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Vancouver
Vancouver
is a coastal city and major seaport located in the Lower Mainland of
southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is bounded by the Strait of
Georgia, the Fraser River, the Coast Mountains, and Burnaby. Vancouver
is named after Captain George Vancouver, a British explorer.
The population of the
city of Vancouver is 611,869 and the population of Metro Vancouver is
2,249,725 (2007 estimate). This makes it the largest metropolitan area
in Western Canada and the third largest in the country. Vancouver is
ethnically diverse, with 52% of city residents and 43% of Metro
residents having a first language other than English.
Population
density is fourth highest for a major city on the continent after New
York City, San Francisco, and Mexico City.
Vancouver was first
settled in the 1860s as a result of immigration caused by the Fraser
Canyon Gold Rush, particularly from the United States, although many
immigrants did not remain after the rush. The city developed rapidly
from a small lumber mill town into a metropolitan centre following the
arrival of the transcontinental railway in 1887. The Port of Vancouver
became internationally significant after the completion of the Panama
Canal, which reduced freight rates in the 1920s and made it viable to
ship export-bound prairie grain west through Vancouver. It has since
become the busiest seaport in Canada, and exports more cargo than any
other port in North America.
The economy of
Vancouver has traditionally relied on British Columbia's resource
sectors:
forestry,
mining, fishing and agriculture. It has diversified over time, however,
and Vancouver today has a vibrant service industry, a growing tourism
industry, and it has become the third-largest film production centre in
North America after Los Angeles and New York City, earning it the
nickname Hollywood North. Vancouver has had an expansion in high-tech
industries, most notably video game development.
Vancouver is
consistently ranked one of the three most livable cities in the world.
According to a 2007 report
by Mercer Human Resource Consulting for example, Vancouver tied with
Vienna as having the third highest quality of living in the world, after
Zürich and Geneva.
In
2007, according to Forbes, Vancouver had the 6th most overpriced real
estate market in the world and second in North America after Los
Angeles.
In 2007,
Vancouver was ranked Canada's second most expensive city to live after
Toronto and the 89th most expensive globally, and, in 2006, the 56th
most expensive city in which to live among 143 major cities in the
world.
In 2007,
Vancouver was ranked as the 10th cleanest city in the world.
A resident of Vancouver is
called a Vancouverite.
The 2010 Winter
Olympics will be held in Vancouver and nearby Whistler.
History
Archaeological records
indicate that the presence of Aboriginal peoples in the Vancouver area
dates back 4,500–9,000 years. The city is located in the traditional
territories of Skwxwú-mesh, Xwméthkwyiem, Tseil-waututh peoples of the
Coast Salish group.
They
had villages in parts of present-day Vancouver, such as Stanley Park,
False Creek, and along the Burrard Inlet. Some of these still exist in
North Vancouver, West Vancouver, and near Point Grey.
The first European to
explore the coastline of present-day Point Grey and part of Burrard
Inlet was José María Narváez of Spain, in 1791.
George Vancouver explored the
inner harbor of Burrard Inlet in 1792 and gave various places British
names.
The explorer and North
West Company trader Simon Fraser and his crew were the first Europeans
known to have set foot on the site of the present-day city. In 1808,
they traveled from the east, down the Fraser River perhaps as far as
Point Grey, near the University of British Columbia.
The Cariboo Gold Rush
of 1861 brought 25,000 men, mainly from California, to the mouth of the
Fraser River and what would become Vancouver.
The first European settlement
was established in 1862 at McLeery's Farm on the Fraser River, just east
of the ancient village of Musqueam in what is now Marpole. A sawmill
established at Moodyville (now the City of North Vancouver) in 1863
began the city's long relationship with
lumbering.
It was quickly followed by mills owned by Captain Edward Stamp on the
south shore of the inlet. Stamp, who had begun lumbering in the Port
Alberni area, first attempted to run a mill at Brockton Point, but
difficult currents and reefs forced the relocation of the operation to a
point near the foot of Gore Street, known as Hastings Mill. This became
the nucleus around which Vancouver formed. The mill's central role in
the city waned after the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR)
in the 1880s. It nevertheless remained important to the local economy
until it closed in the 1920s.
