PODCAST · society
Viewpoint Vancouver
by Price Tags Media Society
Vancouver's source for Urbanism, Insight, and Evolution. Hosted by Gordon Price, former Vancouver City Councillor and Director of the SFU City Program lecture series. Featuring interviews with leading players and emerging voices on issues of urban planning, architecture, housing, transportation, politics, culture, and public spaces.
Episodes
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Michael Von Hausen: How does False Creek forecast the future?
Join Visionary Urbanist Michael von Hausen for a broad yet intimate perspective on Vancouver urban design, from the '70s through to the present day. Michael has been laying Vancouver's groundwork since the ’80s, as a key designer in the early development of False Creek. His multi-disciplinary...
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Price and Ladner place bets on Election '22
With 10 days counting down to Election Day, Gordon Price pulls in ex-NPA-Council-crony-turned-urban-food-security-activist-and-all-around-mensch Peter Ladner for a frank talk on what is up with this wacky election. With 58 candidates for Vancouver City Council and 10 registered parties in the...
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'Vanbikes' Chronicler Colin Stein tracks the history of Vancouver's Bicycle Revolution
In this very special episode, author Colin Stein unveils an epic portrait of our place and time: Vanbikes: Vancouver's Bicycle People and the Fight for Transportation Change, 1986-2011 (An Oral History). In conversation with Gordon and a room full of fans, he relates how the bicycle people...
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Makin' it in Dubai - a Viewpoint Podcast Special
Welcome to a special dispatch from Gordon Price, checking in from Expo 2022 in Dubai. (With our apologies for the sound quality. At a place like Expo, it was the quietest place he could find.) One of the best things about a world’s fair—after you’ve visited the pavilions, tasted the food…
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Three Quick Questions for John Coupar
Welcome to Episode Three of Viewpoint Vancouver's election podcast feature: Three Quick Questions. Where, in under ten minutes, Gordon puts civic candidates on the spot with three unusual questions designed to reveal who they are and what really makes them tick. This time up, Gord turns the...
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Three Quick Questions for Ken Sim
Listen in for Episode Two of Viewpoint Vancouver's election podcast feature: Three Quick Questions. Where, in under ten minutes, Gordon puts civic candidates on the spot with three unusual questions designed to reveal who they are and what really makes them tick. This time up, Gord puts it to Ken...
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BurnaBOOM! Post-war bungalows and transit-hub skyscrapers can make for uneasy neighbors. Lee-Ann Garnett brings the Burnaby housing story to life.
The great “BurnaBOOM” started off in the ‘50s, as Willingdon Heights came to model the suburban ideal: a gridded neighborhood of wide streets, tidy flower gardens, and modest single-family bungalows. To some extent, it is still that—but so much more. Lee-Ann Garnett, Burnaby’s Deputy Director of...
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Three Quick Questions for Mark Marissen
Join Viewpoint Vancouver for a quickie! Introducing our new Election feature: Three Quick Questions, where, in under ten minutes, Gordon puts civic candidates on the spot with three unusual questions designed to reveal who they are and what really makes them tick. First up in the series: Mark...
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North Van's got urban soul—and big city challenges. Councillor Tony Valente reveals.
The City of North Van is no bedroom community. With sexy projects like the Shipyards, the Polygon Art Gallery, and new Lonsdale patios and covered seating, North Van is quickly becoming a destination city. In fact, the City has the lowest percentage of single-family homes of any Greater Vancouver...
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Translink unveils TRANSPORT 2050, and Policy Development Manager Eve Hou is here to spill the beans.
Big news for the Region! Translink has just unveiled Transport 2050: its blueprint for the next 30 years of regional mobility. Gordon talks to Translink Manager of Policy Development Eve Hou about the evolution of this important document, and what Translink sees coming down the long-range pipes....
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Big Moves: Urbanist Anthony Perl on Global Agendas, Local Aspirations, and Urban Mobility
All countries have distinctive urban regions, but Canadian cities especially differ from one another in culture, structure, and history. SFU prof Anthony Perl’s new book Big Moves: Global Agendas, Local Aspirations, and Urban Mobility in Canada (co-authored with Matt Hern and Jeffrey R.…
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Panels, manels or womels? Mo Amir helps Gordon Price unpack the intricacies of modern lexicon
An OWG (Old White Guy) enlists the aid of a YBG (Young Brown Guy) in unpacking modern socio-political vocabulary. Can white people be 'racialized'? Is equity of opportunity the same as equity of outcome? What is privilege, really? Who has it now, and where does the balance tip? And, moreover…
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From Kitsilano hippies to Strathcona tent city: Judy Graves believes in housing for all.
