Mayor goals to make Vancouver ‘swagger’ once more — what does that imply?

Patrick Swanson / January 23,2023
Mayor goals to make Vancouver ‘swagger’ once more — what does that imply?
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Evaluation: It appeared prefer it was necessary to Sim to incorporate swagger in his tackle to native enterprise leaders. It raises a couple of questions, like is swagger truly necessary?

For one in every of his first main speeches as mayor of Vancouver, Ken Sim selected to zero in on swagger.

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“I envision a Vancouver within the not-so-distant that’s super-exciting once more. A Vancouver with a renewed swagger,” Sim advised a packed Fairmont Lodge Vancouver ballroom on the Larger Vancouver Board of Commerce‘s “state of town” occasion Tuesday. “A Vancouver with a buzz about it, with an electrical feeling within the air.”

Mayor goals to make Vancouver ‘swagger’ once more — what does that imply?

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Later within the occasion, in a question-and-answer interval, board of commerce CEO Bridgitte Anderson raised Sim’s use of the phrase “swagger.” Sim replied that he acquired “just a little grief” from his group, who he stated “truly needed to drag the phrase ‘swagger’ out of the presentation.”

So it looks as if it was necessary to the mayor to incorporate swagger in his tackle Tuesday to a whole lot of native enterprise leaders. It raises a couple of questions: is swagger truly necessary? Even in a metropolis grappling with a number of critical crises? What are we even speaking about right here? Are our swagger ranges unacceptably low? Too excessive? And what can or must be performed about it?

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Swagger can have completely different definitions, and typically damaging connotations. To some ears, it may denote conceitedness or aggression. On Tuesday, Sim stated swagger, on this context, means satisfaction. He hopes that over the course of his four-year time period that Vancouverites shall be extra pleased with their metropolis than they’ve been not too long ago.

In recent times, Vancouver has slid down dozens of spots within the rating of the world’s greatest cities compiled yearly by Resonance, a consultancy agency with workplaces in Vancouver, Montreal, New York and Singapore, offering advisory providers in actual property, tourism and financial growth.

Actually, for the primary time within the eight years Resonance has compiled its “greatest cities” rating, the 2023 report positioned Calgary, in sixty fifth, forward of Vancouver, in 69th.

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Vancouverites are rightly pleased with how “livable” their metropolis is, says Resonance CEO Chris Truthful, who is predicated in Vancouver. Vancouver has gorgeous pure magnificence, and is extra protected and walkable than many similar-sized or bigger cities.

Nevertheless, Truthful stated, “oftentimes, individuals confuse livability with lovability.”

Vibrancy, he stated, is an more and more necessary issue that helps appeal to individuals and funding to locations just like the cities Sim’s speech talked about by title: Miami, Austin, Tex., London, England, and Hong Kong (all of which outrank Vancouver in Resonance’s record).

“We’ve by no means been generally known as probably the most enjoyable metropolis. When you concentrate on swagger, that’s most likely beginning to meet up with us just a little bit. We’ve rested on our livability laurels for too lengthy and wish to start out to consider how we maintain tempo with the Miamis, the Austins, the Nashvilles of the world,” Truthful stated.

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“These cities have vibrant cultural scenes and are attracting expertise, and startups are forming round that. There’s an growing convergence between the components that make a metropolis fascinating to go to, which are additionally making it fascinating to start out and develop a enterprise. I believe that’s most likely the place Vancouver hasn’t modified a lot, however the remainder of the world has modified.”

In Sim’s imaginative and prescient of that financial and cultural vibrancy, the know-how business performs an enormous position. Coincidentally, Sim is anticipated to introduce a movement at a metropolis council assembly subsequent week that will direct employees to develop methods to help “tech hubs and clusters” within the metropolis.

To Charles Montgomery, an urbanist and internationally famend Vancouver-based skilled on happiness in cities, “a metropolis with swagger” is “one that’s daring and curious and adventurous sufficient to attempt new experiments to sort out its huge challenges.”

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Vancouver’s largest challenges embody social disconnection, housing affordability and inequality, stated Montgomery, writer of the 2014 guide Pleased Metropolis.

“We have to begin taking dangers once more as a metropolis,” Montgomery stated. “Cities all over the world as soon as regarded to Vancouver for examples in city innovation. Again within the Eighties and ’90s, we proved that downtowns could possibly be nice locations for residing in a manner they hadn’t been for half a century. Cities from San Diego to Dubai copied the constructing type that got here to be generally known as ‘Vancouverism.’ However now the world has modified. Cities all over the place are dealing with the pressing problem of housing affordability, for instance. I believe it’s time to indicate some swagger, because the mayor says. Let’s launch new experiments that present the world new methods to resolve the housing disaster.”

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Montgomery was inspired to listen to Sim sign on this week’s speech an obvious openness to reviewing long-standing insurance policies which have restricted actual property growth in Vancouver, equivalent to these governing shadows and views.

“I get the sense that his name for a metropolis with extra swagger is an invite for individuals with huge concepts to start out making an attempt new issues. And it’s a signal that this council may even be courageous sufficient to help issues we’ve by no means tried earlier than to resolve our most pressing crises,” Montgomery stated. “What I’ve liked concerning the messages from the mayor is he’s encouraging employees to loosen up just a little bit. That doesn’t imply say sure to all the pieces, but it surely means say sure to extra issues, and encourage builders to attempt new issues.”

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Montgomery pointed to the brand new ABC-majority council’s help for a movement launched in December by OneCity Coun. Christine Boyle, meant to fast-track bigger social housing developments. That approval, Montgomery stated, was “an enormous deal.”

Vancouver’s earlier mayor and council confirmed a need to interrupt from previous orthodoxy and began making strikes in new instructions. In 2021, then-Mayor Kennedy Stewart stated he needed employees to current councils with extra housing proposals, even ones which are offside with insurance policies or not absolutely supported by employees. Final yr, council gave some non-compliant proposals the go-ahead to proceed with functions.

However that blended council, the place no social gathering had a majority, was typically fractious, and as an unbiased mayor Stewart himself expressed frustration he couldn’t do extra and transfer sooner.

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However ABC Vancouver’s supermajority on council means Sim’s social gathering ought to have the ability to transfer sooner and extra decisively. It additionally means they bear extra accountability if issues don’t work out.

dfumano@postmedia.com

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