Attitudes & behaviour

The dream is alive in the Great White North

We can all rest easy. Despite many studies showing increased income inequality and a shrinking middle class in Canada, a rags-to-riches story is more likely to happen here than in the “land of opportunity.”

University of Ottawa professor Miles Corak, a social policy economist and former director of family and labour research at Statistics Canada, and his co-authors Lori Curtis (Professor of Economics, University of Waterloo) and Shelley Phipps (Professor of Economics, Dalhousie University) found that Canadians are three times more economically mobile than those in the US. The difference is largely due to those at the very top and the very bottom of the income distribution. In Economic Mobility, Family Background, and the Well-Being of Children in the United States and Canada, the three researchers found that social supports such as the Child Tax Credit, paid parental leave benefits, and schools funded through provincial income taxes help ensure that children receive better care and schooling than in the US, where these supports are absent and schools are funded through local property taxes, leaving poor neighbourhoods with failing schools. With sky-high tuition fees at universities, the richest Americans can buy their children the best educations and tutors. These differences between rich and poor mean that if you’re born poor in the US, you tend to stay poor; this also applies to the 1%–the very top of the income pyramid. For example, although “the average Canadian child is not as affluent as the average American, the poorest Canadian is not as poor in an absolute sense as Americans at the bottom of the income distribution.” This may help explain why discussions of class are more prevalent in the American literature and popular press.

The authors caution that rising income inequality rates in Canada could erode the high rate of economic mobility that we see now. Indeed, a look at their graphs shows that we still have issues: 15% our poorest children may still grow up to have incomes in the lowest decile (Figure 3, p7), but they have a better chance at the 7th, 8th, and 9th deciles than they do in the US. More Canadian children are born in the lower income deciles than American children (Figure 8, p33). But Table 1 (p21) shows some clear differences in the characteristics of families and parents. In Canada, 2.1% of children are born to teenage mothers; in the US, it’s 8.3%. In Canada, 14.9% of mothers are single compared to 22.1% in the US. Far more mothers and lone mothers in Canada have completed some post-secondary education or a post-secondary certificate (but oddly, more American mothers have completed degrees). Health problems among the poorest mothers are also more prevalent in the US, likely due to the cost of health care. As the authors suggest, Canadians must protect policies such as paid parental leave, the right to return to their jobs after the birth of a child, tax-transfer programs that help reduce the severity of poverty, and funding for schools through provincial income tax, ensuring a more equal distribution of resources across municipalities and neighbourhoods. Although we have fewer barriers to health care, we need to ensure the lower-income population has sufficient knowledge on navigating the health care system and can pay for prescription medication.

Corak, Curtis and Phipps write that “The citizens of both countries have a similar understanding of a successful life, one that is rooted in individual aspirations and freedom. They also have similar views on how these goals should be attained, but with one important exception: Americans differ in that they are more likely to see the State hindering rather than helping the attainment of these goals. Yet, at the same time the citizens of both countries recognize the need for public policy to contribute to reaching this ideal, with Americans believing more than Canadians that a whole host of interventions would be effective in improving the prospects for economic mobility. One interpretation of these findings – an interpretation that only becomes evident in a comparative context – is that in some sense this need is going unmet in the United States.”

Vancouver’s social stalemate

If anyone needs proof that Vancouver is in a class of its own (our placement on the Most Liveable Cities and Worst Dressed Cities lists notwithstanding), here it is. Last May, Vanessa Richmond wrote an article in The Tyee which posed the question, “What the heck is wrong with men in Vancouver?” Considering the interest spurred by my blog post on Richmond’s article, I thought readers might enjoy Vancouver Magazine‘s dip in the tepid social waters of Shangri-La.

Katherine Ashenburg’s “Do Vancouver men suck?” (published on that most optimistic of dates, January 1, 2012) tears apart the West Coast male, citing passivity, lack of career motivation, over-attention to fitness activities like the Grouse Grind, and teenage fashion sense among the city’s singles. (To be fair, Vancouver’s third-place finish on the worst-dressed cities list can be attributed as much to women as men: Lululemon yoga pants are as common as the fleece-and-hiking-boots combo in this city.) Ashenburg writes, “The Grind is indeed a metaphor for the single life in Vancouver–daunting, strenuous, semi-natural, and so not romantic.”

As many readers commented, Vancouver men might be less likely to approach women, flirt with them, or assist them with daily activities like carrying heavy packages…but Vancouver women are also notoriously cold, treating harmless social advances as acts of harrassment. Ashenburg’s article opened with the tableau of a group of women bitching about the crappiness of men in this city, illustrating the unapproachable social characteristics that seem to evoke bitterness in the males of the species. One commenter, fedupvancouverguy, pointed out the mismatch between the overly-materialistic women portrayed in the article, who refuse to look past the scruffy, laid-back exterior that is the norm in a city where relentless pursuit of money is not the end goal: “The guys dressed in jeans and scuffed shoes sitting at the longbar at Joeys at 2 pm on a Tuesday might be losers, but there’s just as good a chance that they’re mining-industry guys discussing yet another deal to sell their find or project to a bigger firm for big, big money. Welcome to Vancouver.”