Throughout her 33-year career, Judy Graves was the public face of City Hall to those living in Vancouver's streets and shelters. She knew who they were, what they needed, and how to get a roof over their heads. She reached out to them, often in the late hours of the night. She knew the…
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Ahead of the Curve, On the Leading Edge, at the Next Frontier, Marc Lee Is Looking There
Marc Lee has a sort of duality imbued in him that gives him a unique perspective on the world. Raised by a single mother who put him through private school at the prestigious Upper Canada College, Marc developed a perspective on both sides of the spectrum. His work as Senior Economist at the...
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In a World of Acrimonious Political Discourse, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones Has Some Words of Hope
Recently retired from federal politics, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones has had a distinguished career; from grassroots local politics, to helping improve the peace and security of women on a global scale. Gord and Pamela talk about densification, reconciliation, the reason she got into federal politics,...
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Mark Sakai on Building For a Warming Future, the Grand Bargain, and Housing Affordability
Director of government relations for the Homebuilders Association Vancouver and 4th generation Japanese-Canadian Mark Sakai talks internment, immigration, growing up in Steveston and housing. Housing. What’s important? Mark asks: can you find the housing you want at your stage of life? Single...
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To Gian Singh Sandhu, Success Means Not Taking a Back Seat to Anybody
While the majority of the 27 million practitioners of Sikhism live in India — most living in the state of Punjab — half a million Sikhs reside in Canada. In fact, 1 in 20 British Columbians is Sikh. And according to Gian Singh Sandhu, founding president of the World Sikh Organization (WSO), so is…
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Greens’ Adriane Carr on Working with Communities to Prepare for Sea Change
If you needed more evidence that environmental issues are no longer fringe issues, all you have to do is look at Vancouver Greens’ Adriane Carr. Her 74,000 votes in the 2014 municipal election was the most by a Vancouver council candidate since 1996…and perhaps ever? Had she run for mayor in…
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No Days Off for Sarah Blyth or the Downtown Eastside
Sarah Blyth first started to see the spike in drug overdoses in the Downtown Eastside community in 2016. From her vantage point as manager of the DTES Market, she couldn’t help but see it. People were literally dying in the street. So she decided to do something about it. Rob sums it up: “You saw...
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Rookie Councillor Ahmed Yousef on the Changing Face of Maple Ridge
It wasn’t that long ago that British Columbians were saying, “What the hell is going on in Maple Ridge?” In 2014, voters elected Nicole Read as mayor of the region’s eastern outpost …and then subjected her to a virulent strain of online harassment which, after two years, resulted in threats that...
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xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Member Wade Grant, on What Canada is Today
What does it mean to change a street name? What does it mean to be able to fish? What does it mean to have title over the land upon which you, and your people, were born? This line of questioning may not immediately resonate with the majority of Canadians going to the polls today, intent on...
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From Thin Soup to Dreamland: The Social Impact of SCARP Alumni Thomas Bevan & Bob Williams
The latest in our Passing the Torch series introduces us to Thomas Bevan, a Millennial who’s already left his mark on Vancouver. From his youth in Kitchener, Ontario — and a “difficult relationship” with a downtown that wasn’t quite the hotspot it has since become — to his graduate studies at…
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Talking NIMBYism, Populism & Campaign 2022 with George Affleck
One thing is proven without a doubt in this wide-ranging, deep political dive with Gord, Rob, and return guest George Affleck — these guys don’t know their Tolkien. And while there was no cranky, right-wing guy in Middle Earth, there is a central character whose very rigid way of thinking begins…
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Brent Toderian: It Was the Best of Jobs, It Was the Worst of Jobs
A tale of two city-makers — one, a son of the working poor, who showed an early knack for creation and collaboration, in part through the use of polyhedral dice; the other, a world-renowned urban planner, with a Twitter following as large as the populations of some of the cities he now calls...
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Lon LaClaire on Challenges, Cost/Benefits, and ‘Aha’ Moments for Transportation in Vancouver
It was 2009, Vancouver was about to become the largest metro region to host a winter Olympic Games, and the city faced a challenge of similarly grandiose proportions — how to accommodate a 30% increase in downtown transportation trips alongside a 30% reduction in road network capacity, thanks to...
