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Stuart_de_Stael |
Latest page update: made by Stuart_de_Stael
, Sep 1 2006, 4:20 AM EDT
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About This Update
Edited by Stuart_de_Stael
36 words added view changes - complete history) |
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| Yule | Addendum added | 0 | Sep 7 2006, 1:59 PM EDT by Yule | ||
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Thread started: Sep 7 2006, 1:59 PM EDT
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You're right, Stuart, that a fixed link would have been an impossibility "back then," and it's still practically impossible now. (See the "comments" conversation, above, in "comprehensive planning, planned ambitions...") So I wrote something up about how the internet might/ could be our virtual bridge to anywhere, in an addendum posted as a "subpage" to this essay...
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| Yule | comprehensive planning, planned ambitions: life happens | 4 | Sep 6 2006, 2:13 PM EDT by Yule | ||
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Thread started: Aug 29 2006, 10:29 PM EDT
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I want to comment / add more later, but for the meantime -- the Permanent Loan Bldg & the Campbell Bldg were destroyed during a period of ambitious, centrally planned urban thinking (is that even the right word?, thinking?; I guess it is...), which really reinforces, for me, the idea that centralised planning is NOT a good idea. We have councillors at City Hall and we have people in the neighbourhoods who want Centralised Planning Now, who want a Comprehensive Downtown Plan, and who want the Planning Dept to say with certainty what the boundaries of downtown will look like, along with the things within downtown. It's not the case that these people are evil or benighted, they just want rules, and accountability. But I can't help thinking that they're looking for them in the wrong place. "Do A., and B. will happen." Nuh-uh. It just doesn't work that way, not in a living city. Centralised planning and comprehensive plans/ rules choke the living life out of a place: they don't respect the spirit of the place.
Which is not to say that developers (who don't necessarily respect any plans/ rules) have the "spirit" of a place close to their hearts, because, let's face it, they have to check in with their wallets (kept in a back pocket, hence the expression "greedy-ass developer"... <joke>). About Victoria's history: Confederation and the completion of the trans-Canada railway did the most to herald the deathknell for a vibrant Victoria, IMO. Once Vancouver had that bloody terminal, ALL the go-getters who knew a thing or two about the blood-sweat-and-tears necessary to building an economy got up and left Victoria. Just take a look at the history of the Chinese and the Jewish communities in Victoria for proof. The Leiser Warehouse (part of the lower Yates redevelopment) and the Leiser family are a case in point, as is the fact that Vic's Chinatown WAS the biggest/ oldest for a while, but was overtaken by Vancouver. My money's on the internet: no RR needed now? |
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| Anonymous | Metropolitan Ambitions | 0 | Aug 29 2006, 9:49 PM EDT by Anonymous | ||
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Thread started: Aug 29 2006, 9:49 PM EDT
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Old Victoria's "metropolitan ambitions" were clearly evident in the BC Permanent Loan Building and the Campbell Building. The former stood at Johnson and Douglas, the latter at Fort and Douglas. I almost feel like crying whenever I come across a picture of either of these buildings.
Is it a coincidence that both of them were destroyed during the heyday of the tourism-oriented "olde England" revisionism of the 1960s and 1970s? |
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