Urban Vancouver

Expect to hear a lot more from London's new mayor Boris Johnson in the days ahead as London gears up for its own summer Olympic games in 2012. Click the above image to listen to Boris' speech today after the game's end, and his longing for past competitions involving the carrying and slaughter of oxen as sport.

What is happening to policing in Western Canada? The story appears to be an evolving one, but change is clearly happening. Why it is happening now is difficult to surmise.

In Southwest British Columbia the police chiefs of 3 major cities have all stepped down under a cloud of controversy.

First, there was Vancouver police chief Jamie Graham, who retired in August of last year. According to Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith, who often commented on Graham's leadership, the former RCMP officer shaped the VPD into a quasi-paramilitary force, with rigid internal loyalty and an impatience for due process on internal investigations. This might have been an exaggeration, but problems like the Stanley Park Six assaults, and Graham's own careless "good day at the firing range..." target left on the City Manager's desk were evidence of a macho environment.

Then there was the sudden dismissal by the City of West Vancouver of their own police chief, Scott Armstrong. This was followed by Victoria suspending their own police chief Paul Battershill, for reasons that were never made public by their police board. Ultimately Battershill resigned.

Couple these changes at the top with the upheaval happening in Canada's RCMP. Not only did their Commissioner resign, but there seems to be a quiet effort within the national force to now penalize Mounties who break the law.

Vancouver has a new police chief, Jim Chu, who has definitely adopted a new tone for the VPD. It's a welcome change and a credit to Vancouver's mayor and the police board that they hired the right person for the job.

As for the changes at the top of Canada's police ranks and the assertion of authority by political leaders over their police departments, it appears to be happening more often. I'm just not sure why.

Vancouver has had more than a few sunny afternoons lately, so I thought I'd share a favourite tune. The Kinks brilliant Sunny Afternooon hardly looks like it was shot in The Bahamas with all the snowy surroundings and winter dress. The song is featured on the great Face to Face LP, and began one of the greatest (under-celebrated) creative period of any band. Allmusic.com deservedly gives 5 out of 5 stars to nearly every record below.

• Face to Face (1966)
• Something Else by the Kinks (1967)
• The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968)
• Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969)
• Lola vs Powerman And The Moneygoround (1970)

The Kinks almost mysteriously disappeared from the North American pop scene during this pivotal period, only charting again in 1970 with Lola. These records have been available on import, but nearly impossible to find in mainstream record stores for a generation. I have many of the songs on vinyl, but would love a properly re-mastered digital collection of these great records.

The singles Victoria and Waterloo Sunset are about as perfect as rock music gets. Too bad they don't get the play their contemporaries, such as the The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, do to this day.

Some beets pulled from our garden, and cooked for dinner tonight. Yum.

As we enjoy a lovely bit of summer on the west coast, interspersed with high-definition Olympic coverage in the comfort of our living rooms, I draw your attention to the aggression in Georgia. The New York Times reports that Russian hackers preceded the military's battle plans with a DDOS (denial of service internet attack).

The pictures coming out of Georgia that indicate that Russia is doing anything but, as they call it, "peacekeeping."

Very chilling stuff, and the destruction and loss of life is completely unnecessary. Many speculate that Russia is attacking Georgia to send a message to the USA, and to bolster national pride (we still have that hegemonic mojo!) back home.

STORY UPDATES:

How Misha messed up (Globe and Mail)

Gwynne Dyer: No Cold War return over Georgia (Georgia Straight)

Interesting insights into this story makes it seem like a disgraceful bit of pique by Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili.

The above photo was sourced from a slideshow posted at Reuters.com.

Vancouver political junkies rejoice: Frances Bula is back on the net at www.francesbula.com after a short, post-Vancouver Sun hiatus from her City States blog.

Frances admitted being a little surprised by the popularity of City States. Her newspaper editors insisted that readers didn't want all that information. Blogging proved to her otherwise. Readers wanted all the info they could get.

Frances left the Vancouver Sun as their city beat reporter after 25 years, and is now writing features for Vancouver Magazine and contributing to the Globe and Mail newspaper.