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Michael Gordon on the Yin and Yang of Community Planning in Vancouver
Every child is full of questions. And while the science is fuzzy, it seems that children who ask questions about the future — not how things work today, but how they could work better tomorrow — tend to make great planners. Michael Gordon was one of those children. And his legacy as one of the…
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Already Pretty Lit: Passing the Politics Torch, with Peter Ladner & Vivienne Zhang
There’s nothing like listening to a gifted speaker riff on culture and politics; especially when the riffing is concise, with a judicious use of words, and an almost complete absence of hyperbole or bafflegab. Sure, that sounds like Peter Ladner. But in this edition of Price Talks torch-passing…
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The Co-Creationist Idealism of Pete Fry
According to Vancouver Green Party councillor Pete Fry, consultation won’t build us the city of the future. “Where we’re going, we don’t need sticky notes on a wall,” he said (kind of). To Fry, consultation simply means, ‘the plan has already been written’ — not the right approach for the…
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A Night on the North Shore: A Conversation with Residents
The Price Talks team hosted its first public podcast recording, held in front of a live library audience in the District of North Vancouver on June 26, 2019. We’ve lobbed quite a bit of criticism at the North Shore generally over the past eight months, regarding recent decisions about housing,...
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The Sky’s the Limit for Kevin Desmond, CEO of North America’s Transit Ridership Leader
There’s no two ways about it — TransLink, Metro Vancouver’s transit authority, is #1 in North America for year-over-year transit ridership growth. Seattle’s King County Transit is #2. And Kevin Desmond has led them both. Desmond, now in his 4th year at the TransLink helm, didn’t emerge as a…
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The Intergenerational Lessons of Outsiderdom, with Paul Lee & Nathan Pachal
More bus routes with greater capacity. Ground level retail in proximity to low-rise residential buildings. Communities designed with walking, cycling, and integrated multi-modal mobility in mind. And yes, rapid transit. Surrey and Langley are two obvious examples of cities south of the Fraser...
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Re-Imagine Downtown Vancouver: 3-Year Progress Report
In 2015, the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association (DVBIA) undertook a strategic planning process that might have invited a bit of cynicism — give a fancy name and lengthy timeline to a stock-in-trade exercise, and call it transformative. That exercise, however, was Re-Imagine...
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Mike Brown on the Role of Private Capital in Tackling the Climate Emergency
“A lot of people thought we were wildly pessimistic as to the speed with which we were facing this crisis. Turned out we were wildly optimistic. This is happening faster than those of us who started getting interested in it 30 years ago could possibly have conceived.” In recognition of the 30…
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A Night with Jeff Speck: Cars Moving Slowly, Deep Walkability & Recreating the Traditional American Town
“There are places we love, and places we hate…at a certain point, we made it illegal to make the places we love anymore, and we were only allowed to make the places we hate.” So says Jeff Speck, one of North America’s top urban designers, and a leader of the new urbanism movement, in a recent…
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Bringing (More) Process Back to Politics, with VanGreens Councillor Michael Wiebe
You might be a fan of Vancouver Councillor Michael Wiebe’s previous work with the Park Board, including the Jericho Lands Agreement, the Biodiversity Strategy, and warming shelters. Or maybe you prefer his first big hit, as co-owner of eight 1/2, the well-regarded Mt. Pleasant restaurant. You may...
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Houssam Elokda on the Heliopolis Effect, Happy Cities, and Doing Nothing Together
It’s not Vancouver, but it sounds like the Vancouver we want to be: multi-family residential buildings located close to the urban centre. Generously spaced laneways and semi-private lots for kids to play. Sufficient access to high storefronts, services and other amenities, in ever-expanding...
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Mark Busse, On the Underlying Confidence That We Can Design for Community
Can we create community out of diversity? If so, will it require changing the scale and character of urban forms within our communities…the very change some Lower Mainlanders have recently become notorious for rejecting? It’s one of many thorny questions tossed around, grappled over, and...
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A Little Institutionalized Rant from George Affleck on Red Meat, the Mushy Middle & the NPA
In George Affleck’s world, the only thing worse than the politician who tries to please everyone is the politician who only focuses on the base. So you can understand why the only thing to possibly vex him more than last council — in which he withstood endless punishment from a neo-leftie Vision...
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Designing Loveability: Chris Fair of Resonance, on Placemaking & Superstar Cities
Chris Fair helps places — communities, cities, regions — think about the future. That thinking drives the design of everything from the branding of a destination, to the design of streets, buildings and other public spaces, and what is put in them in order to make a city not just liveable, but...
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The Notorious MDG: Melissa De Genova on Political Pedigree, Plot Twists & New Priorities
If you follow Vancouver politics, you don’t need an intro to Melissa De Genova. In just her second term as Vancouver councillor, De Genova suddenly has the second-longest tenure of anyone in council chambers, and has also become (surprisingly, to some) one of the more credible authorities on...
