck in 1997 by
Governance
the City to provide a citizen’s voice
to decisions about a new model
sustainable community to be located
in some of the city’s last remaining
underdeveloped land. The group was
remarkable in its willingness to serve
as a stalwart planning advocate for a
neighbourhood that wasn’t yet home to
anyone. This example is a bittersweet
one – and a cautionary tale – as many
of the standards the Stewardship Group
set for SEFC were overlooked when the
City approved development plans in
December 2005.11
We know the opportunities exist.
What we do not know is how well
these opportunities cover the bases of
engagement across the different groups of
our regional population or the quality of
the engagement and its results (the subject
of the next indicator). Answering these
questions will require a new survey across
all 21 municipalities in the GVRD.
LOOKING
AHEAD…
Data should be broken down
demographically to show how well
different groups of residents feel these
opportunities exist.10
28
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
INDICATOR
Governance
3
Sustainability Awareness: Percent of Vancouver residents who are aware of
the Ecological Footprint and understand their contribution to it.
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
As a locally-generated idea with an
international reputation, the Ecological
Footprint provides a good window into
sustainability awareness and continuous
learning region-wide.
Concern about sustainability issues in
Vancouver, and Canada-wide is clear.
What’s more, Canadians see government
as key to action toward sustainability:
LOOKING
AHEAD…
While a public opinion survey
would be a useful way to collect this
information, careful attention will be
required to better understand how well
the concept of the ecological footprint
translates into the different languages
and cultural groups throughout the
region.
29
• 84% of Canadians agree that we need
stricter laws and regulations to protect
the environment;
• 83% agree Canada should reduce taxes
on income, payroll and investment and
replace these with taxes on pollution
and natural resource depletion;
• 82% agree Canada should introduce
laws to promote denser, walkable cities
that would make public transit more
practical and reduce congestion;
• 67% agree Canadians consume more
than our share of world resources.12
The Ecological Footprint is an idea developed
by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees at
the University of British Columbia. Ecological
Footprint Analysis measures the amount of
renewable and nonrenewable ecologically
productive land area required to support the
resource demands and absorb the waste of
a given population. Calculated in 1996, the
Ecological Footprint of an average Vancouver
resident is 4.3 ha, including 2.3 ha for our carbon
dioxide assimilation alone. A ‘fair Earthshare’
would be 1.5 ha. Ecological Footprints can
also be calculated for nations, regions, and
municipalities.13
(See this graphically represented on page 40.)
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Globally. . .
Governance
• Much work remains to be done to
collect and regularly report on base
data about local government and
democratic conditions in cities around
the world. Support the work of UNHabitat toward this end.
• Support on-going efforts to increase
and improve the quality of information
related to decision-making at all levels.
• Support the development of
multilateral, cross-jurisdictional
structures like the UN which facilitate
joint decision making on issues and
trends that affect us across national
boundaries.
Locally . . .
• Multilingual ballots, ward or
proportional representation systems,
and election finance rules have all been
used to ease the burden on persistent
losers. In many cases these remedies
have been court-ordered instead of
legislated.
• BC’s recent Citizens’ Assembly was an
astounding process for the interest and
learning it generated province-wide
in the way our electoral system works
and how it could work better. The final
recommendation from the Citizens’
Assembly was for a Single Transferable
Vote system. 57% of voters supported
switching to this new voting system
in a 2005 referendum. We will vote
again on the issue at the next provincial
election in 2009. 14
“ For our people,
[governance] is a matter
of our value system being
eroded by the raising
of a different kind of
governance system [and
putting] validity into
a system that doesn’t
create sustainability.
With respect to how we
govern ourselves, how we
manage our politics, our
social lives, it’s very much
relative to how individuals
get jobs.”
- David Dennis, Vice-President,
United Native Nations
and member, Nu-Chal-Nuth
and Carrier Sekani nations
• Support the union of sustainability
initiatives and public engagement by
attending a forum, joining a working or
advisory group, and using your voice!
30
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
BUILDING
COMMUNITY
FROM THE BOTTOM UP
31
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
The success of sustainability initiatives
can only be partial without the full
support of communities, and more
and more, individuals and civil society
organizations are seizing their right
to inform decisions from the “bottom
up.” Some organizations argue that the
Millennium Development Goals are
currently ineffective because they were
imposed from the “top down” by UN
member states. Much of the work of
localizing the MDGs involves making the
goals applicable to organizations on the
ground.
• Like urban regions around the world,
Vancouver is seeing a growing gap
between the “haves” and “have-nots”
through increasing income disparities.
• The region hosts one of the richest
– and one of the poorest - postal codes
in the country.
• Discrepancies exist in the wage rates,
employment opportunities, shelter and
health status of new immigrants to the
region, Aboriginal peoples and women.
Vancouver is heralded as one of the most
livable cities in the world.
• Compared to other regions in Canada,
few Vancouver residents report
feeling a sense of belonging to their
community.1
• Most residents enjoy a high quality of
life with access to a wide array of public
and private goods and services.
The differences are even more shocking at
a country-wide scale.
• The region is safe and politically secure.
• Infrastructure is effective and well
maintained.
• Set between the Coast Range mountains
and the Pacific Ocean, the region is
surrounded by exquisite natural beauty.
• Increased immigration is contributing
to the cultural richness, diversity and
vibrancy of the region.
As Vancouver prepares to hit the
world stage as host of the Olympic and
Paralympic Games in 2010, its future
is awash with exciting opportunities.
However, the degree to which this
prosperity benefits the region as a whole,
will depend largely on the strength and
cohesiveness of our communities.
Currently, there are a number of signals
which suggest that community building is
diminishing in this region.
Community
• As reported in the 2005 Human
Development Report, while in
economic terms, people and countries
are being brought together and
linked through trade, technology and
investment, “in human development
terms the space between countries is
marked by deep and, in some cases,
widening inequalities in income and life
chances”.2
“Within countries, civil society
organizations contribute to
MDG-based poverty reduction
strategies in at least four
ways: publicly advocating for
pressing development concerns,
helping design strategies to
meet each target, working with
governments to implement
scaled-up investment programs,
and monitoring and evaluating
efforts to achieve the Goals.”3
• There is a perception that the forces of
globalization are in many cases acting
to undermine community solidarity.
• This increasing divisiveness of our
societies has also been identified as
the primary stumbling block to the
achievement of the MDGs.
As such, building community
is a growing priority for how
people in the region relate to
one another and how the
region as a whole relates
to the rest of the world.
There
is growing
realization that,
in order to be
sustainable, cities
must also be
inclusive.
32
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Community
“This indicator of
‘third spaces’ is
very interesting.
It could be a field
where the sports
team gets together
and has a discussion
about -- we’re going
to lose our baseball
diamond, we should
get together and
organize. Or at the
coffee shop or on
the way down the
street when you
meet somebody when
you’re walking your
dog. What excites me
is the intention of it.”
- Spencer Herbert,
Vancouver Parks
Board Commissioner
33
OUR LOCAL AND GLOBAL
GOALS
Governments need a strong, healthy,
flourishing civil society to accomplish
any goal, global or local. Individuals
also derive great personal and social
benefits from community participation.
Despite the impression left by most major
media sources that materialism and
consumerism have conquered civic spirit
and the desire for community building
activities, in a recent global survey, large
majorities agreed that gaining more time
for leisure activities and family life is their
biggest goal in life, while 54% thought
“less emphasis on money and material
possessions” would be a good thing.4
Building community is an end unto itself.
A cohesive community contributes to the
overall quality of life of individuals and
groups in the region.
• It improves the health of the population
by reducing social and economic
distances between people.
• It creates an open environment that
celebrates diversity, values different
ways of knowing and recognizes
people’s lived experiences.
• It also sees to it that all members of
the community participate as equally
valued and respected citizens.
Further, building community is an integral
means for achieving our goals in that a
strong community helps to ensure that the
way forward is guided by perspectives of
all and reflective of the diversity of values
that prevail in the region.
OUR CURRENT FOCUS AND
WHAT IS HIDDEN FROM VIEW
• The reality of the increases in income
disparities are grounded through
stories of residents struggling to live in
one of the world’s most livable cities.
• We are seeing an increasing number of
immigrants to the region – more than
any other city in Canada – and while
these immigrants are integral to the
local labour force and economy and
stand to enhance the cultural richness
of the region, the increasing degrees of
difference among residents can also be a
destabilizing force.
• While crime rates are dropping in the
region, people feel as though their
communities are less safe.5 The poorer
the family, the more likely they are to
disagree that parks and play spaces in
the community are safe (see figure on
the next page).
• A downward trend in voter turnout has
persisted since 1980 – and youth voter
turnout is particularly low.6
• Only about 16% of Vancouverites know
all of their neighbours.7
This information points to the magnitude
of the issue and underscores the need for
community building activities. However,
we have very little information on:
• The state and emergence of positive
trends,
• The forces that bring people together,
and
• The quality and frequency of
opportunities for people to engage with
At the global level, the importance of
one another.
community building is reflected in the
goal to develop a global partnership
for development.
Community
At the local level, it is simply:
building
…towards a
sustainable
future.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
INDICATOR
1
The number and location of
“third spaces” around the region,
i.e. physical spaces that:
INDICATOR
2
The number of institutions,
organizations and businesses
which engage with the public on
a regular basis
• Are both public and private spaces
• People use to get together and share
ideas, without feeling rushed on
• Are quasi-formal spaces where people
feel comfortable
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• This indicator speaks to the location
and quality of spaces in the region for
groups of people to gather informally
and engage with one another and as
such, addresses one of the issues that
residents see as a key impediment
to effective community building in
Vancouver.
• Further, it defines these informal,
unplanned spots throughout the
city as locations of meaning, “third
spaces” and thus brings them – and
the importance of such spaces - to
the attention of policy makers and
planners.
• Mapping the third spaces by
neighborhood will reveal discrepancies
with respect to opportunities for
informal engagement between
residents.
• A lack of third spaces may also serve
as a proxy for a lack of community
cohesion.
Currently, knowledge related to third
spaces resides only with the residents
of the region.To date, there is not an
inventory of these spaces, or even a formal
category for this type of land use.
Community
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• This indicator captures the scope and
frequency of opportunities for residents
to engage with local businesses,
government and nongovernment
organizations.
• It tracks the growing emphasis among
businesses and government on
public involvement and stakeholder
engagement.
• It provides a means to recognize
agencies that are making an effort to be
open and transparent, promoting such
good practice.
• Voluntary reporting and accountability
initiatives such as AccountAbility and
the Global Reporting Initiative, as well
as international and regional standards
agencies such as ISO 14001 encourage
some degree of public consultation.
• In most sectors, stakeholder
engagement and public consultation
have become a standard part of doing
business.
LOOKING
AHEAD…
30
% Parents Who Disagree
They Have Safe Parks8
25
20
15
10
5
0
High SES
Mid-High SES
Mid-Low SES
Low SES
Neighbourhood socio-economic status
(SES) and parents who disagree that there
are safe parks and play spaces.
