The Lead and How to Swing It

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim gave his first Greater Vancouver Board of Trade State of the City address to a crowd of 700 and CBC's Municipal Affairs Reporter Justin McElroy was there to parse the quotes.

McElroy's article focuses on tone and attitude, which Sim likely opened with, and concludes not with policy initiatives but topics ranging from housing (increased density, skyscrapers) to infrastructure (a co-operative approach to a Lower Mainland sewage treatment plant).

According to Sim:

"I envision a Vancouver in the not so distant future, that is super exciting. A mayor with a renewed swagger."

"Make no mistake about it, it is a new day in Vancouver."

"The most significant legacies that emerged from both Expo 86 and the Olympic Games were not just about infrastructure, buildings, or sports, it was about the energy and spirit that permeated our city. And this is the same energy we need as we build the future of our city."

I was 23 in the spring of 1986, a couple months shy of returning to the city after completing my schooling and my not unrelated wanderings. Expo 86 was a tourist hut/party house built by a Social Credit provincial government who rightly, though belatedly, saw the end of the province's violent resource extraction era and sought to make the best of it for themselves and their kind. A shame the SoCreds applied those same violent extractive methods to public sector workers and their families, channeling federal transfer payments earmarked for health and education into Expo-related infrastructure. Nothing to swagger over here. Not that the SoCreds and their sycophants noticed.

I was 47 in February, 2010, fully amidst the city and established in whatever it is that I do: a writer who braids lies into truths, an urban subject with a knee-jerk understanding of crowds and crowd behaviour. This was the month Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics and I was working for a Cultural Olympiad that, when confronted, smiled its Cheshire smile and said, "But Michael, you must understand -- the Olympics is a peace movement." No swagger in these druids; that was for our politicians and realtors to take up. Indeed, housing prices spiked in the years after the Olympics, making home ownership a problem only for those looking to buy within +/-5% of the asking price. Not much to swagger over here, either.

If the quarter-century mark is the difference between an exposition and the Olympics, what might we expect in 2034? Whatever it is, plans are likely under way and, as with Expo 86 and the Olympics, will include of course permanent elements. Not simply public buildings and commuter trains, but something more foreboding, a city within a city, with walls, a gate and parapets. A fort. A place for those to swagger. In safety.