Vancouver is among
British Columbia's youngest cities
The
settlement of Gastown grew up quickly around the original makeshift
tavern established by “Gassy” Jack Deighton in 1867 on the edge of the
Hastings Mill property.
In
1870, the colonial government surveyed the settlement and laid out a
townsite, renamed “Granville,” in honor of the then British Secretary of
State for the Colonies, Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Earl Granville.
This site, with its natural harbor, was eventually selected as the
terminus for the Canadian Pacific Railway to the disappointment of Port
Moody, New Westminster and Victoria, all of which had vied to be the
railhead. The building of the railway was among the preconditions for
British Columbia joining Confederation in 1871.
The City of Vancouver
was incorporated on 6 April 1886, the same year that the first
transcontinental train arrived. The name, honoring George Vancouver, was
chosen by CPR president William Van Horne, who arrived in Port Moody to
establish the CPR terminus recommended by Henry John Cambie.
A massive "slash burn" (clearing
fire) broke out of control on 13 June 1886, razing the entire city. It
was quickly rebuilt, and the Vancouver Fire Department was established
that same year.
From
a settlement of 1,000 people in 1881, Vancouver's population grew to
over 20,000 by the turn of the century and 100,000 by 1911.
During the 1898
Klondike Gold Rush, Vancouver merchants sold a great deal of equipment
to prospectors.
One
of those merchants, Charles Woodward, had opened the first Woodward's
store at what is now Georgia and Main Streets in 1892 and, along with
Spencer's and the Hudson's Bay Company department stores, formed the
dominant core of the city's retail sector for decades.
The economy of early
Vancouver was dominated by large companies such as the CPR, which had
the capital needed for the rapid development of the new city. Some
manufacturing did develop, but the resource sector was the backbone of
Vancouver's economy, initially with logging, and later with exports
moved through the seaport, where commercial traffic constituted the
largest economic sector in Vancouver by the 1930s.
The dominance of the
economy by big business was accompanied by an often militant labor
movement. The first major sympathy strike was in 1903 when railway
employees struck against the CPR for union recognition. Labor leader
Frank Rogers was killed while picketing at the docks by CPR police
during that strike, becoming the British Columbia movement's first
martyr.
Canada's
first general strike occurred following the death of another labor
leader, Ginger Goodwin, in 1918, at the Cumberland coal mines on
Vancouver Island.
A
lull in industrial tensions through the later 1920s came to an abrupt
end with the Great Depression. Most of the 1930s strikes were led by
Communist Party organizers.
That
strike wave peaked in 1935 when unemployed men flooded the city to
protest conditions in the relief camps run by the military in remote
areas throughout the province. After two tense months of daily and
disruptive protesting, the relief camp strikers decided to take their
grievances to the federal government and embarked on the On-to-Ottawa
Trek.
Other social movements,
such as the first-wave feminist, moral reform, and temperance movements
were also influential in Vancouver's development. Mary Ellen Smith, a
Vancouver suffragist and prohibitionist, became the first woman elected
to a provincial legislature in Canada in 1918.
Alcohol prohibition began in the
First World War and lasted until 1921, when the provincial government
established its control over alcohol sales, which still persists today.
Canada's first drug law
came about following an inquiry conducted by the federal Minister of
Labor and future Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King. King was
sent to investigate damages claims resulting from a riot when the
Asiatic Exclusion League led a rampage through Chinatown and Japantown.
Two of the claimants were opium manufacturers, and after further
investigation, King found that white women were reportedly frequenting
opium dens as well as Chinese men. A federal law banning the
manufacture, sale, and importation of opium for non-medicinal purposes
was soon passed based on these revelations.
Amalgamation with Point
Grey and South Vancouver gave the city its final contours not long
before taking its place as the third largest metropolis in the country.
As of 1 January 1929, the population of the enlarged Vancouver was
228,193 and it filled the entire peninsula between the Burrard Inlet and
the Fraser River.
Geography
and climate
The original vegetation
of most of Vancouver and its suburbs was dense temperate rain forest,
consisting of conifers with scattered pockets of maple and alder, as
well as large areas of swampland (even in upland areas, due to poor
drainage).