• Data on “third spaces” can be
obtained in two phases: first
through a community mapping
exercise, and secondaly by way of
a survey of regional residents.
• We can also work to incorporate
a series of questions into existing
standards and guidelines for
stakeholder engagement
34
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Community
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
While the previous indicator assesses the
number of opportunities to engage, this
indicator speaks to the quality of that
engagement.
INDICATOR
3
The number of public
consultations which achieved
“true dialogue”, meaning that:
• There was equity in participation
• Participants demonstrated a
willingness to listen and understand
• Participants accepted the possibility
that their position might be changed
through dialogue
• There was a sharing and exploring of
assumptions
• The process allowed for a diversity of
perspectives
• One of the key impediments to
community cohesiveness is a lack of
understanding and appreciation for
others and for difference.
• Various guidelines for stakeholder
engagement exist, but these generally
fall short with respect to measuring the
achievement of “true dialogue”.
• Achieving principles of true dialogue
further ensures that all participants
have equal opportunity to speak and be
heard.
• True dialogue also has an important
learning and personal development
component; the outcome is not just
collective decisions but personal growth
for participants.
• The data for this indicator would reveal
the degree to which community events
are truly inclusive.
• In many cases, process participants
are not given a chance to evaluate the
engagement activities.
LOOKING
AHEAD…
• The reoccurrence of insincere or
inconsequential engagement activities
by institutions has left many members
of the public feeling disillusioned.
• These experiences have also led to the
eroding trust that the public has in
corporations and in government.9
• Develop and test a series of
questions to evaluate the level
of dialogue achieved in public
engagement activities
35
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Globally….
• Global events such as the World
Urban Forum present tremendous
opportunities for building global
partnerships and a sense of common
purpose.
• International agreements and treaties
work to unite communities, businesses
and governments from across the globe
towards achievement of a common
goal.
• Maintaining commitments to
international aid and development is
key to the legitimacy of our attempts to
engage one another internationally and
address the deplorable inequities and
inadequate life conditions faced by our
neighbours.
Locally…
• As part of preparing Vancouver’s bid
to host the Winter 2010 Olympics, an
Inner-City Inclusive Commitment
Statement was prepared, making 37
commitments to local jobs and housing
opportunities, civil liberties and public
safety, sports and culture, health and
other advances especially important
to our communities.10 Keep watch on
developments at VANOC to ensure
promises are kept!
• Become involved in your community
- volunteer, or join a board.
• Take part in some of the region’s unique
and extraordinary community festivals
and events.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
ADAPTIVE ENVIRONMENT:
GROWING ECO-HEROES IN A LIVING REGION
36
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Natural
Environment
The Greater Vancouver Region is a living
organism striving to dynamically achieve
and maintain equilibrium within its own
social, economic and environmental
components that are directly and
intricately linked to those of the global
commons. Decision-making in the region
will occur in the context of restoring and
regenerating equitable consumption of
global environmental resources and not
compromising the ability of ecosystems,
future generations and other societies
to flourish. The region will actively
and equitably involve its citizens in
decision-making and will be a global
leader in innovation and education of
environmental sustainability.
What types of ‘inputs’ to life in this
region are so essential that our lives could
not continue if something happened to
them? We all know that we are in some
way dependent on a functioning climate
system, clean water, and some form of
usable energy. But, there are many other,
less obvious, services that ecosystems
provide as the backbone to our societies
– like pollination for many plants, genetic
diversity for habitats and sources of
scientific discovery and poetic inspiration,
nitrogen fixation for healthy soils.
In this region as in many others, we have
elaborate infrastructure systems – waste
management and water distribution,
agriculture, green space networks, energy
grids - that often are designed to replace
or improve upon the basic functions that
ecosystems provide in support of life.
Better indicators of our relationships with
the non-human living environment will
help us make decisions about when this
built infrastructure costs more to build or
maintain than the natural systems that in
some cases do a better job.
All around the world, people are worried
about the environment. In a global
survey in 2000, nearly three-quarters
of respondents said water pollution is
a serious problem and over half said
that rainforest destruction, diminishing
natural resources, air pollution, ozone
layer depletion, species loss, and climate
change are serious problems.1
• As climate change comes home to
unsettle our communities, total CO2
emissions around the world continue to
rise, up 15% in 2002 over 1992 levels, for
a total above 24 billion metric tonnes.2
• Rich countries like Canada continue to
consume an average of 11% more fossil
fuels per capita than poor countries.3
• At 8,240 kg of oil equivalent per capita
in 2003, Canada used 5% more energy
per capita than the United States.4
37
• In Canada, close to 55% of greenhouse
gas emissions can be influenced by
municipal policies and decisions.5
The most common way urban residents
are asked to think about the natural
environment is as a trade-off, as in:
Create jobs or protect the environment?
Build your dream home or protect the
environment? Enjoy convenience or
protect the environment? Rarely are issues
presented as opportunities for win-win
alternatives. Many Canadians, however,
consistently seek out, respond to, and
even create opportunities to improve
urban environments:
• Almost 80% of urban Canadians
surveyed agree that “I believe we
can develop cities and towns that
are economically prosperous and
environmentally friendly without
having to compromise one goal for
another.”6
• 91% of people in North America put
aside garbage for reuse, recycling, or
safe disposal.7
• An efficient composting and recycling
program is rated as very important
to quality of urban life by 38% of
Canadians, more than those who rate
a thriving business community as very
important (33%).8
• There are some contradictory messages.
Across the country and all demographic
groups, only 37% of urban Canadians
agree that “communities should be
designed to be more compact and
densely populated to help reduce urban
sprawl” in order to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions.9
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
OUR LOCAL AND GLOBAL
GOALS
• MDG 7, Ensure Environmental
Sustainability, is approached through
3 targets that clearly demonstrate
the human nature of environmental
issues. These targets focus attention
on sustainable policies and programs,
increasing access to safe drinking
water, and improving the lives of slum
dwellers. In Vancouver, we contribute
to these goals by eliminating waste,
and demonstrating effective urban
sustainability policy, among other
means.
• “Waste equals food” is one of the
principles of the internationallyrecognized Natural Step framework.
Cities like Toronto have adopted waste
reduction goals, resulting in that case in
a 36% diversion of waste between 2002
and 2004.10 The GVRD recently upped
the ante on our regional performance,
formally adopting a zero waste
challenge.11
• Eliminating waste has a great deal to
do with the looming waste crisis in the
region: the major landfill site at Cache
Creek is scheduled to close when full
in 2008. No acceptable replacement
landfill exists.
• The Vancouver Organizing Committee
for the Olympic Games has taken a
strong environmental stance so far in
its planning for 2010. Organizers of the
2010 Winter Games have committed
to “wherever possible, conserving
resources, preventing pollution and
protecting and enhancing natural
marine and forest ecosystems” through
the promotion of green buildings and
clean energy, clean transportation and
zero waste.12
• Fearing that the Canadian federal
government is backing down from
Kyoto Protocol promises, Canada’s
municipal governments committed
in June 2006 to take these promises
further, by making policy and
operational changes for a global
reduction in greenhouse gas emissions
of 30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, based
on 1990 levels.13
Natural
Environment
OUR CURRENT FOCUS AND
WHAT IS HIDDEN FROM VIEW
• Our region recycles just over half of the
waste we dispose. Reducing waste and
increasing efficiency for households,
businesses and institutions can only
be a partial strategy to a waste-less
environment. About one-fifth (21.3%)
of the waste in our region comes from
residential sources, while 41.5% comes
from light industrial, commercial, and
institutional sources and over onethird (37.2%) comes from demolition,
landclearing and construction.14
• Though the recycling rate is high in
the construction, demolition and land
clearing sectors, we have no regional
waste policies specific to the needs of
this booming industry and, as a result, a
significant but untracked amount of the
waste from these activities ends up in
unauthorized landfills.15
• Research conducted by BC Hydro in
2002 revealed the significant untapped
potential of biomass, geothermal, small
hydro, tidal current and wind energy
sources. Yet, our progress in developing
these alternative sources remains
sluggish.16
• Green building is picking up as a
positive trend in our region. Six
buildings are certified by Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED). Over 40 others are registered
to be LEED certified when complete.
Others meet energy efficient targets but
are not formally certified.17
38
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Natural
Environment
Natural capital indicators (and all measures) need to be presented in ways that
help analyze the links between actors, actions, and outcomes. The community and
its decision makers need to visualize and understand these links. Indicators are not
the end of the process, but the beginning. If they are not followed by substantive
responses that are appropriate for the problems identified, they are useless. . . There
are far too many instances where efforts to understand the state of the environment
were short-lived, data were collected for a few years, then stopped, and never
integrated into specific policy-making for the environment . . . Snapshots of various
national and urban indicators that began in the early 1990s can still be found on
Environment Canada’s web page, but were not updated regularly. Emphasis on
environmental indicators re-emerged in the late 1990s, but again, there are risks that
initiatives will not be continued. A similar story can be told for virtually all of the
federal/provincial environmental round tables that were created in the 1990s and
now no longer exist.18
We can meet our multiple goals in supporting the natural environment in our region by
considering them together, as in the following ‘circuit board:19
Reduce the
transport
distances for
goods
Healthy Mobility
Promote local
alternatives to
global sources
of goods
Pursue
reduced rates
of personal
car use
Promote more
ecologically
friendly
product choices
Increase
consumer
recycling
rate
Building design
that supports
renovation
over demolition
Increase
diversion of solid
waste
from
landfills
A REGENERATIVE AND
ADAPTABLE NATURAL
ENVIRONMENT
Promote
transfer to
non-fossil fuels
Encourage
fulfillment by
non-material
means
Reduce regional
contribution to
global atmospheric
environmental
challenges
Increasing
psychological
engagement
with the
environment
Building
design
to reduce
emissions
MITIGATING CLIMATE
CHANGE
39
Minimize
pollutant
loadings to the
aquatic
environment
Reduce regional
demand for global
environmental
source and
sink functions
Reduce inputs of
consumer
goods and
outputs of waste
Re-focus the
consumer toward a
culture of
sufficiency rather
than excess
Less
production
waste
Increase use
of recyclable
materials
Reduced
volume of
packaging
Growing
sense of pride
in the region
Provides a
healthy and
relaxing
natural
setting
Environmental
stewardship is
promoted
Increasing
awareness of
our impacts on
the environment
Mutually reinforcing
Increasing citizen
involvement in
environmental
issues
RECONNECTING TO
THE ENVIRONMENT
Reduce the
dominance of
invasive
species over
native species
Maximize the number
and value of
ecosystem services
provided by the
environment
Maximize
remedial
capacity of
the
environment
Minimize
damage to
ecosystems
Reduce area of
impervious surfaces
Maintain quantity
and quality of
habitat in the
region
Advanced
wastewater
treatment
Select more
eco-friendly
infrastructure
options
Separating
combined
sewers
Promote more
sustainable
building
practices
Reign in sprawling
development that
consumes limited
green space in a
spatially constrained
region
Planning for higher
densities in compact
regional centres
Growth as Development
Reduce
volume
of materials
of luxury and
convenience
REDUCING
HABITAT LOSS
More environmentally friendly production processes
Promoting corporate
transparency to ease
interpretation of
consumption information
Encourage
business to
increase trade
in eco-friendly
products
MINIMIZING
WASTE
Safe & Secure Regional Food System
REDUCING CONSUMERISM AND
CONSUMPTION HABITS
Develop a planning
system that is both
responsive and
forward-looking
Expand
planning
horizons to
address longer
term
environmental
issues
Respond
response
time of
planning
strategies
DEVELOPING AN ECO-FRIENDLY
PLANNING CULTURE
The six boxes in this circuit board figure present the six primary driving forces for urban
environmental goals, with primary and secondary responses within each, and their
relationships.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
INDICATOR
1
INDICATOR
Total regional waste produced
per capita
Waste Disposal Per Capita20
500
450
ECO-HEROES: Percent of
citizens who participate in
environmental stewardship
activities.