Good to have you back online, Frances.

Writer Erick Villagomez beat me to a topic that I've been a little obsessed about for the last year or so. I began to document the matter in photos last January. I tagged new homes with small, one-room top floor extensions as having "peek-a-boo" rooms. Erick came up with a better label: The Mohawk.

Erick argues that as a result of Vancouver's rules around "floor space ratio" home builders are squeezing an extra, ugly story to new homes to provide a view over surrounding homes (and trees). He nails it by calling it what it is: junk food architecture.

I recently met with Vancouver's Director of Planning Brent Toderian, and raised the subject with him during a conversation. He had read Villagomez's article, and was aware of the issue. As senior planner of our city, it was a bit beyond his bailiwick. Vancouver approves about 2000 home building permits per year, most of which cross the desk of the director's subordinates. That said, he did want to have the city's planning department look further into the matter.

While we can't expect all home builders to have good taste, we can create policies that don't allow good homes to be replaced by badly designed ones. Outsiders like urbanist Andrés Duany are almost slack-jawed at the ugly homes we build too often in Vancouver. Read the excellent account of his words here, posted by former Vancouver Sun blogger Frances Bula.

Thanks to the EcoDensity debate, and the great work around Vancouver's public realm (the new seawall in the Olympic Village, for example), I feel that Vancouver is placing a stronger emphasis on urban design. As part of this trend we mustn't ignore that single-family residential makes up most of our landscape, and we should expect that home design must meet the standards we place on commercial and public buildings.

The Province newspaper provided this vague direction on making our city more civil. Their message is to use the heavy, and expensive, hand of law enforcement. The comments pretty much mirror this too. Throw them all in jail!

The Province also makes small mention of how we should emphasize more respect in our schools. Intensifying crime enforcement is a lot like the proverbial hamster on his wheel. We'll never move forward unless we teach generations to respect their own communities.

Educator and author Michael Dallaire argues for a change to the school curriculum as part of the answer (thanks, Christopher, for the link). The editorial does not provide any specifics on how this could be achieved, but the core argument, that children eventually rebel against being treated "as a consumer or a future worker," is compelling.

Dallaire states:

It is time to return Canadian education to its traditional and core purpose, to prepare the whole person to live a full life as a Canadian citizen and as a citizen of the world. Such an education embraces the communal, societal and environmental dimensions of human life.

As a community focused person, this is music to my ears. I believe that a new emphasis must be placed on citizenship alongside academia in our schools. There's a lot of evidence that we're turning out kids that are more focused on their own achievements, than on ways they can benefit the world around them. A 40-year decline in voter rates among our youth is partial evidence for this.

I'm personally very interested in this topic. With further inquiry I hope to add some substance to Dallaire's argument, and even support the Province's notion that schools are the key ingredient to our city's success.

Yesterday Stacey and I rode the 20km Slow Food Bike Tour in Agassiz, BC. While it rained from start to finish, I can highly recommend doing this ride wet or dry. Sunshine would have only added to a very beautiful day.

The photos featured in the slideshow above were all taken on my iPhone as I forgot to bring a better camera. Overall I'm pleased with the results, and they allowed me to conveniently document our trip. I recommend you click the "I" (drag your mouse cursor over the slideshow) in order to read the comments for each shot.

Each year we drive past the town of Agassiz (in the Fraser Valley district of Kent) on our way back from camping in the Okanagan. If you haven't driven Highway 7 from Agassiz to Mission, BC, you're not seeing one of the most picturesque drives in BC. I recommend that when you are in Hope, to cross the bridge over the Fraser and take the drive west on Highway 7. There are a ton of parks and small towns along the way. The views on a sunny, warm day are simply majestic.

The town of Agassiz is off the highway, giving it thankfully less of that strip mall feel of other highway towns. I only drove through it briefly on the way to the start of the ride, but I will definitely return to check it out.

Thanks from us to the organizers of this annual Slow Food ride. We'll definitely be back!