The conifers were a
typical coastal British Columbia mix of Douglas-fir, Western red cedar
and Western Hemlock; thought to have been the greatest concentration of
the largest of these trees on the entire British Columbia Coast. Only in
Seattle's Elliott Bay did the trees rival those of Burrard Inlet and
English Bay in size. The largest trees in Vancouver's old-growth forest
were in the Gastown area, where the first logging occurred, and on the
south slopes of False Creek and English Bay, especially around Jericho
Beach. The forest in Stanley Park is mostly second and third growth, and
evidence of old-fashioned logging techniques such as springboard notches
can still be seen there.
A diverse collection of
plants and trees were imported from other parts of the continent and
from points across the Pacific, and can be found growing throughout
Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. Various species of palm trees have
proven hardy in this climate and are a common sight, as are large
numbers of other exotic trees such as the monkey puzzle tree, the
Japanese Maple, and various flowering exotics such as magnolias,
azaleas, and rhododendrons. Many rhododendrons have grown to immense
sizes, as have other species imported from harsher climates in Eastern
Canada or Europe. The native Douglas Maple can also attain a tremendous
size. Many streets in the city are lined with flowering varieties of
Japanese cherry trees that were donated by Japan, starting in the 1930s.
Certain areas of West
Vancouver that have the right soil requirements are home to the Arbutus
menziesii tree.
Vancouver has an area
of 44 sq mi, including both flat and hilly ground. Vancouver is adjacent
to the Strait of Georgia, a body of water that is shielded from the
Pacific Ocean by Vancouver Island. It is in the Pacific Time Zone
(UTC-8) and the Pacific Maritime Ecozone.
The city itself forms part of
the Burrard Peninsula, lying between Burrard Inlet to the north and the
Fraser River to the south. Vancouver is not on nearby Vancouver Island.
However, both the island and the city (as well as Vancouver, Washington)
are named after Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver.
Vancouver is renowned
for its scenery and has one of the largest urban parks in North America,
Stanley Park.
The
North Shore Mountains dominate the cityscape, and on a clear day scenic
vistas include the snow-capped volcano Mount Baker in the State of
Washington to the southeast, Vancouver Island across the Strait of
Georgia to the west and southwest, and the Sunshine Coast to the
northwest.
Vancouver's climate is
unusually temperate by Canadian standards; its winters are the fourth
warmest of Canadian cities monitored by Environment Canada after nearby
Victoria, Nanaimo, and Duncan, all of which are on Vancouver Island.
Vancouver has daily
minimum temperatures falling below 32 °F on an average of 46 days per
year and below 14 °F on only two days per year. The average annual
precipitation is about 48 in, though this varies dramatically throughout
the city due to the topography.
Summer months are quite sunny
with moderate temperatures, tempered by sea breezes. The daily maximum
averages72 °F in July and August, although temperatures sometimes rise
above 78 °F.
The
summer months are often very dry, resulting in moderate drought
conditions a few months of the year. In contrast, more than half of all
winter days receive measurable precipitation. On average, snow falls on
only eleven days per year, with only three days receiving 2.5 inches or
more.
While the number of
cars in Vancouver proper has been steadily rising with population
growth, the rate of car ownership and the average distance driven by
daily commuters have fallen since the early 1990s.
Vancouver is the only major
Canadian city with these trends. Despite the fact that the journey time
per vehicle has increased by one third and growing traffic mass, there
are 7% fewer cars making trips into the downtown core.
Residents have been more
inclined to live in areas closer to their interests, or use more
energy-efficient means of travel, such as mass transit and cycling. This
is, in part, the result of a push by city planners for a solution to
traffic problems and pro-environment campaigns. Transportation demand
management policies have imposed restrictions on drivers making it more
difficult and expensive to commute while introducing more benefits for
non-drivers.
Demographics
City planners in the
late 1950s and 1960s deliberately encouraged the development of
high-rise residential towers in Vancouver's West End of downtown,
resulting in a compact urban core amenable to public transit, cycling,
and pedestrian traffic. Vancouver's population density on the downtown
peninsula is 49 people per acre according to the 2001 census. The city
continues to pursue policies intended to increase density as an
alternative to sprawl, such as Mayor
Sam Sullivan's EcoDensity — an initiative to create quality and high
density areas in the city, while making property ownership more
economical. The plan also calls for the increased construction of
community centers, parks, and cultural facilities.
