Letters: April 2008

Montreal, QC


Ploys in the ‘Hood
Peter Valing’s account of life in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (“Not So Down,” January/February) brought back memories of when I worked the district as a young wire service reporter. My wife and daughter used to join me for lunch on paydays, shopping afterwards at Woodward’s and other stores on Hastings. We got our first television — a twenty-one-inch black and white Crosley — from Wosk’s.

Valing correctly identifies the plethora of inquiries, studies, and social initiatives that have largely failed to eradicate the crime, drug dealing, prostitution, and other social ills that have plagued the community these past thirty years. Responsibility for this shameful situation rests in part on the political power structure of the city; by refusing to adopt a ward system of voting, Vancouverites have denied the dtes direct representation on city council. Many, it seems, are quite content to have the ills of drug addiction ghettoized in that area. Equal responsibility, however, rests with the Canadian government’s refusal to recognize that as long as drug addiction is treated as a crime rather than as a medical problem, there will continue to be immense profits in dealing, ensuring the racket persists.

Ironically, the Olympics may bring a solution of a kind, as Valing suggests, in the belated push by developers to gentrify the dtes in the interests of real estate profits.

Ray Argyle
Toronto, ON


Habitat Evaluation

“For Everyone a Garden” (Adele Weder, January/February) is a relevant reminder that civilization is more about cultivation than accumulation. Years ahead of its time, Habitat 67 — “Canada’s first truly ideological government-sponsored architecture” — sought to do what has been accomplished in other arenas of social amenity and economic equity: improve quality of life through the intelligent application of technology.

It is lamentable that Moshe Safdie’s idea has not taken hold in the current frenzy of condominium and subdivision housing projects, which will only expand our ecological footprint. The washing machines we purchase today require less water and energy, but they end up in houses that do not embrace renewable energy and resource conservation. Canadians pay more money for their housing than ever before and sit in their oversized, under-occupied particleboard palaces, watching news on television about rising greenhouse gas emissions. Surely it would be better for everyone if ailing North American automotive companies were converted into manufacturers of housing and renewable energy technologies.