Natural
Environment
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• In 2004, 45% of British Columbian
adults volunteered, which was also the
national average.
400
350
300
kg
2
250
• Volunteers in BC contributed 199 hours
on average, the most of any province.
200
150
100
50
0
Geneva
Toronto
GVRD
Many cities, like Geneva and Toronto,
report per capita residential waste.
Including waste from construction
industries, the average resident of this
region sent 641 kg waste to landfill, or
over 12 kg (over 27 lbs) to landfill each
week in 2003.21
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• This is an indicator of stress. It directly
reflects our consumption patterns and
wasted resources.
• Watching our waste helps decrease
the need for landfills and incinerators.
Landfills have the potential to leach
contaminants into our water, soil, and
air, and take up valuable space in our
landscape. Incinerators pollute the air
and their residue can be highly toxic.
• For the Vancouver region, this means
we spend approximately 170 million
hours volunteering annually, or the
equivalent of the labour force of
Abbotsford or half the labour force of
the City of Victoria. In the 2004 survey,
there was virtually no difference
between volunteer rates in big cities like
Vancouver and the provincial figures.22
• Volunteerism counts. In a survey
conducted in 2004, 84% of urban
Canadians viewed the contribution
of volunteer groups as significant
to their quality of life, well ahead
of individuals, businesses, or local
government.23
• The natural environment matters. When
asked about priority areas of focus for
community renewal, 41% of urban
Canadians chose the environment,
more than any other issue. This issue
was most important to people in large
cities like Vancouver and to women.24
LOOKING
AHEAD…
• Waste is inefficient. Packaging is one
example where energy and material is
spent on something that has no end use
and quickly finds its way into the waste
stream.
• Every year, we ship and truck into our
region thousands of tonnes of consumer
items which may spend a few days in
our pockets, on our shelves, and in our
homes, and an eternity in our landfills.
This is an inefficient use of our roads,
shipping infrastructure, and the fossil
fuels that power these systems.
In the Province of Prince Edward
Island, 47% of residents surveyed
participated in environmental
improvement activities.25
Reporting on this indicator
will require a new survey, in
partnership with governments
and key environmental volunteer
organizations.
40
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Natural
Environment
INDICATOR
3
GROWING THE GREEN CITY:
Percent of development
on greenfield versus
brownfield land.
Land Types in the
Green Zone
28%
31%
5%
20%
16%
Watersheds, parks,
conservation lands
Agricultural land
Crown land/forestry land/
golf courses
Other municipal and
private land
Developed land
The GVRD designates a ‘Green Zone’
that captures nearly 70% of the region’s
territory in drinking watershed lands,
major wetlands and floodplains, forests
and conservation areas, farm and forestry
lands, and major parks.
The region’s developed land outside the
Green Zone corresponds to about 400 m2
per person. This is nearly double the rate
in Geneva, with 202 m2 per person.
41
This information is somewhat misleading,
however. Regions like Geneva and Zurich
measure this indicator by the area of
valuable natural land, whereas the Green
Zone is currently ineffective at ensuring
agricultural or ecological viability.
Established in 1996, the Green Zone has
not been amended or measured in the past
eight years. Its boundaries are fuzzy and
include a range of land uses and types
with widely variable ecological value
(see figure below). While the GVRD’s
monitoring report includes the indicator
“number of new non-farm dwelling units
in the Green Zone” in order to measure
and ensure the protection of the Green
Zone from development, this information
has not been collected to date. Close to
half the entire Green Zone consists of
protected areas.
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• Smart Growth BC estimates that
Greater Vancouver could add another
million residents without developing
greenfield land, with modest density
increases.26
• 93% of urban Canadians rate green
spaces and parks important, and over
half (57%) rated these areas as very
important, making green spaces the
second most important attribute of
cities to Canadians, after educational
institutions.27
The proportion of population located
in the Growth Concentration Areas
identified by the Livable Region
Strategic Plan (LRSP) was 65% in 2004.
The target is 70% by 2021.
WHAT CAN WE DO?
Globally . . .
• The World Bank is promoting an
Investment Framework for Clean
Energy and Development. Find out
what it is accomplishing.28
• International agreements to mitigate
and adapt to climate change, such as
Kyoto targets, play an important role.
Keep watch on Canada’s mayors’
commitments to do better than Kyoto.
• Support trade in eco-friendly products.
Locally . . .
• Explore opportunities to engage in
the emergent practice of eco-industrial
networking, through which diverse
partners work together to use and
reuse resources efficiently, improving
competitivness, community and
ecosystem health in the process. A local
example is the Maplewood Project in
the District of North Vancouver, where
redevelopment for a new eco-industrial
networking is currently in progress.29
• Find out about and promote higher
standards in the buildings where you
live, work and play. A new Sustainable
Building Centre has been established on
Granville Island to showcase and share
information about a range of green
building initiatives and opportunities.30
• Take a household challenge with your
neighbours to live with your waste and
recyclables for 2 weeks, to weigh and
compare results at the end.
• Some municipalities set targets for
treecover, enriching the value of
greenfield land. Delta, for example,
intends to have 40% treecover by
2010. Tree planting is a rewarding
stewardship activity that also provides
wind breaks, shelter from sun and rain,
habitat, and oxygenation services.31
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
CULTIVATING OUR REGION FOR
FOOD SECURITY
42
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Food Systems
Globally, hunger and malnutrition
continue to claim more lives per year
than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis
combined.1
• In most of the developed world,
the threat of starvation has
almost disappeared from people’s
consciousness.
• Yet, almost 15% of Canadians, or
an estimated 3.7 million people,
experienced what it was like to live in a
“food-insecure” household at least once
in 2001.2
• Food security issues therefore remain
a key priority with a rising profile of
importance in the region.
Food security [is] “a situation
that exists when all people, at all
times, have physical, social and
economic access to sufficient, safe
and nutritious food that meets their
dietary needs and food preferences
for an active and healthy life.5
Like cities in the developing world,
Vancouver’s food-related sustainability
challenges are:
• Ensuring physical, social and economic
access to food for more vulnerable
members of the population;
• Rising rates of pesticides and chemicals
in our food;
• Mounting development pressures on
the rich, productive agricultural land in
and around our city;
• Increasing dependency on food
produced on “ghost acres” somewhere
else in the world and transported to us;
• Growing control of food production
by a small number of transnational
companies; and
• Diminishing awareness and
appreciation of where our food comes
from and how it is produced.
43
Ecological Footprint
(ha productive land)6
1.5 ha total
fair earth share
1.3 ha for
food production
4.72 ha total
footprint
Challenges related to food security and
sustainability faced in this region and
at the global scale are also implicitly
intertwined:
• Technically, there is enough food on this
planet to feed everyone;
• Over-consumption in this region
therefore impoverishes the ecosphere
and other, poorer nations;
• Since 1998, support for the use of
agricultural chemicals has dropped
worldwide. Chemical pesticides are
now at the top of food-related concerns
expressed by respondents to a global
sustainability survey; 3
• Our accountability clearly stems
beyond our borders.
Recommendation 8 from the UN
Millennium Project is for high-income
countries like Canada to open trade
paths in order to receive exports from
developing countries. We should be
open to this to the extent that there is a
value added – and we think there will
be. Local food, however, is more than a
commodity. It is also a matter of security,
heritage, and sustainable stewardship of
our land. Moreover, as is recommended
for poor countries to meet the MDGs,
we too should seek to export not “a
narrow range of low-margin primary
commodities based on natural (physical)
endowments, [but] a diversified set of
exports based on technology, skills, and
capital investments.”4
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
OUR LOCAL AND GLOBAL
GOALS:
Although world hunger is increasing at
a slower rate, the absolute numbers of
people who struggle to get the food they
need remain steady. In 1996 in Rome,
the first World Food Summit established
a goal to reduce by half the number of
people in the world who went to bed
hungry every night within five years,
from 800 to 400 million. However, five
years later there were still about 800
million hungry people.7
The issue therefore remains a global
priority and at the international scale, our
sights with respect to food security are set
on the MDG goal to: Halve, between 1990
and 2015, the proportion of people who
suffer from hunger. Locally, we aim to:
Be a world
leader in understanding,
protecting and activating our
local food resources, in which
food is equitably distributed and
affordable, the food system is local
whenever possible, but also organic
and ethical in its practices, there are
healthy food choices for all and
support furnished for local
farmers.
OUR CURRENT FOCUS AND
WHAT IS HIDDEN FROM VIEW
The need for a more sustainable food
system in Vancouver - one in which food
production, processing, distribution and
consumption are integrated to enhance
the environmental, economic, social
and nutritional health of a particular
place – is now widely recognized. This
acknowledgement has followed from
more than a decade of community
organizing efforts. It is also supported by
a number of incontestable facts about our
region.
Food Systems
• Food security is currently not
Food Systems
ensured for many of Vancouver’s
citizens, and represents a daily
challenge for many of the region’s
most vulnerable residents.
• Establishing a sustainable food
system requires tackling the social,
economic and environmental
processes involved in keeping us
fed: growing, harvesting, processing,
packaging, transporting, marketing,
consuming and disposing of food.
• Our food costs calculated as a
percentage of disposable income are,
on average, the lowest in the world.
Yet, in many jurisdictions, people
receiving social assistance pay nearly
4 times as large a percentage of their
income for food as people with an
average income. 9
• The number of food banks and the
number of adults and children using
them is increasing; people with
jobs account for 13.3% of food bank
users.10
In 2005, the City of Vancouver
made a formal commitment to
developing a “just and sustainable
food system” for the city; and
approved an action plan which
identifies urban agriculture as a
priority area of focus. 8
• A third of all single mothers,
(representing close to 17% of
households in the city) are food
insecure to some extent, and are 8
times more likely to report hungry
children than other families.11
• A recent study of homeless youth in
Vancouver found that 59% of those
19 and younger and 49% of those 19 24 reported being hungry because of
lack of food at least once a month.12
44
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Food Systems
INDICATOR
A number of key facts about our food
insecure reality clearly denote the
existence of a food security problem. At
the same time, our knowledge remains
critically limited in a number of areas
necessary to track our progress:
• We don’t know the extent to which we
are reliant on food produced outside
the region.