Vancouver has been
called a "city of neighborhoods", each with a distinct character and
ethnic mix.
People of
English, Scottish, and Irish origins were historically the largest
ethnic groups in the city, and elements of British society and culture
are still highly visible in some areas, particularly South Granville and
Kerrisdale. The Chinese are by far the largest visible ethnic group in
the city, and Vancouver has one of the most diverse Chinese-speaking
communities, with several Chinese dialects being represented, including
Cantonese and Mandarin.
There
are also some neighborhoods with high concentrations of single ethnic
groups, such as the Punjabi Market, Little Italy, Greektown, and
Japantown. Bilingual street signs can be seen in various neighborhoods,
including Chinatown and the Punjabi Market.
In the 1980s, an influx
of immigrants from Hong Kong in anticipation of the
transfer of that former colony's sovereignty from the United Kingdom
to China combined with an increasing number of immigrants from mainland
China and previous immigrants from Taiwan to create one of the largest
concentrations of ethnic Chinese residents in North America.
This influx of Asian
immigrants continued a tradition of immigration from around the world
that had already established Vancouver as the second most popular
destination for immigrants in Canada (after Toronto).
Other significant Asian ethnic
groups in Vancouver are South Asian (mostly Punjabi, usually referred to
as Indo-Canadian), Vietnamese, Filipino, Indonesian, Korean, Cambodian,
and Japanese. It has a growing Latin American population, many from
Peru, Ecuador and more recently, Mexico.
Prior to the Hong Kong
influx of the 1990s, the largest non-British ethnic groups in the city
were Irish and German, followed by Scandinavian,
Italian, Ukranian and the historical Chinese population. Less numerous
minorities, such as newly-arrived Eastern Europeans (in addition to the
aforementioned Ukrainians), are also a feature of the city's ethnic
landscape.
There is also a sizable
aboriginal community in Vancouver as well as in the surrounding
metropolitan region, with the result that Vancouver constitutes the
largest native community in the province.
Vancouver has
relatively harmonious race relations.
One result is a relatively high
rate of intermarriage.
Vancouver has a
substantial gay community, and British Columbia was the second Canadian
jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage as a constitutional right,
shortly after Ontario.
The
downtown area around Davie Street is home to most of the city's gay
clubs and bars and is known as Davie Village. Every year Vancouver holds
one of the country's largest gay pride parades.
Economy
With its location on
the Pacific Rim and at the western terminus of Canada's transcontinental
highway and rail routes, Vancouver is one of the nation's largest
industrial centers.
The Port of Vancouver,
Canada's largest and most diversified, does more than C$43 billion in
trade with over 90 countries annually. Port activities generate $4
billion in gross domestic product and $8.9 billion in economic output.
Vancouver is also the
headquarters of
forest
product and mining companies. In recent years, Vancouver has become an
increasingly important centre for software development, biotechnology
and a vibrant film industry.
The city's scenic
location makes it a major tourist destination. Visitors come for the
city's gardens, Stanley Park, Queen Elizabeth Park, and the mountains,
ocean, forest and parklands surrounding the city. The numerous beaches,
parks, waterfronts, and mountain backdrop, combined with its cultural
and multi-ethnic character, all contribute to its unique appeal and
style for tourists. Over a million people annually pass through
Vancouver en route to a cruise ship vacation, usually to Alaska.
The city's popularity
comes with a price. Vancouver can be an expensive city, with the highest
housing prices in Canada. Several 2006 studies rank Vancouver as having
the least affordable housing in Canada, ranking 13th least affordable in
the world, up from 15th in 2005.
The city has adopted various
strategies to reduce housing costs, including cooperative housing,
legalized secondary suites, increased density and smart growth. A
significant number of the city's residents are affluent, a perception
reinforced by the number of luxury vehicles on city streets and cost of
real estate. The average two-storey home in Vancouver sells for
$757,750, compared with $467,742 in Toronto and $322,853 in Calgary, the
next most expensive major cities in Canada.