Whether or not readers agree with Ashenburg’s portrayal of the masculine, responses to the article consistently point out the social differences between Vancouver and international cities, notably a painfully strained cultural norm where cliquey behaviour and closed responses make it clear that your attempts at friendliness are going nowhere. VanMag’s editors published one reader response to Ashenburg’s article: Jorge Amigo’s “Do Vancouver women suck?” (January 9, 2012) Amigo cites the numerous attempts he’s made at conversation with women over the past five years. Whether on the bus, the beach, the park, Vancouver women have returned his friendly comments with panic, coldness, and even outright rudeness. Numerous responses confirmed his suspicions: Vancouver women find random friendliness threatening, because inevitably they’ve been approached/trapped in weird conversations/followed home/groped by men they’ve met in public settings. However, what is interesting is that again, nobody is questioning that this is the norm in Vancouver. Are female residents of other cities, like Toronto, New York, or London, any less likely to have experienced random creepiness? Having lived in many different cities, I’d say that women’s fear of being approached by strange men is pretty universal. But somehow in these other cities, men and women flirt, ask each other out, and date…and the crux of Richmond’s, Ashenburg’s and Amigo’s articles is that, outside of the random creepy advances that exist in every city around the world, normal conversation and friendliness between the sexes are much more constrained in Vancouver. This applies to people trying to make friends here as well: numerous responses highlighted the cliquey behaviour of those who were born and raised here, already have their group of friends, and don’t want to add any outsiders to their close-knit group.

In a city renowned for its banal social scene and steeped in social media, have men and women forgotten how to actually talk to each other? If this weren’t the case, dating and relationship coach Ronald Lee would have no clients. But there is hope in another cliché: according to Amigo, the only places women let down their guard a little is in the ubiquitous coffee shop. There, a woman might “temporarily defrost her Vancouver ice-wall” and “respond normally when you ask to borrow a chair, offer a friendly nod when you comment on the amazingness of the shoes she’s wearing, poke fun at your accent, and appreciate your healthy banter.” While it seems to be acknowledged that there’s something in the water out west that kills mojo, more efforts at friendliness would seem to be the solution. As one of Ashenburg’s female interview subjects stated about the single scene in Vancouver, “Men need to take more risks and women need to shut up [about how crap men are].”

Portlandia and other urban stereotypes

A sign in Portland's Pearl District

Stereotypes of urban groups are well-known: hipsters, yuppies, DINKs, soccer moms. Writers exaggerate them for comic effect: we’re all familiar with the suburban family (starting way back with Leave it to Beaver), the glamorous single girls (Sex in the City), and the teen misfits (Degrassi, Glee). Urban cultures are also contrasted: in Hot in Cleveland, four L.A. women decide to move to Cleveland when the local men show a lot of interest in them. In real life, there’s practically a cultural divide between the urban lifestyles of Toronto and Vancouver, or New York and L.A.

Portland can be characterized as a West Coast city, with its attention to local food, emphasis on physical activity, and enormous variety of independent retailers. You’ve all seen the video clip by now: a couple of hipsters grill a waitress about just how local their chicken is, and are presented with every minute detail of their dinner’s upbringing, habitat size and even its name. The series Portlandia has become somewhat of a cult classic in its portrayal of overzealous hipster culture: it parodies fixi bikes, facial hair, animal protection, and independent bookstores. My first visit to Portland occurred last week, before I’d seen a single episode of the show. So how do Portlanders measure up to their stereotypes?

Many have written about Portland’s devotion to public transit and urban planning initiatives, including the urban growth boundary adopted in 1976. To the tome of articles written on this topic, I have nothing more to add: I also found travelling in Portland quite easy thanks to the streetcar, which extends to the northwest neighbourhood where I was staying, and the MAX LRT lines. I could walk to the Pearl District, home to many independent shops including the legendary Powell’s Books. But I suspect that I got to know Portland in somewhat of a unique way: through food. Specifically, gluten-free food.

Food cart "pod" downtown

Travelling with dietary restrictions can be brutal, especially if we’re talking about allergies or other life-threatening conditions, as opposed to our militant foodies in Portlandia’s pilot episode. Put a couple of these conditions together and it can be really difficult to find anything to nosh: I vividly recall planning a high school camping trip with a vegetarian, a celiac, and a dairy allergic among our party of six. Now, in Vancouver there’s no shortage of restaurants catering to every dietary need (or people with dietary needs). Recently, my husband and I went to a gluten-free dinner at Whole Foods to learn recipes that he can safely eat. There, we met two women who blog on gluten-free restaurants and products in Vancouver (glutenfree-vancouver.blogspot.com). Based on this experience, we decided to search for a similar website on Portland. And there it was: Gluten Free Portland (www.glutenfreeportland.org). Thanks to their restaurant list and Google maps, we were able to find places all over the city that met my husband’s celiac needs: in fact, we wanted to try the restaurants so much that we actually explored neighbourhoods that we probably wouldn’t have, including the Hawthorne District and the Belmont area.