• We don’t have a clear sense of the
region’s capacity to produce food.
• We also don’t know how the lack of
food security impacts residents in the
region.
1
The gap between the % of
income spent by each of 4 income
groups (social assistance, low,
middle, high) needed to purchase
a “healthy” food basket.
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
One of the key issues related to food
security at both local and global scales
relates to equity of access. Presently,
there are vast discrepancies among and
between our communities when it comes
to meeting our basic needs.
• This indicator therefore looks at the
difference in the financial burden of
buying food for families with different
levels of income in the region.
• Narrowing the gap will spell greater
equity of access to food in the region.
• It will also speak to – and have
ramifications for – the health of the
population, the economic security of
households, and people’s capacity to
partcipate fully and equally at work
and in society.
As of 2005, estimates of the average
monthly cost of eating in the province of
BC were as follows:13
LOOKING
AHEAD…
• We need to calculate the cost of
eating specific to the Vancouver
region and to its diverse
neighbourhoods, to understand
micro-scale challenges.
• The cost of eating calculation
also currently does not take
into account concerns among
sustainable food system advocates
for organic and local food.
45
Social
Assistance
Low
Income
Median
Income
High
Income
Avg monthly cost of eating
in BC (family of 4)
$654.46
$654.46
$654.46
$654.46
Avg monthly income
in Vancouver
$1,443
$2,631
$5,262
$8,451
% spent on food
45.4%
24.9%
12.4%
7.74%
Compare these conditions with those in the City of Toronto. There, a family of four with
two children under the age of 13 on social assistance would require $523.71 monthly
for healthy food. This represents 44.5% of the basic needs and shelter allowance and
is clearly too much to spend on food. Still, this family is in better standing than its
counterpart in Vancouver.14
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
INDICATOR
2
Ratio of all land available for
growing food to the potentially
productive land in both urban
and rural areas within the region
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• This indicator speaks to how effectively
we are using available land to meet
food needs.
• The data will provide insight into
regional productivity in relation to food
production.
• It will also reveal the extent to which
this region is planning for food self
sufficiency – or for dependency on
imports from abroad, leaving us
exposed to the whims of the global
marketplace.
INDICATOR
3
Ratio of amount/value of food
items produced and consumed
within the region to the amount/
value imported and consumed
within the region for selected
food products
Food Systems
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• The issue of local self sufficiency is
central to the concept of food security
and to sustainability generally; and this
indicator will help to demonstrate the
degree to which the Vancouver region
is dependent on “ghost acres” and food
products imported from beyond.
• It will also provide insight into the
productivity of the region in relation to
food production.
• Currently, 199,500 ha of the region
(approximately 70% of the total land
base) is within what is called the
“Green Zone” - and approximately 30%
of this zone (or 80,000 ha) is being used
for agriculture.15
• The last survey of community and
allotment gardens in the region
revealed that there are 2270 operating
and developing gardens in the region;16
• A poll conducted in 2002 found
that 44% of people in Greater
Vancouver(more than three quarters
of a million people) live in households
that produce some of their own food.17
• A feasible food production target
for Canadian cities, attained in cities
such as Havana, Singapore, and
Accra, is 20% of fruit and vegetable
consumption.18
LOOKING
AHEAD…
• Expand on current efforts within
the City of Vancouver to collect data
on the amount of land – public and
private – being used to grow food
for the entire region.
• Develop the means to calculate the
total hectares of land capable of
growing food in the region.
46
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Food Systems
• The ingredients of an average meal
eaten in Canada typically travel
between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres
and thus use up to 17 times more
petroleum products, and emit 17
times more carbon dioxide, than an
entirely local meal.19
• The province of British Columbia
exported $4.7 billion in farm and
food products (including fish) in
2002 and imported $6.8 billion the
same year.20
• The City of Burnaby, in our region,
has Canada’s most extensive urban
farming network, comprising 28.3 ha,
and producing 10% of all vegetables
produced in Fraser Valley, including
80% of the spinach and Chinese
vegetables consumed in the Lower
Mainland. 21
LOOKING
AHEAD…
• Undertake a food flow study
of the Vancouver region, using
the methodology employed in
Waterloo as a guide
47
• The City of Waterloo, in the province
of Ontario, undertook a food flow
study in order to ascertain the
percentage of food that is consumed
in the Region of Waterloo has been
grown, raised, and/or processed in
the Region. Conducted in 2004, this
study found that while the majority
of items in the ‘Region of Waterloo
Food Basket contain a moderate
to high degree of content from the
province of Ontario, the amount
amount of Waterloo Region-content
found in food was too low. 22
• Some products that are “BC Grown”
have cultural and historic as well
as nutritional significance for us.
Our apples, cherries, peas – not
to mention our salmon and other
seafood products – are among
the best in the world and a key
part of what makes BC home. For
the moment, it may make global
economic sense to eat these same
products as imports and sell our own
abroad. But it doesn’t make sense to
our local spirit.
• Statistics related to imports and
exports of food are not collected at a
regional level.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Globally….
• The Task Force on Hunger,
established by the UN Millennium
Project with a mandate to develop
a strategy for halving world hunger
by 2015, advanced a set of seven
recommendations for meeting the
MDG goal of eradicating hunger:23
1. Move from political commitment
to action
2. Reform policies and create an
enabling environment
3. Increase the agricultural productivity
of food-insecure farmers
4. Improve nutrition for the chronically
hungry and vulnerable
5. Reduce vulnerability of the acutely
hungry through productive
safety nets
6. Increase incomes and make markets
work for the poor
7. Restore and conserve the natural
resources essential for food security
Locally…
• Start a garden and help the City of
Vancouver or your municipality reach
its goal of 2010 gardens by year 2010.24
• Develop an awareness about where
your food comes from and make an
effort to buy from local producers.
• Challenge yourself to live on a “100
Mile Diet,” eating and drinking only
products grown and produced within a
100 mile radius of where you live.25
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
CULTURE AND THE ARTS:
A VISIBLE MAJORITY
48
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Arts and Culture
While Vancouver is a relatively young
region, it has a distinctive and growing
buzz of creative energy and cultural
vitality.
• As a primary destination for
immigrants to North America, over the
last decade, the region has become one
of the most multicultural cities in the
world.
“If culture is defined
as a way of life, there
can be no doubt that
urbanization and the
growth of cities are
the most significant
cultural shifts of this
century.”4
• Over 70 languages are spoken in the
region and by 2017, it is projected that
more than half of the population will
be what is now considered “a visible
minority.”1
• Our culture with a small ‘c’, meaning
the values and behaviours that make up
the fabric of our region and our broader
relationships with the world, is thus
characterized by a rich and colourful
mix of value systems, religions and
ethnicities.
• At the same time, Culture with a
capital ‘C’, meaning the products
and industries of “the arts” is also
burgeoning in this region.
• Vancouver is a growing hub for creative
industries, film, television and gaming.
• In 2005, there were 70,400 jobs in
‘Information, Culture and Recreation’
sectors. This represents an increase of
40% in the past 10 years and is more
than were employed in the entire
transportation and warehousing sector.2
• We also support a vibrant community
of artists and arts organizations,
schools, symphonies, ballets, and
production companies.
SUB-GOALS:
• Celebrate identity & histories;
• Enhance creativity; and
• Revive spirituality
49
“Arts and culture defines
Greater Vancouver as a community,
helping shape the region’s unique
identity that sets us apart from other
metropolitan areas.”3
Both culture and the arts have a
fundamental impact on this region, the
quality of life that residents experience
and how people participate in it. Arts
and cultural activities help bring a
community to life. They define its unique
characteristics and attract business
and tourists. They also represent a key
medium through which we relate to
the world beyond this region, come to
understand different cultures and gain an
appreciation for other ways of knowing.
While the experience of life in Vancouver
may be remarkably different than that
in other parts of the world, the arts offer
common ground between the local and
global contexts. They provide a platform
for building partnerships, connecting with
our surroundings and strengthening our
mutual accountabilities.
At the same time, because culture is more
difficult to define, it is often overlooked,
superseded by material needs, taken for
granted and seen as a “frill”.
OUR GOALS
Culture and the arts are omnipresent yet
overlooked and so are not identified as
explicit global priorities. Rather, they
represent the motivating energy behind
all of the MDGs. Advancing arts and
culture underlies in particular the goal of
building and maintaining partnerships for
development. In addition, as cultural and
linguistic diversity is based, among other
things, on freedom of information and
expression and the right of everyone to
freely participate in the cultural life of the
community, culture is also an important
component of achieving universal
primary education and promoting
gender equality to empower women.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
INDICATOR
Locally, we have a goal to change the
tangential nature of culture and raise
awareness of its vital importance:
To acknowledge
arts and culture
as an integral part of
the sustainable policy
framework and to follow
this through from policy
to implementation.
OUR CURRENT FOCUS AND
WHAT IS HIDDEN FROM VIEW
While knowledge and appreciation for
culture and the arts remains limited, a
growing cache of statistics corroborates
the role and value of these activities in the
Vancouver region:
• It is estimated that the cultural sector
directly and indirectly accounts
for approximately 11% of regional
employment and $3.45 billion of GDP.6
• 89% of Vancouverites consider arts
and cultural activities important to the
quality of life in their communities,
whether or not they use them regularly.7
• Further, 93% believe that arts activities
help enrich the quality of their lives
and a full 98% agree it is important for
school children to have access to arts
and cultural activities.8
However, information about the variety
and availability of opportunities for
creative expression in the region is much
more limited.
1
Quantity and quality of
opportunities for cultural activity,
as represented by an annually
updated cultural events matrix
Arts and Culture
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
This indicator tracks the stock of venues
available to host cultural activities in
the region for networking and building
momentous events. As such, it provides
a measure of the physical presence and
social range of culture and the arts in our
communities.
• A municipal breakdown of events will
reveal how these spaces are distributed
across the region and highlight gaps.
• An additional aggregation by type of
facility would also provide insight into
the variety of spaces available.
• It is also a proxy for the extent of
cultural activity taking place.
• The City of Vancouver currently
maintains a database of performing arts
facilities in 23 neighbourhoods in the
city.
• The database includes information
on the type of facility, primary use,
location and capacity.
• This provides a basis for expanding the
collection, maintenance and publication
of the data on a region-wide scale.
LOOKING
“We have inherited
a wealth of tangible
and intangible
cultural resources
that embody the
collective memory
of communities
across the world
and buttress
their sense of
identity in times
of uncertainty.
Held in trust for
humankind, these
resources are
essentially nonrenewable.”5
AHEAD…
• Build on the existing inventory with
information collected from various
municipalities around the region
• Work with the cultural sector to
establish a mechanism or process to
keep the inventory current and accurate
50
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Arts and Culture
INDICATOR
INDICATOR
2
Percent of individuals who feel
that they have adequate access,
freedom and time for cultural
and artistic activity
3
Ratio of dollars spent promoting
multicultural awareness/
diversity and artistic endeavours
relative to the dollars these
activities contribute to society
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
• The data will tell us how well our
region allows space for the arts, and
how well we create time for culture in
our lives.