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The House that TEAM Built: Reflections from Living Legend V. Setty Pendakur
Legendary is not a term to be taken lightly, but neither are the accomplishments of TEAM (The Electors’ Action Movement), the municipal political party formed in 1968 in Vancouver by Art Phillips. TEAM steamrolled into City Hall with an 8-seat majority in 1972, and is credited with steering the...
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A Night with Jarrett Walker: Building Human Transit with Shakespeare, String & Elephants in Wine Glasses
Public transit consultant Jarrett Walker says the value of his work with municipalities around the world is never predicated on delivering his own recommendation. Instead, he says he “fosters conversations, leading to confident decisions”. That might get his firm Jarrett Walker + Associates the...
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The Sea Captain, the Strongman & the City of Surrey — with Sukh Johal
The Sea Captain is the newly unveiled public art piece, held aloft from the ceiling of the newly upgraded Surrey Central SkyTrain station on Expo Line. It’s also, perhaps, an apt metaphor for themes covered in this episode. Themes like encounters with colonialism, and the different forms they can...
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Shauna Sylvester & Veronika Bylicki on Mentorship, Dialogue & Representing Lived Experience
Check out Shauna Sylvester’s profile on LinkedIn. Don’t be shy — she invited all Vancouverites to connect with her on the well-behaved social network for the 2018 Vancouver civic election. It was one of a few memorable tactics Sylvester deployed during the endless campaign. Like having policy...
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Return of The Independents
Past Vancouver City Council candidates — and Price Talks pundits — Adrian Crook and Rob McDowell return to the podcast to give their latest letter grades to our local leaders. And much ground is covered in the process, including Rental 100, the Broadway-UBC subway, and the back-story to the cold...
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Turning the Tables on Gordon Price
It was with some relish that the Price Talks production team spun the guest mic around to hear what the podcast’s namesake, the well-seasoned urbanist Gordon Price, might reveal when lightly grilled. An activist, political and urbanist voice in Metro Vancouver for four decades, Gord’s public life...
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A Night with Jeff Tumlin: Acknowledging Privilege & Getting Cities to Yes
“Google ‘Tumlin NIMBY’ or ‘Tumlin Santa Monica’, and you can see a little bit of the story arc.” An effective stage-setting for a dialogue earlier this month, in front of a small gathering at Gord’s West End apartment, with Jeff Tumlin, Principal and Director of Strategy for Nelson Nygaard. One…
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Seth Klein on Mobilizing for the Climate Emergency, and the Lessons of WWII
“There is a time coming, in our lives, when the tap of natural gas into our homes and into our city is going to be turned off. It’s not tomorrow — we have time to make adjustments.” As follow-up to his interview with Vancouver City Councillor Christine Boyle (Episode 19) — mover of a...
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Nathan Edelson on Housing, Gentrification, & the Future of Inner City Planning
In 1997, as workers were stripping asbestos out of the old Woodward’s building, the Vancouver planner overseeing the project predicted it would take 10 to 20 years for Hastings Street to change. “From anything we can see, the community will be overwhelmingly low-income for that long,” Nathan...
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Let’s Get Small: Jake Fry on Building a New Housing Typology
This is the creation story of laneway housing in Vancouver…and, perhaps, the beginning of the end of the Bartholomew era of restrictive zoning. The protagonist is Jake Fry, a self-proclaimed — metaphorical, mind you — child of Trudeau, who grew up in small-town Ontario and attended a one-room...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Vancouver's source for Urbanism, Insight, and Evolution. Hosted by Gordon Price, former Vancouver City Councillor and Director of the SFU City Program lecture series. Featuring interviews with leading players and emerging voices on issues of urban planning, architecture, housing, transportation, politics, culture, and public spaces.
HOSTED BY
Price Tags Media Society
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Viewpoint Vancouver have?
Viewpoint Vancouver currently has 75 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Viewpoint Vancouver about?
Vancouver's source for Urbanism, Insight, and Evolution. Hosted by Gordon Price, former Vancouver City Councillor and Director of the SFU City Program lecture series. Featuring interviews with leading players and emerging voices on issues of urban planning, architecture, housing, transportation,...
How often does Viewpoint Vancouver release new episodes?
Viewpoint Vancouver has 75 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Viewpoint Vancouver?
You can listen to Viewpoint Vancouver on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Viewpoint Vancouver?
Viewpoint Vancouver is created and hosted by Price Tags Media Society.
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