Local winery

The neighbourhoods are Portland, with main streets full of shops, restaurants, and food carts that have more or less become permanent installations: one coffee cart had an attached seating area with stools and a corrugated plastic roof. There were even “pods” of food carts with four or five vendors in a row. We feasted on fried yucca and quinoa-breaded shrimp, drank hazelnut milk, and tasted the local wines. These folks do, indeed, take their food seriously. One restaurant had a cheese menu as extensive than their wine list, mostly sourced from Oregon dairies.

Within 40 minutes of Portland, wineries share the land with hazelnut orchards, grazing horses and alpacas, corn fields, and dairy farms. I doubt that any of this is an accident: the Portland/Multnomah Food Policy Council runs immigrant farmer workshops, completed an inventory of city-owned land available for urban agriculture, awarded Portland State University $125,000 to initiate its Learning Garden Laboratory, and addressed food security in Lents with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

So is Portland, in fact, Portlandia? Well…yes. At one point, two bearded men in their mid-20s strode towards each other on Belmont, and one said to the other, “Hey man, what it is,” despite the fact that it is not 1971. (My husband and I burst out laughing, as we strode out of yet another gluten-free bakery). The same urban stereotypes can be found in Vancouver, Toronto, London, and Melbourne, but Portlandia writers really know their subject material!

Being third on this list is a fail, Vancouver

Vancouver is often included on lists. You know, like the Most Livable City list (we dropped to #3 this year, while Melbourne ranked #1). And let’s face it, Vancouverites are a little smug about being the envy of everyone in the “world”. But Vancouver ranked near the top of another list last week: Vivian Song, a travel writer for MSN, just listed Vancouver as #3 on her list of the Worst-Dressed Cities in the World. She probably brought all these kicky heels and designer dresses to wear on her trip to Vancouver, but alas…she had no idea they wouldn’t be de rigeur in a city where wearing a jean skirt and a tank top invites the question, “Did you have a job interview today?” (Yes, this has actually happened–to me.)

Song blames the prevalence of that Kits classic, “unnamed local brand” yoga pants, as the reason for her choice. Isn’t it interesting that yoga, a practice that originated thousands of years ago as a Hindu spiritual practice in India and is studied at colleges in that country, reaches its ultimate shallowness in Vancouver, the pretty boy of Canadian cities? There’s nothing like $100 pants to center yourself in a practice whose ultimate goal is enlightenment. Wearing them for your every activity makes just as much sense as a dancer wearing tap shoes to do her grocery shopping. And insisting that they’re comfortable doesn’t do you any favours. What are you, a two-year old who insists on sleeping in his Superman costume for days on end?

Other cities on Song’s list include Seattle (#2) for trying to keep grunge alive almost 20 years after Nirvana’s Nevermind (and the picture that goes with this is hilarious), Pittsburgh (#9) for its constant sporting of Steelers/Penguins jerseys, and Ottawa (#8), the only other Canadian city included. Having experienced the 80s suits and drab colours of government town firsthand, I heartily agree with #8. Right on, Song!

The bell tolls for Jack Layton

Less than four short months ago, I stood at the back of a standing-room-only crowd in a film studio in Burnaby. Two thousand people packed the building; there were still hundreds waiting outside. Suddenly, the crowd began to cheer wildly, waving orange signs and Canadian flags as a slim, well-dressed man strode energetically up to the stage. As the excitement built up, he ran up the steps, waving and smiling, shaking his now trademark cane in defiance of a recent hip replacement. This was his last stop on the campaign trail, and his party was enjoying a surge in popularity. Two days later, the New Democratic Party won an unprecedented 103 seats in the federal election, and slim, well-dressed “Smilin’ Jack” Layton became Leader of the Opposition.

It is a sad reality that Layton, who led the NDP to its most powerful position in its 50-year history, should not live to see the next Parliamentary session. Layton lost his battle with cancer quite quickly and unexpectedly in the early hours of Monday, August 22nd, and a nation mourns his passing. Many of us were looking forward to his sharp debating tactics and keen insights while defending the working class, urging protection of the environment, and supporting urban issues in Stephen Harper’s first majority government. The NDP as Loyal Opposition was the sole consolation, many of us believed, for the unsettling Conservative majority that came about on May 2nd after polls had consistently predicted another minority government.

Layton was a true leader: charismatic, passionate, fair, and deeply committed. And yet, he embodied contrasts. Layton grew up in a home steeped in politics; his father, was Conservative MP Robert Layton and his mother, Doris Steeves, was a grand-niece of William Steeves, a Father of Confederation. Although he received a Ph.D. in political science and taught at Ryerson University, Layton moved quickly into public life as a Toronto city councillor. From 1984 to 1991, Layton was one of a handful of left-wing councillors, known for cycling, coming to council meetings in jeans and opposing mega-projects such as SkyDome. He became head of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in the mid-1990s. After a couple of unsuccessful campaigns to become an MP, he was elected leader of the NDP in 2003; he won the Toronto-Danforth seat in a 2004 by-election.