• It will provide an insight on the
accessibility of cultural activities in the
region.
LOOKING
AHEAD…
• Develop and implement a bi-annual
survey of residents of the Vancouver
region to find out:
- how much time we spend engaged
(either as a participant or an
observer) in some form of cultural
or artistic activity;
- whether we perceive amount of time
spent to be adequate;
- perceived barriers to engaging in
cultural activities more often.
51
• In asking people whether they feel
they have ample time for creative
activity, this indicator will also reflect
our perceptions of the value of arts and
culture.
A survey of residents in Greater
Vancouver conducted in 2000 revealed
that 86% support having a wider range
of arts and cultural events in their
communities.9
However, the degree to which people feel
they have time and freedom to attend
these events, and moreover, participate
as often as they would like, remains
unknown.
Expenditures to Revenues in
Arts & Culture
900
800
700
$ Millions
While an adequate supply and variety
of spaces and opportunities for cultural
expression are important, people’s time
to avail of these opportunities is also
essential. This indicator is thus directed to
people’s perceptions of time available for
cultural and artistic activity.
600
500
731
400
300
200
100
200
0
Expenditures
Revenues
All levels of government in Canada
contributed $3.1 billion to cultural
industries and the arts in 2002-2003.
We assume the Vancouver region got a
fair share of this government spending
based on population, or $200 million. The
Vancouver region captured $731 million
revenues from the cultural sector in 2001.
This means that each dollar invested in
the cultural sector led to 3.7 times that
much revenue for the region.10
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
WHAT DOES THIS INDICATOR
BRING TO LIGHT?
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
One way to measure and track our efforts
in nurturing and sustaining culture and
the arts is through the proportion of
monies spent in support of these activities.
We tend to think of arts and culture as the
frills of life rather than as necessities – or
contributors to economic wealth. But we
would be far worse off economically if
we did not have cultural festivals like the
Dragon Boat Festival, ethnic marketplaces
like the Chinese Night Market in
Richmond, music, art, sporting and
theatre events that attract big crowds.
The contribution of arts and culture to
the Province’s GDP in 2004 was up to
$14.5 billion, or 54%, using the following
breakdown (see chart).
Provincial GDP Contributions
by Sector (2004)15
Tourism
Information &Cultural Services
Oil, Gas & Mining
• International festivals, such as Earth:
The World Urban Festival during
WUF3, provide rich opportunities to
share stories and experiences with
others from around the world and to
celebrate and enjoy arts and cultures
from around the globe.
• Globally, we can also collaborate to
implement the principles and action
plan of the Universal Declaration on
Cultural Diversity, which, based on the
premise that cultural diversity is one of
the roots of global development, aims to
promote dialogue among cultures and
civilizations.
Locally…
• Capitalize on events such as the 2010
Olympic and Paralympic Games as
opportunities to advance and celebrate
our local culture and diversity.
Utilities
Pulp & Paper
2,000
3,000
4,000
• Canada-wide, government sources
amount to 28% of the revenues of
performing arts non-profits.11
• In the Vancouver region in 2001,
consumers spent $1.5 billion on
cultural goods and $53 million on live
entertainment, or $732 per capita.12
• Vancouver is having difficulty
attracting culture sector workers
compared to other major Canadian
cities. From 1996-2001, while Toronto
and Montreal attracted over 1000 new
cultural workers, Vancouver attracted
only 190.13
• As % of total workforce, more cultural
workforce families are low-income
(20% compared to 14% of the overall
workforce). This is more low income
workers in the cultural sector than any
other Canadian city except Montreal.14
LOOKING
AHEAD…
Arts, Entertainment & Recreation
1,000
• Policy makers around the globe – and
particularly in regions like Vancouver
with large influxes of ethnic diversity
– can plan for “cities of difference”
that are open to all and exclude none,
and that capitalize on the benefits of a
multicultural existence.
• Support local initiatives to enhance
the profile and prevalence of arts in
Vancouver.
High Tech Industry
0
Globally….
• Take advantage of the rich array of
cultural and creative activities available
in this region.
Accommodation & Food Services
Arts and Culture
5,000
6,000
$ Millions
• Calculate the Vancouver region’s arts
and culture multiplier with more
precision to better understand the hard
value that arts and culture investments
bring.
52
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Our Approach
THE RVU APPROACH
RVu’s approach is to track our progress
at local and global scales, injecting
values into measures, holding ourselves
accountable and motivating positive
action. This approach is founded in the
belief that better indicators – grounded
in local values – will help strengthen
accountability and advance progress
at both regional and global scales. We
recognize the importance of diverse
perspectives in approaching a common
understanding of sustainability and
progress. We also appreciate the highly
complex and integrative nature of social,
ecological, and economic systems that
shape our world.
As such, RVu’s approach has been
designed to support and optimize the
interplay of multiple values and different
knowledge types. We seek to instigate
dialogue on the basis that no absolute
truth is to be found. Further,
we facilitate collective learning and action
on timely issues as they relate to us as
parts of bigger wholes -- individuals,
neighbourhoods, city-regions and global
system.
LOCATING RVU WITHIN
THE LARGER LANDSCAPE:
WORK FOR SUSTAINABILITY
ACCOUNTABILITY IN
VANCOUVER
RVu’s approach has been informed by
extensive research on the frameworks,
processes, and foci of the many indicator
projects that have preceded us locally
and internationally. An examination
of strengths, weaknesses and best
practices highlighted a number of key
success factors for our work toward a
sustainable urban region (see Box: Key
Success Factors). We have done our best
to implement these factors in our work
so far.
Our analysis of local initiatives also
revealed that, while many of the projects
apply one or more of these success factors,
not one broaches them all. As outlined
in the table to the right, the rich array of
initiatives all serve a special purpose. At
the same time, all of us working on these
projects can agree that none is having the
full impact that we would like to see.
KEY SUCCESS FACTORS
Successful urban indicator projects are:
• Generative, drawing local people’s values and concerns out into the open, where
they can be grappled with;
• Integrative, using simple concepts to knit together the complexity of real
experience through increasing numbers of ties;
• Actionable, setting forward the range of actions possible to correct negative trends;
• Derived by the people the indicators are intended to monitor and account for,
which means both experts and citizens;
• Able to communicate to experts and the public at different levels and able to
mobilize and motivate change agents;
• Regional in scope with the flexibility to see differences in municipalities and
neighbourhoods that would disappear in the region-wide averages;
• Scalable, able to zoom in and out to global-local connections, just as our lives,
actions and policies can have local and global effects.
53
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONALPROJECT
VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
FRAMEWORK
PROCESS
AUDIENCE
GEOGRAPHY
Urban systems, defined
locally by public values
Public, with expert
contributions
Change agents
Region
Social Sustainability
Expert driven
Member municipalities
Region
Civic wellness
Expert driven, with
public weighting process
Foundations and public
Municipality
Global Reporting
Initiative
Expert driven
GVRD corporate and
member municipalities
Region
Livable Region Strategic
Plan
Expert driven, based on
consensus document
GVRD corporate and
member municipalities
Region
Urban Systems
Expert driven, public
input
International community
Region
Community Priorities
Steering Committee
Community
organizations
Municipality
FBC Charter of
Sustainability
Expert driven, with
public weighting process
Change agents
Fraser River Watershed
Estuary Management
Plan
Expert driven with
feedback from public and
stakeholders
Decision makers
Fraser River Estuary
BC PROGRESS BOARD
Performance
Benchmarking
Expert driven
Decision makers
British Columbia
CITY OF VANCOUVER
SOCIAL INDICATORS
Federation of Canadian
Municipalities Quality of
Life Reporting System
Expert driven
City
Municipality
RVU
SRI SAT
SUSTAINABILITY
INDICATORS
VANCOUVER
FOUNDATION VITAL
SIGNS
GREATER VANCOUVER
REGIONAL DISTRICT
SUSTAINABILITY
REPORT
GVRD LIVABLE
REGION STRATEGIC
PLAN MONITORING
CITIESPLUS
COMMUNITIES IN
ACTION
FRASER BASIN
COUNCIL
FREMP
LEGEND
Vital Signs
BC Progress Board
Fraser Basin Council
Fraser River Estuary
GVRD/LRSP and RVu
Communities in Action
Social Indicators Reporting
54
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Our Framework
Brief descriptions of these existing
indicator projects in and around the
Vancouver region – and the frameworks
they use – are as follows:
• Indicators for social sustainability
are being developed locally by the
Sustainable Region Initiative Social
Action Team based on a framework
for social sustainability that includes:
living; working; playing; learning;
moving; sense of place; engaging.
• Vancouver Foundation Vital Signs
inititave is aligned with community
foundations from across Canada and
aimed at producing a report card of
‘civic wellness’.
• Greater Vancouver Regional District
(GVRD) Sustainability Report follows
guidelines for sustainability reporting
developed by the Global Reporting
Initiative, which is a multi-stakeholder
process and independent institution
whose mission is to develop and
disseminate globally applicable
Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.
• GVRD Livable Region Strategic Plan
Monitoring tracks performance on the
four priorities of the Livable Region
Strategic Plan, the region’s long-term
development plan described on
page 24.
• citiesPLUS (or cities Planning for
Long-term Urban Sustainability) was
conducted in 2004 to develop a long
term plan and set of indicators for
achieving sustainability over the next
100 years in Vancouver.
55
• Communities in Action indicator
projects are led by the United Way of
the Lower Mainland. They have taken
place in a number of communities
throughout the region (Langley, Maple
Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Katzie, Surrey/
White Rock, Delta, and the tri-cities) to
track progress on community priorities.
• Fraser Basin Council Sustainability
Indicator Reporting Initiative produces
biannual reports tracking progress
towards sustainability goals in the
Fraser River Basin. Indicators relate
to the four directions of the FBC
Charter: Understanding sustainability;
Caring for ecosystems; Strengthening
communities; and Improving decision
making.
• Fraser River Estuary Management
Plan Monitoring Initiative is led by
the Fraser River Estuary Management
Program (FREMP) to monitor
performance on the actions, goals and
vision of the Plan for managing the
estuary’s environment and the sectors
of the economy that depend on the
river for their success or survival.
• BC Progress Board Reports benchmarks
BC over time and relative to other
jurisdictions on measures related to
provincial economic performance and
well-being.
• City of Vancouver Social Indicators
Program follows the Federation of
Canadian Municipalities Quality of
Life Reporting System to measure,
monitor and report on the quality of life
in the municipality of Vancouver, with
respect to developing and maintaining
a vibrant local economy; protecting
and enhancing the natural and built
environment; offering opportunities to
attain personal hopes and aspirations;
promoting a fair and equitable sharing
of common resources; enabling
residents to meet their basic needs;
and supporting social interaction and
inclusion of all in community.
