The Vancouver Achievement: Urban Planning and Design

Ann Turner is the financial and budget manager of the University of
British Columbia Library.

The urban planning and design practices of Vancouver, B.C., over the
past 25 year have facilitated the construction of a number of
award-winning public buildings and social spaces that have attracted
international attention. Vancouver consistently places near the top of
international city rankings for livability. It was this recognition, as
well as Vancouver’s reputation as an innovator in urban policy and
planning, that brought British researcher John Punter to the city when
he was seeking “best practice” design guidelines and wanted to
review practices in the United States and Canada for comparison with the
British system. Grants from the Canadian High Commission enabled him to
examine Vancouver’s practices in depth, and the result is this
exhaustive formal study of the city’s planning function since 1965.
Punter cites the Vancouver Urban Design Panel, the city-wide design
strategy, neighbourhood visioning, community involvement, and the
megaproject planning process with its public/private development
partnerships as innovative practices worthy of study and emulation.

With its comprehensive index, statistical data, organization charts,
photographs, and chronological tables of key events, this is much more
than a detailed study of Vancouver’s urban planning and public-policy
practices. It is also a valuable history of the city’s development
over the past quarter of a century.