Like many politicians, Layton worked hard at refining his image, crafting his responses to the media and developing insightful critiques of policies and agendas. He made lots of public appearance and became something of a media darling in the 2000s; “Smilin’ Jack”, he had become. He wasn’t universally popular; no NDP leader could be. Yet there was something real, something of the ordinary and everyday Canadian, that remained in that calm, well-honed political persona. As John Ibbitson writes, “Always there was, at his centre, this unshakable belief in social justice, married to principled conviction that politicians should treat each other and the voters who gave them their mandate with some measure of decency and respect.” That honesty shone through this spring’s campaign trail, as Layton poured beers at a Montreal bar and sparred with Michael Ignatieff during the English-language debate. Despite his education, his political lineage, and his polished public image, Layton appealed to Canadians as the guy next door, the politician you’d most like to have over for drinks. Compared to Ignatieff, who struggled to connect with voters not just because of his Ph.D., but because he did not appear to have an unwavering commitment to Canadians or to the public service, Layton appeared dedicated and genuine.

Layton’s commitment to public service were evident even when, less than a month ago, he disclosed that he was fighting a new type of cancer. He promised to take a few months over to deal with his health and then return when Parliament resumed in September. As The Globe and Mail reports, he met with NDP staff just two days before his death to hammer out two letters: one to Canadians, and the second to his party outlining the direction for the coming months. As always, he was optimistic, but also realistic:

“Hope and optimism have defined my political career. … As my time in political life draws to a close, I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today.” Jack Layton, August 20, 2011

Jack Layton’s death will rock the NDP’s foundations as much as the death of its first leader, Tommy Douglas, who also died of cancer after a political career that shaped this country through the introduction of its most cherished social welfare programs. The NDP will struggle rudderless during the months to come, but they will be the Official Opposition for at least four years. They will have to quickly elect a new leader and work desperately to maintain a strong presence in Parliament among the Canadians who voted for Jack, and not necessarily the NDP.

I only saw Jack one other time, also at a distance. A few years ago he was in Vancouver for the annual Gay Pride Parade, where he rode in a car festooned with orange NDP balloons, waving and smiling at the thousands who lined Denman Street in support of the LGBT community. He was present just six weeks ago at Toronto’s Pride Parade, an event that Mayor Rob Ford boycotted. In the jaded world of politics, Jack Layton had an integrity that spoke to Canadians regardless of their political leanings: he was committed to doing what he believed was right. He now stands among those great Canadians who fought for the greater good–Tommy Douglas, Nellie McClung, Pierre Trudeau, Terry Fox, Lester B. Pearson–whose deaths struck us to our very cores. Canada was built upon the work of these.

Vancouver riot: hooliganism at its finest

Fans watching Game 4 in front of the Vancouver Public Library

Two weeks have passed since the Vancouver Canucks’ Game 7 Stanley Cup loss to the Boston Bruins and the ensuing riot. Other events have prevented my journalistic ink from flowing as freely as others’ on this topic…yet the amount of ink spilled (both literal and virtual) has done little to answer the fundamental question of why the riot happened. Opinions range from “there wasn’t enough of a police presence” (“Police actions questioned in wake of Vancouver riot”, CTV News) to “the potential for violence always exists in the human brain” (“Sometimes, is a riot normal?”, The Georgia Straight, June 23).

I’ll let the experts discuss the reasons behind it, although I will say that I was as surprised as anyone at the Game 7 riot, having been downtown watching Games 4 and 6, both of which the Canucks lost. There were over 100,000 fans downtown on earlier game nights, and many of us watched the game on the big screens at Georgia and Hamilton Streets. There were big groups of police and security personnel standing around, as most fans went home in a state of quiet depression during the barren third period of each game (“Vancouver riot saw 800 cops on the street“, The Globe and Mail, June 28). The Stanley Cup Playoffs ran nine weeks this year, and considering it would have been the Canuck’s first Cup ever and Canada’s first since 1993, Cup Fever had built up over a two-month period.

I’ll also leave aside the alarming, or alarmist, media coverage, which quickly spun the story out of control. At 10pm on June 15th, a mere hour after the game ended, CTV reported that ”Rioters left downtown Vancouver reeling from countless fires, widespread looting and numerous stabbings in the wake of a crushing loss for the Canucks.” (In fact, fifteen cars were set on fire, several stores were looted along Georgia and Robson Streets and there were exactly two stabbings.) Stories abounded about how people were trapped downtown after TransLink was forced to shut down bus service into/out of downtown. (Anyone living here knows that Vancouver’s downtown is a peninsula. You can walk east, south, and southwest about 20 minutes and you’re out of the core and can hop on a bus.) The international media quickly picked up the events unfolding through thousands of Twitter feeds, Facebook updates and incessant hand-wringing of middle-aged news anchors on CBC, CTV, and local Canadian networks. Even now, media comparisons persist between Vancouver’s Stanley Cup riot (over 100 arrests) and Toronto’s G20 protests last year, an event still being pursued in the courts involving 19,000 police offers, 1,100 security guards and over 900 arrests, the highest number of mass arrests in Canada’s history.