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
RVu’s approach has been implemented
through a 3 phase process, summarized
in the Box: RVu Process. This process
took place over the course of a year. It
involved a broad mix of regional experts
and was fueled by the ideas, visions and
commitments of over a hundred members
of the public.
Initially, issue clusters were identified
by geometric shapes as opposed to
words to avoid channeling ideas or
being caught up by old assumptions.
This process technique enabled study
groups to name and define their
focus as dialogue and
learning progressed.
In Phase 1, academic researchers were
engaged in investigating the state of our
knowledge about and use of indicators
in classic domains – governance, health,
environment, immigration, housing and
homelessness, and Aboriginal issues, with
a look into economics and culture as well.
In Phase 2, the public was involved in a
participatory process to identify focus
areas and select indicators. The outcome
of this process is a set of 24 key indicators
for the Vancouver region, based on a
generative, negotiated logic of integrated
social, environmental, economic, political,
and cultural systems. And in Phase 3, the
work, ideas, creativities and passions of
both groups have been brought together
and related to the global challenge of the
MDGs in this report.
RVu’s approach is a new and unique
contribution to the mix of indicators
and ideas about sustainable urban
development locally and around the
world. We will continue to work to build
more consistency and comparability into
the range of measures and their uses
around the region.
Our Framework
RVU PROCESS
Phase 1 (Jun – Dec 2005) Research
Advisory Process
• Inventory of regional indicator
projects and source information;
• Briefs on the national and
international status of indicators
used in urban health, economy,
environment, governance, culture,
infrastructure;
• Local expert-based research articles
recommending indicators in key
areas of regional sustainability:
health, environment, governance,
immigration, Aboriginal issues;
Phase 2 (Oct 2005 – April 2006) Study
Group Process
• Full day workshop with over 100
Vancouver residents to discuss
values and concerns for the future of
the region;
• Formation of 8 issue clusters
reflective of priorities discussed;
• Establishment of self-organized
study groups in each of the 8 issue
areas;
• 6 month process of face-to-face
workshops, on-line discussion and
events toward citizen-based indicator
recommendations;
Phase 3 (Mar – Jun 2006)
Consolidation and Publication
• Integration of expert-based
and study group based
recommendations;
• Consolidating and seeking
connections to local and global
actions;
• Release of inaugural indicator report,
Counting on Vancouver: Our view of
the region, at WUF in June 2006.
56
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Endnotes
& Citations
Statistics Canada. 2005. Population Projections of Visible
Minority Groups, Canada, Provinces and Regions, 2001 to
2017. Catalogue #91-541-XIE.
10
11
Ibid.
MOBILITY
1
While the number of jobs outside of the city rose
by 68,800 in the last census period, Vancouver CMA
only saw an increase of 4,800 (Statistics Canada).
All websites are verified as of
June 9, 2006.
THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
CONNECT
Cameron Strategy Inc. and Probe Research Inc. 2003.
Urban Rule. Calgary and Winnipeg.
1
UN Millennium Project. 2005. Investing in Development:
A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development
Goals.
New York.
2
3
Ibid.
UN-HABITAT. 2003. The Challenge of Slums: Global
Report on Human Settlements 2003. Nairobi.
4
Sassen, S. 2005. The ecology of global economic
power: changing investment practices to promote
environmental sustainability. Journal of International
Affairs 58(2): 11-33.
5
MATCHING GLOBAL AND LOCAL STEPS
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD). 1999. Using the Pressure-StateResponse Model to Develop Indicators of Sustainability:
OECD framework for environmental indicators. Paris:
OECD Environment Directorate – State of the
Environment Division.
1
World Commission on Environment and
Development. 1987. Our Common Future. New York:
Oxford University Press.
2
Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Big City
Mayors’ Caucus. 2006. Our Cities, Our Future:
Addressing the fiscal imbalance in Canada’s cities
today. Ottawa.
3
4
Statistics Canada. Census 1991, 1996, 2001.
GVRD. 2005 (Dec). Green Zone Issues and Policy
Options, Report of the Greater Vancouver Regional Regional
District Technical Advisory Committee resulting from the
Livable Region Strategic Plan Review Workshop.
5
6
Statistics Canada. Census 1991, 1996, 2001.
Penner, Derrick. 2006 (31 May). Vancouver Flirting with
‘Bubble-Like’ House Prices. Vancouver Sun.
7
British Columbia. Provincial Health Officer. 2002.
Report on the Health of British Columbians. Provincial
Health Officer’s Annual Report 2001. The Health and Wellbeing of Aboriginal People in British Columbia. Victoria,
B.C.: Ministry of Health Planning.
8
Cardinal, N. 2006. The Exclusive City: Identifying,
Measuring, and Drawing Attention to Aboriginal and
Indigenous Experiences in an Urban Context. Cities 23(3):
217-228.
9
57
Statistics Canada and BC Stats, “BC GDP By Industry,
NAICS Aggregations: Millions of Chained 997 Dollars.
Available online at: http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/
data/bus_stat/bcea/BCEAchnd.asp
2
Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey, Revised
January 2006 and March 2006, as prepared by BC Stats.
Available online at: http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/
data/dd/handout/naicsann.pdf
3
BC Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection,
Environmental Trends. 2001. http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/
soerpt/996greenhouse/emissionsglance.html
4
Translink Greater Vancouver Transit Authority,
Vision, mission & values. Available online at:
http://www.translink.bc.ca/About_TransLink/
VisionMissionValues/default.asp
5
Ipsos Reid. 2005. “Keeping Vancouver Moving: Public
Opinion Update”. Available online at: http://www.
translink.bc.ca/files/news/KeepGreaterVanMov_
PubOpinionUpd_July_2005.pdf
6
Greater Vancouver Regional District. 2004 Annual
Report on the Livable Strategic Plan Report. Burnaby.
7
Heisz, A. and S. LaRochelle-Coté. 2005. Work and
Commuting in Census Metropolitan Areas, 1996-2001.
Catalogue #89-613-MIE-007.
8
9
Ibid.
European Commission. 2003. European Common
Indicators: Towards a Local Sustainability Profile. Available
online at:http://ec.europa.eu/environment/urban/
pdf/eci_final_report.pdf
10
BC Stats PEOPLE 28; Insurance Corporation of British
Columbia (Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge vehicle
numbers 1995 derived from 1996 statistics) as outlined
in GVRD 2004 Annual Report on the Livable Strategic
Plan Report.
11
BC Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection,
Environmental Trends (2001). Available online at:
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/soerpt/996greenhouse/
emissionsglance.html
12
Active Healthy Kids Canada. 2006. “2006 Report Card
on Physical Activity for Children and Youth”. Available
online at: http://www.activehealthykids.ca/index.cfm
13
Parisi and Associates. Transportation tools to improve
children’s health and mobility: Look at what California
is Doing. Available online at: http://www.lgc.
org/freepub/PDF/Land_Use/fact_sheets/sr2s_
transportation_tools.pdf.
14
Data from Translink, Trip Diary Surveys conducted
in 1985, 1994, 1999 and 2004 with GVRD residents. All
Trip Diary Surveys were conducted in the Fall except
for the 2004 Trip Diary Survey, which was conducted in
the Spring; 1985 & 1994 Trip Diary Surveys conducted
by GVRD; 1999 Trip Diary Survey conducted by GVTA
15
(TransLink); 2004 Trip Diary Survey conducted by
Ministry of Transportation, with GVTA involvement.
16
Ibid.
European Commission. 2003. European Common
Indicators: Towards a Local Sustainability Profile. Available
online at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/urban/
pdf/eci_final_report.pdf
17
Statistics Canada, Household Expenditure Data:
1997-2004. Statistics Canada, CANSIM, table (for fee)
203-0001 and Catalogue no. 62F0026MIE.
18
19
Ibid.
Natural Resources Canada. “Welcome to the Idle-Free
Zone”. Available online at: http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/
idling/idling.cfm
20
POVERTY
Chen, S. and M. Ravallion. 2004. How Have the World’s
Poorest Fared since the Early 1980s? Policy Research
Paper 3341. World Bank, Washington DC.
1
UN Millennium Project. 2005. Investing in Development:
A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development
Goals. New York, p. 26.
2
Cities Secretariat 2005. A Report to Infrastructure
Canada: National Overview of Findings from a National
Survey on the Quality of Life in Canadian Communities.
Available on line at: http://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/
ndcc/cities/cities_study/toc_e.shtml
3
Statistics Canada. 2005. Income and Low Income
in Canada: An International Perspective. Catalogue
#11F0019MIE2005240.
4
This figure represents the low income measure (LIM)
for Vancouver, an income-based calculation of 50%
of median income, adjusted for family size. LIM is
a more universal measure of poverty than LICO or
the MBM because it does not require information on
expenditures. Heisz, A. and L. McLeod. 2004. LowIncome in Census Metropolitan Areas, 1980-2000. Statistics
Canada, Business and Labour Market Analysis
Division. Catalogue #89-613-MIE-001.
5
Heisz, A. and L. McLeod. 2004. Low-Income in Census
Metropolitan Areas, 1980-2000. Statistics Canada,
Business and Labour Market Analysis Division.
Catalogue #89-613-MIE-001.
6
Cardinal, N. 2006. The Exclusive City: Identifying,
Measuring, and Drawing Attention to Aboriginal and
Indigenous Experiences in an Urban Context. Cities 23(3):
217-228.
7
8
Ibid.
SPARC. 2005. On our streets and in our shelters…Results
of the 2005 Greater Vancouver Homeless Count. Available
online at: http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/homelessness/
pdfs/HomelessCount2005Final.pdf
9
Cardinal, N. 2006. The Exclusive City: Identifying,
Measuring, and Drawing Attention to Aboriginal and
Indigenous Experiences in an Urban Context. Cities 23(3):
217-228.
10
11
Ibid.
This model was created by the RVu Study Group on
Overcoming Poverty.
12
13
Core housing need (ICH) refers to households which
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
are unable to afford shelter that meets adequacy,
suitability, and affordability norms. It is calculated
over time by the Canada Mortgage and Housing
Corporation. Fiedler, R., N. Schuurman, and J.
Hyndman. 2006. Hidden Homelessness: An Indicatorbased Approach for Examining the Geographies of Recent
Immigrants at-risk of Homelessness in Greater Vancouver.
Cities 23(3): 205-216.
14
Ibid.
Kazemipur, A. and S.S. Halli. 1997. Plight of
Immigrants: The Spatial Concentration of Poverty
in Canada. Canadian Journal of Regional Science
20(1,2): 11-28; From Fiedler, R., N. Schuurman, and J.
Hyndman. 2006. Hidden Homelessness: An Indicatorbased Approach for Examining the Geographies of
Recent Immigrants at-risk of Homelessness in Greater
Vancouver. Cities 23(3): 205-216.
15
Goldberg, M. and A. Long. 2003 (August). A Path to
Poverty: A Review of Child and Family Poverty Conditions
in British Columbia. Vancouver: Social Planning and
Research Council of BC.