I’m more concerned with how quickly Vancouver residents disowned the riot, saying it was not typical of Vancouver.

Fans walk home along Granville Street after Game 6

“It is extremely disappointing to see the situation in downtown Vancouver turn violent after tonight’s Stanley Cup game. Vancouver is a world-class city, and it is embarrassing and shameful to see the type of violence and disorder we’ve seen tonight.” Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, June 15, 2011

NBA player Steve Nash, a Vancouver native, agreed the riot was an embarrassment for the city. Police Chief Jim Chu was quick to pin the blame on “anarchists and criminals” (though he took back those words within days). Gary Mason of The Globe and Mail wrote that rioters came from all over the region, not just Vancouver. Solicitor-General Shirley Bond said that the riot was due to a very young, predominantly male crowd–a different crowd than other Stanley Cup playoff nights. Spectators interviewed by the press indicated their disappointment, saying, “This is not Vancouver.” Later, when locals started penning their thoughts on the wood panels used to shore up broken windows of vandalized stores, a common theme was “Don’t judge us by a few hooligans.” Quickly, now, repeat after me: Vancouver is pretty. Not ugly.

In fact, this is Vancouver. Like any city, Vancouver has a history of violence, and riots have arisen out of political protest, civic unrest and hooliganism. In September 1907, 2000 citizens gathered in “anti-Asiatic riots”, smashing in the windows of Japanese business owners on Powell Street. A drunken riot involving 600 citizens and soldiers demonstrating in front of the Vancouver Police Station was broken up by tear gas and military police in August 1943. In November 1966, 5000 rioters swarmed into a three-block area along Georgia Street, throwing beer bottles, breaking windows, and starting fires in sidewalk trash bins after the annual Grey Cup parade; there were 200 arrests. In August 1971, Gastown residents rioted against a police crackdown on illegal drugs; 100 people were arrested. Less than a year later, in June 1972, 2000 people outside Pacific Coliseum hurled rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails at riot-equipped Vancouver Police officers during a Rolling Stones concert (warmup act: then-22-year-old Stevie Wonder). Thirty policemen were injured as the mob tried to crash the concert. And of course, following the Canucks’ Stanley Cup loss in 1994, a riot ensued lasting six hours; 200 were arrested. Some of these riots were inspired by political events, but some involved a bunch of hooligans who thought it would be fun to smash some stuff up and set a few things on fire, just like June 15th, 2011. Many came prepared to riot regardless of whether the Canucks won or lost, with black knit masks, fire extinguishers that could be used to smash windows, and signs that said, “Riot 2011″. Countless people took digital photos of themselves with the burning cars, arms held high as if they’d scored a victory. In Vancouver’s first social media riot, Twitter feeds, Facebook postings, and the confessions of several teens who have been charged after the incident confirm how lightly participants took acts like setting cars on fire. They seemed to just go with the flow, and even seem surprised at the internet backlash that has led to them losing their jobs, being suspended from sports teams, and endangering their families. Like Stephen Quinn joked, some might even have hooked up as a result of their actions (“Missed Connections/I saw you (through the tear gas)”, The Globe and Mail, June 24).

Every city has the potential for inexplicable violence, because every city is home to hundreds of thousands of people. We did manage to hold the Olympics here without major incident. We’ve also held countless international events like Expo ’86, and community events like Car-Free Day on the Drive, the Kitsilano Greek Festival, and Chinese New Year celebrations, all of which draw thousands of people. All of these events are carefully planned with the presence of police, first aid, and security personnel. Most of the time, nothing goes awry. Occasionally it does (few outsiders remember that downtown windows were smashed by anti-Olympics protesters on the first day of last year’s Olympics). When it does, we all have to deal with it: the mayor, the police chief, the gutsy few that helped hold back looters (“Police seeking Stanley Cup riot Good Samaritans”, The Toronto Star June 27th) and more than 14,000 citizens who volunteered to help store owners clean up the shattered glass and debris on the morning of June 16th. These stories, both good and bad, become part of the city’s history, at least for those of us who can’t stomach the sugary-sweet myth of Vancouver. Those of us who live here know that this is also a city with persistent homelessness, sharply polarized incomes (with the poorest and richest postal codes in the country), and serious drug traffic. People exist here, like they do elsewhere, within a fragile network of social connections kept alive by a veneer of civility. Certain events (whether it be sports, politics, or inequity) motivate people to take sandpaper and blowtorches to the shiny surface, exposing the conflicts underneath. Other events, like “most livable city” contests, buff the veneer right up again. So never fear, politicians and business scions: the myth of Vancouver as some kind of laid-back hippie paradise (for rich people) persists.

Maybe this riot, like the 1994 Stanley Cup riot, the 2001 transit strike that lasted so long it produced skewed Census results, and the persistent smashing of Starbucks’ windows when they first opened on Commercial Drive, offers us a little insight into the complex social, income, and ethnic diversity of this city. These events, like the Olympics and Expo ’86 and the hundreds of festivals held here, are as much a part of the city as the Downtown Eastside and Kitsilano. The rioters, the Good Samaritans, the cleanup crew, and the internet vigilantes who have sent police thousands of pictures to help identify rioters: they are all Vancouver.

Vancouver: a hookup nightmare?

Vancouver has a lot of things going for it: beautiful scenery, coffee shops on every corner, and some fantastic local foods. But as my regular readers know, Vancouver also has undesirable characteristics: it’s ridiculously expensive, socially polarized and inward-looking. It’s also notoriously difficult for young singles to meet potential mates in this town. So when The Tyee‘s Vanessa Richmond asked, “What the heck is wrong with men in this town?” I couldn’t resist responding.

There’s a fair amount of Vancouver-bashing going on now that the Canucks have made it to their first Stanley Cup finals in 17 years. Most of the talk indicates the lukewarm attitudes the rest of Canada has towards “the most livable city in the world”.

“The fact is, as cities go, many Canadians view Vancouver as effete, a metropolis made up of snotty, latte swilling, cargo-shorts wearing, too-cool-for-school yuppies for whom pleasure and real estate remain their only abiding concerns.” Gary Mason, Can Canucks really be Canada’s hockey team?, Globe and Mail, May 18, 2011)

“We are yuppie, expensive and shallow. Look at the place! We’d be stupid not to be yuppie, expensive and shallow. I’m writing this column in my hot tub while sipping a clever little Okanagan Pinot Gris. Life is good here.” Pete McMartin, “Dear rest of Canada, please get your own hockey team”, Vancouver Sun, May 12, 2011)

Vancouverites know that it’s more than geography that separates them from the rest of Canada, and they’re proud of this cultural distinctness in the same way Alaskans revel in their separation from “the lower 48″. But there are specific characteristics that make it difficult for singles to hook up in VanCity (depending on what your definition of “hookup” is):

Strict Prohibition-era liquor laws make it more expensive to drink here and enforce earlier closing hours for Vancouver bars outside of the Granville Street club strip. When I moved here in 2005, I was shocked to discover that last call for bars and restaurants here is midnight…I mean come on, even in London, Ontario it’s 1:30am. It’s even illegal to take BC wines across the Alberta border, as a local radio reporter demonstrated recently (noted: I’m about to embark on a road trip to Calgary, so I guess we’ll have to stock up once we cross the border).
The weather. Canadians in Toronto and Montreal somehow manage to socialize in the rain and snow, but 8 months of rain per year literally dampens Vancouver’s social scene.
Urban planning. Metro Vancouver’s segmented land mass joined by precious few bridges makes socializing in the (tiny) downtown much more difficult than in other cities, where the downtown blends seamlessly into inner suburban neighbourhoods. It’s still a relatively small city (1.8 million for the entire region) and still largely suburban: people retreat to their homes after work, rather than sharing in the traditional urban pastime of after-work drinks that spill into dinner. And it’s still a relatively young city, so neighbourhoods don’t really have their own local bar/restaurant scenes. Vancouver still doesn’t feel like a vibrant urban centre.
Culture. Urban planner Gordon Price, quoted in Richmond’s article, notes that aloof behavior is “embedded in the cultural bedrock upon which this place was founded”. This British reserve means that men don’t approach women in bars, social hangouts, or even online dating sites: Richmond calls this “the eternal shyness of the VanCity man”.
Transience. Vancouver has a reputation that draws people from all over the country, and increasingly, all over the world. This creates a relatively transient population: many stay in Vancouver, but lots choose to return home when housing prices and incessant rain start to make them miserable. Many of my single friends have complained that the men they’ve dated weren’t into anything serious because they didn’t intend to stay here.

In other cities, singles aren’t hard up for hookups…how does anyone ever meet in VanCity? When I moved here for grad school, those of us from out of town quickly realized that the “townies” didn’t really socialize with us. They had their well-established networks of friends and family, and didn’t have the time or desire to add more. A classmate of mine who had moved here for work several years earlier told us how difficult it was to make friends here, and several of my friends have shared their own struggles in Vancouver’s social scene. One friend recently mentioned that her husband has had a tough time making guy friends. “You think it’s hard for women to make friends here?” she asked. “It’s ten times harder for men.” Even after living in Vancouver for six years, most of my friends are from out of town, and many from out of province. (Lest I be outed as “anti-Vancouver”, my husband and I noticed the same social phenomenon in Ottawa, where we lived for three years). This difficulty making friends in Vancouver inevitably extends to other social activities like dating.

I don’t know what the solution is any more than Richmond does; even her suggestion that women be more assertive in approaching men might be problematic in Vancouver (the men in her article are rebuffed when they approach women, so who’s to know how they would react if a woman were to make the first move?) All I can say is that Vancouver’s social scene is markedly different from Montreal’s, where waiters at restaurants flirt with every woman in sight, and Toronto’s (I dare you to find a Toronto friend who hasn’t gone out for after-work drinks in the last month).