16
Social Planning Research Council of BC. 2005. On
our streets and in our shelters . .. results of the 2005 Greater
Vancouver Homeless Count. Vancouver.
17
18
Ibid.
BC Housing (British Columbia Housing Management
Commission). 2005. 2004-2005 Annual Report.
19
James Pratt Consulting. Lower Mainland Cold/Wet
Weather Strategy, 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 Evaluation
Reports. Vancouver.
20
21
Ibid.
Social Planning Research Council of BC. 2005. On
our streets and in our shelters . .. results of the 2005 Greater
Vancouver Homeless Count. Vancouver.
22
The Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society began in
1982 as community-based temporary social service
provider but has stayed open, continuing to meet the
region’s needs, with no government funding (http://
www.foodbank.bc.ca/).
23
Social Planning Research Council of BC. 2003
(November). 3 Ways to Home: Regional Homelessness Plan
for Greater Vancouver.
24
Social Planning Research Council of BC. 2005. On
our streets and in our shelters . .. results of the 2005 Greater
Vancouver Homeless Count. Vancouver.
25
James Pratt Consulting. Lower Mainland Cold/Wet
Weather Strategy, 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 Evaluation
Reports. Vancouver.
26
For comparison, LICO in 2004 was $20,337 for
an individual living alone while MBM was $13,896
(MBM calculated in 2001; both figures before tax). For
a family four, the respective figures were $37,791 and
$27,791. Human Resources Development Canada,
Strategic Policy, Applied Research Branch. 2003 (May).
Understanding the 2000 Low Income Statistics Based on
the Market Basket Measure; Statistics Canada, Income
Statistics Division. 2005. Low Income Cut-Offs for 2004 and
Low Income Measures for 2002. Catalogue #75F0002MIE
– 003.
27
Statistics Canada, Income Statistics Division. 2005.
Low Income Cut-Offs for 2004 and Low Income Measures
for 2002. Catalogue #75F0002MIE – 003.
28
Endnotes
& Citations
Goldberg, M. and A. Long. 2003 (August). A Path to
Poverty: A Review of Child and Family Poverty Conditions
in British Columbia. Vancouver: Social Planning and
Research Council of BC.
29
City of Vancouver. 2004. Downtown Eastside
Community Monitoring Report. 9th Ed.
30
Heisz, A. and L. McLeod. 2004. Low-Income in Census
Metropolitan Areas, 1980-2000. Statistics Canada, Business
and Labour Market Analysis Division. Catalogue #89-613MIE-001.
31
Leiserowitz, A.A., R.W.Kates, and T.M. Parris. 2005
(November). Do Global Attitudes and Behaviors Support
Sustainable Development? Environment,
p. 30.
32
Social Planning Research Council of BC. 2003
(November). 3 Ways to Home: Regional Homelessness Plan
for Greater Vancouver.
33
UN Millennium Project. 2005. Investing in
Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium
Development Goals. New York, pp.32-33.
34
The Vancouver Agreement was signed in 2000 by
the Federal, Provincial and municipal governments
and renewed in 2005, to focus economic and
social development in the downtown eastside
neighbourhood. More information can be found at
http://www.vancouveragreement.ca/
35
Coish, D. 2004. Census Metropolitan Areas as Culture
Clusters. Catalogue #89-613-MIE-004.
9
Thomson Macdonald Financing. 2006 (May 11).
Presentation to Canadian Venture Forum. Available online
at: http://www.canadavc.com
10
Cercle Indicateurs. 2005. Indicateurs centraux pour le
développement durable des villes et cantons. Berne : Office
fédéral du développement territorial. GVRD. 2003
Sustainability Report. Burnaby.
11
Greater Vancouver Regional District.
2003 Sustainability Report. Burnaby.
12
Information from the Canadian Wind Energy
Association. http://www.canwea.ca/en/
13
Sullivan, S. (Mayor of Vancouver). 2006 (13 June).
Vancouver Learning City Initiative Proclamation.
14
GOVERNANCE
City of Vancouver Housing Centre. 2005 (June).
Homeless Action Plan.
1
Cardinal, Nathan. 2005. An Urban Aboriginal Life: The
2005 Indicators Report on the Quality of Life of Aboriginal
People in the Greater Vancouver Region. Centre for Native
Policy and Research.
2
36
37
ECONOMY
Leiserowitz, Anthony, Robert W. Kates, and Thomas
M. Parris. 2005. Do Global Attitudes and Behaviors
Support Sustainable Development? Environment 47(9):
23-38.
1
Federation of Canadian Municipalities. 2005. Cities:
Partners in the Nation’s Prosperity.
2
It should be noted here that Canada’s economy is
highly regionalized, with more resource industry
production represented in BC. City Creative Task Force.
2005 (October 25). A Profile of Vancouver’s Creative Sector.
City of Vancouver.
3
Vancouver Economic Development Commission,
www.vancouvereconomic.com.
4
Heisz, A., S. LaRochelle-Coté, M. Bordt and S. Das.
2005. Labour Markets, Business Activity, and Population
Growth and Mobility in Canadian CMAs. Catalogue #89613-MIE-006.
5
At this rate, a 37.5-hour work week brings in an even
$300 per week, gross. That’s $15,600 a year, before taxes
and deductions—about $4,700 short of the $20,337 that
Statistics Canada has set as its latest before-tax lowincome cutoff
6
Statistics Canada. (2005) The Daily: Household Spending
and Debt (March 22, 2005) Available online at: http://
www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050322/d050322c.htm.
7
Royal Financial Group. 2006. “Housing Affordability”.
Available online at: http://www.rbc.com/economics/
market/pdf/house.pdf
8
UN Millennium Project. 2005. Investing in Development:
A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development
Goals. New York.
Broadbent, A. 2006. Brighter Lights, Bigger Cities. The
Walrus 3(5): 56-63.
Cities Secretariat. 2005 (March). National Overview of
Findings from a National Survey on the Quality of Life in
Canadian Communities. Ottawa: Infrastructure Canada.
3
Cameron Strategy Inc. and Probe Research Inc. 2003.
Urban Rule. Calgary and Winnipeg.
4
Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Big City
Mayors’ Caucus. 2006. Our Cities, Our Future:
Addressing the fiscal imbalance in Canada’s cities today.
Ottawa.
5
Dahl, R. 1989. Democracy and its Critics. Yale University
Press: New Haven.
6
Stewart, K. 2006. Designing good urban governance
indicators: The importance of citizen participation and its
evaluation in Greater Vancouver. Cities Journal 23(3):
196-204.
7
8
Ibid.
9
Ibid.
Available on-line at: http://www.un.org/
esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/
agenda21chapter23.htm.
The UN identifies 9 major groups for negotiations:
1) women; 2) children and youth; 3) indigenous people;
4) non-governmental organizations; 5) local authorities;
6) workers and trade unions; 7) business and industry;
8) scientific and technological communities; 9) farmers
and small forest landowners. Canada recognizes
four distinct groups: visible minorities, people with
disabilities; women; and Aboriginal people.
By merging these two definitions of groups of
58
10
COUNTING ON VANCOUVER
OUR VIEW OF THE REGION
Endnotes
& Citations
World Economic Forum. 2005. Press release: “Trust
in Governments, Corporations and Global Institutions
Continues to Decline” December 15, 2005. Available
online at: http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.
nsf/Content/Trust+in+Governments,+Corporations+a
nd+Global+Institutions+Continues+to+Decline
9
Vancouver Organizing Committee. Updated 2005.
“2010 Inclusive Inner City Commitment Statement”.
Available online at: http://www.vancouveragreement.
ca/Pdfs/
10
the public, we can investigate success of government
attempts to reach out. Established in Chapter 23 of
Agenda 21.
For more information about Southeast False Creek ,
visit http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/southeast/index.
htm
11
James Hoggan & Associates. 2006 (March). Press
Release: Nine in 10 Canadians Fear Our Lifestyle is
Not Sustainable. Vancouver: Sustainability Research
Initiative.
12
Wackernagel, M. and W. Rees. 1996. Our Ecological
Footprint: Reducing human impact on the Earth. Gabriola
Island: New Society Publishers.
13
For more information on the Citizens Assembly
and electoral reform in BC, visit: http://www.
citizensassembly.bc.ca.
14
COMMUNITY
Statistics Canada, (December 2005) Your Community,
Your Health: Findings from the Canadian Community
Health Survey: Community Belonging and Self-perceived
Health: Early CCHS Findings. Available online at:
http://www.statcan.ca/bsolc/english/bsolc?catno=82621-XWE2005001
1
United Nations Development Programme. 2005.
Human Development Report 2005: International
cooporation at a crossroads, p. 3. Available online at:
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/
2
UN Millennium Project. 2005. Investing in Development:
A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development
Goals. New York. p.126
3
Leiserowitz, A.A., R.W.Kates, and T.M. Parris. 2005
(November). Do Global Attitudes and Behaviors Support
Sustainable Development? Environment,
pp. 23-38.
4
City of Vancouver. 2001. A Framework for Action: A
Four Pillar Approach to Drug Problems in Vancouver.
Available on-line at: http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/
fourpillars/pdf/Framework.pdf
5
Elections BC. Elections & By-elections: Statistics and
surveys. Available online at: http://www.elections.
bc.ca/elections/ge2005/pdfs/Historical%20Trendlines.
pdf
6
Statistics Canada, 2003 General Social Survey (GSS)
on Social Engagement, cycle 17: an overview of findings.
Catalogue no. 89-598-XIE.
7
Hayes, M. 2005. Health Inequalities, Urban Structure,
and Municipal Policy. Presentation at RVu Focusing Our
View Workshop, Vancouver.
8
59
ENVIRONMENT
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 2005. Ecosystems
and Human Well-Being Synthesis. Washington: Island
Press.
1
Environics International (GlobeScan). 2002.
International Environmental Monitor. Toronto.
2
3
World Bank. 2006. Little Green Data Book. World Bank.
World Bank. 2006. World Development Indicators 2006.
Washington.
4
Federation of Canadian Municipalities Big City
Mayors Caucus. 2006 (June). Our Cities, Our Future.
Ottawa.
5
Cities Secretariat 2005. A Report to Infrastructure
Canada: National Overview of Findings from a National
Survey on the Quality of Life in Canadian Communities.
Available on line at: http://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/
ndcc/cities/cities_study/toc_e.shtml
6
Environics International (GlobeScan). 2002.
International Environmental Monitor. Toronto.
7
Cities Secretariat. 2005 (March). National Overview of
Findings from a National Survey on the Quality of Life in
Canadian Communities. Ottawa: Infrastructure Canada.
8
9
Ibid.
Toronto Community Foundation. 2005. Toronto’s Vital
Signs 2005.
10
This is a less stringent commitment than the 100%
waste diversion goals set by Toronto and Seattle,
among other cities. Woolley, P. 2006 (1 June). GVRD
Halfway to Zero Waste. The Georgia Straight.
11
Vancouver Organizing Committee Website:
Environmental Performance. Available on-line at: http://
www.vancouver2010.com/en/Sustainability/Environ
mentalPerformance.
12
Lalonde, M. 2006 (4 June). Mayors go it alone on Kyoto.
National Post.
13
This factors in waste from residential, commercial,
and industrial sectors but not hazardous waste. GVRD
Solid Waste Management. 2003 (Dec).
2002 Annual Report. Burnaby.
14
Unauthorized landfills include First Nations landfills.
Ibid.
15
BC Hydro Green & Alternative Energy Division. 2002
(Oct). Green Energy Study for British Columbia, Phase 2:
Mainland. Vancouver.
16
Woolliams, J. 2005 (July/Aug). Residential Green
Building in Greater Vancouver: Where are we Going?
Construction Business: 19-20.
17
18
Olewiler, N. 2006. Environmental Sustainability for
Urban Areas: The Role of Natural Capital Indicators. Cities
23(3): 184-195.
This model was developed by RVu Study Group
member Kevin Stock.
19
Cercle Indicateurs. 2005. Indicateurs centraux pour le
développement durable des villes et cantons. Berne : Office
fédéral du développement territorial (ARE) ; Toronto
Community Foundation. 2005. Toronto’s Vital Signs
2005.
20
GVRD Solid Waste Management. 2003 (Dec). 2002
Annual Report. Burnaby and personal communication,
BC Ministry of Environment.
21
Hall, M., D. Lasby, G. Gumulka and C. Tryon. 2006
(June). Caring Canadians, Involved Canadians: Highlights
from the 2004 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and
Participating. Ottawa: Statistics Canada and Imagine
Canada.
22
Cities Secretariat. 2005 (March). National Overview of
Findings from a National Survey on the Quality of Life in
Canadian Communities. Ottawa: Infrastructure Canada.
23
24
Ibid.
Prince Edward Island. 2003. State of the Environment.
Charlottetown.
25
Alexander, D., R. Tomalty and M. Anielski.2004. BC
Sprawl Report. Smart Growth BC.
26
Cities Secretariat. 2005 (March). National Overview of
Findings from a National Survey on the Quality of Life in
Canadian Communities. Ottawa: Infrastructure Canada.
27
World Bank Environmentally and Socially
Sustainable Development Vice Presidency,
Infrastructure Vice Presidency. 2006 (April). Clean
Energy and Development: Towards an Investment
Framework. Washington.
28
District of North Vancouver. 2004 (Feb). The
Maplewood Project (Maplewood Community Eco-Industrial
Partnership Project).
29
For more information about the Sustainable Building
Centre, visit http://www.sustainablebuildingcentre.
com/
30
For more information about tree cover targets in the
Corporation of Delta, BC, visit http://www.corp.delta.
bc.ca/EN/main/residents/environment.html
31
FOOD
1
UN World Food Program, 2006.
Statistics Canada. 2005 (May). Food Security. Health
Reports.
2
Leiserowitz, A.A., R.W.Kates, and T.M. Parris. 2005
(November). Do Global Attitudes and Behaviors Support
Sustainable Development? Environment, p. 32.
3
UN Millennium Project. 2005. Investing in Development:
A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development
Goals. New York, p. 7.
4
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations. 2002. Report of the World Food Summit: Five
Years Later. Available on-line at: http://www.fao.
org/DOCREP/MEETING/005/Y7106E/Y7106E00.
htm#TopOfPage.
5
Wackernagel, M. and William Rees. 1996. Our
Ecological Footprint: Reducing Human Impact on the Earth.
6
INAUGURAL REPORT OF THE
REGIONAL VANCOUVER OBSERVATORY
New Society Publishers: Gabriola Island.
Vancouver%20Food%20Assessment.pdf
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations. 2002. Report of the World Food Summit: Five
Years Later. Available on-line at: http://www.fao.
org/DOCREP/MEETING/005/Y7106E/Y7106E00.
htm#TopOfPage.
22
7
Definition of a sustainable food system borrowed
from the City of Vancouver, Social Planning
Department. More information can be found at: http://
vancouver.ca/commsvcs/socialplanning/initiatives/
foodpolicy/index.htm
8
UN Millennium Project Task Force on Hunger. 2005.
Halving hunger: can it be done. Millennium Project.
Available online at: http://www.unmillenniumproject.
org/documents/HTF-SumVers_FINAL.pdf
23
9
Food Researchers’ Consortium. 2005. Vancouver
Food System Assessment. Available online: http://
www.sfu.ca/cscd/research/foodsecurity/
Final%20draft%20compress.pdf
24
Canadian Association of Food Banks. 2004. Hunger
Count 2004. Available online at: http://cafb-acba.
ca/documents/HC04.pdf
25
10
Statistics Canada. 2001. Food Security in Canadian
Households. Available on-line at: http://www.statcan.
ca/Daily/English/010815/d010815a.htm.
11
McCreary Centre Society. 2002. Between The Cracks:
Homeless Youth In Vancouver. Burnaby, BC: The
McCreary Centre Society.
12
Dieticians of Canada, BC Region and Community
Nutritionists Council of BC. 2002. The Cost of Eating
in BC. Vancouver. Monthly income data derived
from: Social Planning and Action Council of BC. 2005.
Left Behind. Vancouver; BC Stats. 2001. Census Profile
of British Columbia’s Regions, Greater Vancouver
Regional District. Geographic Classification 59015000.
13
Toronto Community Foundation. 2005. Toronto’s Vital
Signs 2005.
14
GVRD. 2005 (Dec). Green Zone Issues and Policy
Options, Report of the Greater Vancouver Regional Regional
District Technical Advisory Committee resulting from the
Livable Region Strategic Plan Review Workshop.
15
Connolly, N. 1997 (April). “Report on Community and
Allotment Gardening in the Greater Vancouver Region”
City Farmer. Available online at: http://www.
cityfarmer.org/normgardens.html
16
Result obtained from a poll conducted in 2002 by
Ipsos-Reid on behalf of City Farmer - Canada’s Office
of Urban Agriculture City Farmer. Available online at:
http://cityfarmer.org/44percent.html#44percent
17
This estimate is based on yields from intensive
organic gardening and the assumption that four
hectares of open space per 1,000 people be devoted to
growing food (equivalent to about 15 percent of open
space in the average large Canadian centre). Van Bers,
C. 1991. Sustainable Agriculture in Canada: a scenario of
the future. M.A. Thesis, University of Waterloo, ON.
18
Halweil, B. 2002. “Home Grown: The Case for Local Food
in a Global Market,” WorldWatch Institute. Available
online at: http://www.worldwatch.org/press/
news/2002/11/21/
19
BC Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Fisheries, Fast
Stats 2004. Available online at: http://www.agf.gov.
bc.ca/stats/faststats/brochure2004.pdf
20
Food Researchers’ Consortium. 2005. Food System
Assessment for the City of Vancouver. Available online
at: http://www.sfu.ca/cscd/research/foodsecurity/
21
Endnotes
& Citations
Harry Cummings & Associates. 2005. Region of
Waterloo Food Flow Analysis Study. Region of Waterloo
Public Health. Available online at: http://www.
region.waterloo.on.ca/web/Region.nsf/0/
D82004FE6AE3B57585256F48006C2264/$file/FFS.
pdf?OpenElement
A motion (VanRIMS No. 08-8000-01/08-3000-13)
to establish 2010 garden plots by 2010 was issued by
Vancouver City Councillor, Peter Ladner and passed on
May 30, 2006.
The 100 Mile Diet was a challenge that Alisa Smith
and J.B.MacKinnon, two individuals living just outside
the region of Vancouver, have taken upon themselves
– to buy food and drink for home consumption that
was produced within 100 miles of our home for a full
year. Their story is available online at: http://thetyee.
ca/Life/2005/06/28/HundredMileDiet/
CULTURE
Statistics Canada. 2005. Population Projections of Visible
Minority Groups, Canada, Provinces and Regions, 2001 to
2017. Catalogue #91-541-XIE.
1
Strategies for Regional Arts and Cultural Development
in Greater Vancouver, a report of the Regional Cultural
Plan Steering Committee, September 1999
2
Regional Cultural Plan Steering Committee.
1999 (Sept). Strategies for Regional Arts and Cultural
Development in Greater Vancouver.
3
World Commission on Culture and Development.
1995. Our Creative Diversity: Report of the WCCD. Paris.
UNESCO.
4
Yushkiavitshus, Henrikas. 1996 (December). Opening
remarks given at the opening ceremony of the 11th
session of the Intergovernmental Council of the
General Information Programme. Paris. Available
online at: http://www.unesco.org/webworld/
pgicounc/annex3.htm
5
Arts & Culture in Greater Vancouver: Contributing to
the Livable Region, the interim report of the Regional
Cultural Plan Steering Committee, July 1997
6
THE RVU APPROACH
For more information on RVu, please visit
http://www.rvu.ca, where documents, updates,
dialogue, and other materials of interest are posted
regularly.
1
For information on the Sustainable Region Initiative
Social Action Team: http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/
sustainability/socialaction.htm
2
For information on the Vancouver Vital Signs Project:
http://vancouverfoundation.bc.ca/ Toronto’s Vital
Signs Project: http://www.torontovitalsigns.com
3
For information on the Greater Vancouver Regional
District Sustainability Report:
http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/sustainability/reports.htm
4
For information on the GVRD Livable Region
Strategic Plan Monitoring reports:
http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/growth/lrsp.htm
5
For information on citiesPLUS:
http://www.citiesplus.ca/
6
For information on Communities in Action:
http://www.uwlm.ca/What+We+Do/
Programs+and+Initiatives/default.htm
7
For information on the Fraser Basin Council
Sustainability Indicator Reporting Initiative:
http://www.fraserbasin.bc.ca/
8
For information on the Fraser River Estuary
Management Plan Monitoring Initiative:
http://www.bieapfremp.org
9
For information on the BC Progress Board:
http://www.bcprogressboard.com/
10
For information on the City of Vancouver Social
Indicators reports: http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/
socialplanning/tools/index.htm
11
Survey of Public Attitudes Toward a Regional Cultural
Plan for Greater Vancouver - Phase III, conducted by
Canadian Facts, August 2000, for the Regional Cultural
Plan Steering Committee.
7
8
Ibid.
9
Ibid.
City Creative Task Force. 2005 (October 25). A Profile
of Vancouver’s Creative Sector. City of Vancouver.
10
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
Statistics Canada. 2003 (Nov). Gross Domestic
Product by Industry. Catalogue # 15-001-XIE
15
60
ISBN 0-86491-287-0
REGIONAL VANCOUVER URBAN OBSERVATORY
URBAN STUDIES PROGRAM
3rd Floor, Simon Fraser University Vancouver
515 W. Hastings St.
Vancouver, BC CANADA
V6B 5K3
Tel: 604 291 5948
Email:
info@rvu.ca
Web:
www.rvu.ca
A Publication of SFU Urban Studies
Printed in Canada