Revisiting the ‘crit’

As many of you know, I spent my undergraduate years at the University of Toronto, where I was enrolled in the Landscape Architecture Bachelors program. Five years of 36 hours of class per week, which included 15 hours of design studios and endless hours of preparation for the studio grind. Design projects are often frustrating and there is little guidance provided, but most students enjoy studio more than their other classes. Once students graduate and work in private practice, they thrive on design work. Within a few years, many become project managers so they can have more control over design projects. Some of my classmates from the Bachelors program are now associates in their firms.

However, studio is often taught in an adversarial way that doesn’t seem to benefit the students. It doesn’t accomplish much to hear, “Your design sucks!” Receiving daily criticism on your design work can be intimidating and, if it is not constructive, demoralizing. One of the most trying experiences in any design student’s life is the final ‘crit’, where critics from outside of the school are invited to comment on their work. This is a more formal than the ‘pin-up’, which happens throughout the semester at any given time, and usually just involves your teacher and classmates. Students may spend a night preparing for a pin-up, but they invest a week or more (including several all-nighters) preparing finished drawings for a final crit. Even the setting indicates a shift in formality: while the pin-up is usually held in studio wherever a suitable white wall can be found to pin trace paper drawings, the crit is often held in a larger, more public room on the main floor of the building. The critics are often local architects, urban designers, landscape architects, and occasionally urban writers or thinkers. Again, sometimes the criticism is useful, but it is often hurtful and demeaning: I remember one Chinese student whose crit included a vicious criticism of his English skills. Another student received a fifteen-minute harangue on her choice of paper for the final drawings, which the critic deemed substandard. In both cases, the critic never said a word about the actual design (click here for more typical crit comments).

You can see why, when I was asked to be a critic for a design studio last week, I warily approached the invitation. An architect friend of mine was going to be a critic at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, here on Granville Island in Vancouver, and the class needed more critics. The students were architecture students from the University of Oregon who were in Vancouver on a field studio. Their assignment was to design a new building for the end of Railspur Alley; two of the existing buildings are underused. Under the guidance of their teacher, Associate Professor Stephen Duff, they had met with Granville Island planners and local retailers to get a sense of what types of uses were most needed (more artist studios, performance spaces, and teaching kitchens) and what was lacking (nightlife). We were going to be giving them feedback on their projects at the mid-term point; there is still a month until their final crit.

As usual, the students pinned up their projects on the walls: their trace paper sections and plans, cardboard models, and flurry of last-minute activity were all too familiar. What differed was the crit process. There were about eight critics, most of us schooled in architecture or landscape architecture, and most working in private practice. We were each assigned a student for five 35-minute slots, and we rotated throughout the two small rooms. The student spent about half of the time presenting their work, and then we asked questions, we made suggestions, and got into discussions with the students about problems they were having. Occasionally we were paired, so the critic-to-student ratio was 2:1. I found the ratio, and the crit process, to be much more productive for the students: they were involved in a real dialogue about their projects, rather than meekly receiving commentary in front of an audience. The students also seemed fairly confident about their work, which shows they had been mentored more than cajoled (and says a lot about their teacher, an affable and open-minded sort). However, they weren’t stubborn or defensive about their designs; on the contrary, all of the students I worked with were interested in the critics’ opinions, and intended to use the new ideas to keep exploring their designs until the final crit in June. What we had, then, was an exercise in problem-solving rather than an adversarial “Defend your idea!” Of course, this wasn’t a final crit; the students had time to keep working and change their designs. But I have a hunch that their final crit would be pretty similar, even if they were required to present their ideas and receive criticism in front of the whole class.

This crit was so superior to the antagonistic crits I experienced that I wonder why they aren’t always done this way. I’m pretty sure that the harsh, and often personal, criticism that we received at school didn’t make us better designers (and I know for a fact that it debilitated many students). I can hear the murmurs of “too soft” and “not rigorous enough” already, but as someone who has crossed the disciplinary divide, I assure you that students don’t receive stinging critiques on a daily basis from their sociology or chemistry professors. Even PhD students, as aspiring professors, are taught to give their students constructive criticism in the classroom setting and when grading assignments. Why aren’t more design studios integrating guest critics at the more informal mid-term crits, using a higher critic-to-student ratio, and spurring real dialogue about students’ designs?

Election excitement? The startling turn of events preceding May 2nd

Since Easter weekend, when record-breaking numbers of voters took to advance polls, election fever has gripped this country from coast to coast. I can’t remember a more exciting campaign, nor a time when the Liberal and NDP parties have ever changed places in a mere five weeks (according to pollsters, anyway). The surge in NDP support has left political commentators breathless: could Jack Layton’s NDP become the official Opposition party? The Toronto Star endorsed Layton as Prime Minister, but urged Canadians to vote strategically to prevent a Harper majority. The Globe and Mail, rather characteristically, endorsed Stephen Harper…and went so far as to call this “an unremarkable and disappointing election campaign”!

The polls have been fluctuating wildly in the past week, leaving the outcome undecided: will the NDP grab seats in BC, as the polls suggest? Both Harper and Layton ended their campaigns in Vancouver this week: we’re home to several key ridings like Burnaby-Douglas, Vancouver Centre, Newton-North Delta, and Surrey North. Will waning Liberal support lead to Conservative wins in key ridings? Will the Quebecois shift their support from the Bloc to the NDP in ridings like Gatineau? How exactly will the NDP surge play out in terms of number of seats? The media are also trying to decipher the significance of youth turnout encouraged by vote mobs (see my last post: this picture is from today’s vote mob in my hometown of London, Ontario which gathered over 1500 people. London, you may recall, is where two students were kicked out of a Conservative party rally way back at the beginning of the campaign. Organizers say London’s was the biggest vote mob of the year.)

Is this election campaign best summarized by the Globe and Mail‘s headline, “Federal elections a tight race between boredom and hope” (April 29, 2011)? Or has this “unnecessary election” changed Canada for the better? (May 1, 2011) The youngest voters and NDP supporters are hoping for change across this great country, and at this point it looks like there is no hope of a Harper majority. My hope: that the 35% increase at advance polls signals high voter turnout on May 2nd…and that Harper is not re-elected to form a government, majority or minority. Hold on, kids, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!

Youth plan to rock the vote on May 2nd

In the past two weeks, an amazing development has taken root at university campuses across Canada.

Spurred by comedian Rick Mercer and activist groups LeadNow, Project Democracy and Apathy is Boring, students are holding vote mobs to show that they will be voting in the upcoming federal election. Media coverage of the vote mobs has been slow and grudging, but that doesn’t seem to have dampened the spirits of young voters.

Mercer’s rant was recorded on the day the government fell, March 29, 2011. In it, he said that there were over 3 million eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 24 and “as far as the major political parties are concerned, you may as well be dead.” He encouraged young people to get out there and “scare the hell out of the people who run this country”, since only 37% of this group voted in the last election. Mercer has been characteristically humble about his rant, saying that he had no idea young people would react the way they have. Beginning with the University of Guelph, students at over 25 universities have held vote mobs so far. The resulting videos are so fun, positive, and non-partisan that they have provoked both local (London Free Press, Guelph Mercury) and national (CBC, CTV) media attention.

One can’t help but notice the parties’ lack of response to students’ desire to vote this time around. If hundreds of seniors all across the country started mobilizing to vote, it would be front page news. When young people do it, it’s cutesy headlines (“Thanks a heap, Rick Mercer–the students might actually vote” and “Voting-mob mentality has young people running amok” at The Globe and Mail) and skepticism (“Will vote mobs translate into actual votes?”, Toronto Star ). One notable exception: the Toronto Star’s Youth Nation, which profiles candidates under 30 blogging about issues as diverse as renewable energy and social justice.

“I’m not sure what a flash mob is but it sounds a bit disconcerting … I don’t know about ‘flash’ or ‘mobs’ but I don’t like the context of either word.” –Conservative MP John Baird

Baird’s comment made many students shake their heads in disbelief. It illustrated the disconnect between federal politicians and youth. Several studies have shown that Canadian youth aren’t disengaged at all; they just participate in different ways and have different values from older adults (check out an article I wrote on youth participation in transportation planning a couple of years ago).

The sole political response to vote mobs has been from the Conservative party, who tried to have a special ballot held at the University of Guelph declared illegal. After the success of their vote mob, over 700 students stood in line for an hour to cast votes on April 13th; special ballots are often held for groups with lower than average turnout, such as students, aboriginals and those with physical disabilities. Elections Canada declared the Guelph special ballot valid, but in order to avoid controversy it said it was stopping all special ballots at universities. The Conservative party had already come under fire on April 3rd for kicking a couple of students out of a rally in London, Ontario, a move that Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP leader Jack Layton swiftly criticized (check out the Liberals’ cheeky “Hey Stephen Harper, stop creeping me on Facebook”). The events seem to have lit a fire of passion among students across the country (LeadNow assembled 3600 signatures within 12 hours in an online petition to have the Guelph votes declared valid). But one wonders at the wisdom of cancelling special ballots at universities: way to make voting harder and even more confusing for first-time student voters.

I was at UBC’s vote mob today with about a hundred other students. While the event itself was non-partisan, these images show that there was some interest from the major parties. The Young Liberals of Canada handed out flyers (above right) at the bus loop entering UBC. Conservative candidate Deborah Merideth (Vancouver Quadra) handed out free snacks after the event. And the Green Party’s Adriane Carr (Vancouver Centre) was also on hand (below right).

Young people have been discounted and discredited as lazy, apathetic non-citizens for far too long. They’ve seen the political leaders court seniors, women, families, and immigrant groups while persistently ignoring youth in this and every other election. Issues that matter to youth, like the environment, health care, education, and civil liberties (not to mention public transit), linger on the back burner while tax cuts and deficits dominate the media. It’s about time they took matters into their own hands.

Ren Thomas

M.A., Ph.D. (Planning)