A major and ongoing
downtown condominium construction boom began in the late 1990s, financed
in large part by a huge flow of capital from Hong Kong immigrants prior
to the 1997 hand-over to China.
High-rise
residential developments from this period now dominate the Yaletown and
Coal Harbor
districts of the downtown peninsula, and also cluster around some of the
SkyTrain stations on the east side of the city.
The city has been
selected to co-host the 2010 Winter Olympics, which is influencing
economic development. Concern has been expressed that Vancouver's
increasing homelessness problem may be exacerbated by the Olympics
because owners of single room occupancy hotels, which house many of the
city's lowest income residents, have begun converting their properties
in order to attract higher income residents and tourists.
Another significant
international event, the 1986 World Exposition, was held in Vancouver.
It was the last World's Fair held in North America and was considered a
success, receiving 20,111,578 visits. Several Vancouver landmarks date
from that period, including the SkyTrain public transit system, the
Plaza of Nations, and Canada Place.
Aerial
View of Downtown Vancouver
Government
Vancouver, unlike other
British Columbia municipalities, is incorporated under a unique
provincial statute, the Vancouver Charter.
The legislation, passed in 1953,
supersedes the Vancouver Incorporation Act, 1921 and grants the
city more and different powers than other communities possess under BC's
Municipalities Act.
The civic government
has been dominated by the centre-right Non-Partisan Association (NPA)
since the Second World War, albeit with some significant centre-left
interludes.
The NPA's
Sam Sullivan was elected mayor of Vancouver in November 2005, signaling
the party's return to power after a social democratic slate swept the
previous election. The NPA fractured over the issue of drug policy in
2002, facilitating a landslide victory for the Coalition of Progressive
Electors on a harm reduction platform. Subsequently, North America's
first safe injection site was opened for the significant number of
intravenous heroin users in the city.
Vancouver is governed
by the ten-member Vancouver City Council, a nine-member School Board,
and a seven-member Parks Board, all elected for three-year terms through
an at-large system. Historically, in all levels of government, the more
affluent west side of Vancouver has voted along conservative or liberal
lines while the eastern side of the city has voted along left-wing
lines.
This was
reaffirmed with the results of the 2005 provincial election and the 2006
federal election.
Though polarized, a
political consensus has emerged in Vancouver around a number of issues.
Protection of urban parks, a focus on the development of rapid transit
as opposed to a freeway system, a harm reduction approach to illegal
drug use, and a general concern about community-based development are
examples of policies that have come to have broad support across the
political spectrum in Vancouver.
Larry Campbell's
election as mayor in 2002 was in part due to his willingness to champion
alternative interventions for drug issues, such as supervised injection
sites. The city has adopted a Four Pillars Drug Strategy, which
combines harm reduction (e.g. needle exchanges, supervised injection
sites) with treatment, enforcement, and prevention.
The strategy is largely a
response to the endemic HIV and hepatitis C among injection drug users
in the city's Downtown Eastside neighborhood. The area is characterized
by entrenched poverty, and consequently is home to the "low track"
street sex trade and a bustling "open air" street drug market, which
gave rise to a significant AIDS epidemic in the 1990s. Some community
and professional groups — such as From Grief to Action and Keeping the
Door Open — are fostering public dialogue in the city about further
alternatives to current drug policies.
Campbell chose not to
run for re-election, and was subsequently appointed to the Senate of
Canada. In the 2005 Municipal Election, the City Council swung back to
the right after a term dominated by the leftist Coalition of Progressive
Electors (COPE). NPA mayoral candidate Sam Sullivan narrowly defeated
Jim Green for the position of mayor and was joined by five of his
party's members on Council. The centrist Vision Vancouver (VVN) brought
four members to Council, with the final seat going to COPE. The NPA also
won six of nine School Board seats and five of seven Parks Board seats,
while the remaining Board seats were won by COPE.
Provincial representation
In the Legislative
Assembly of British Columbia, Vancouver is represented by ten Members of
the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), which includes Gordon Campbell, the
current Premier. In the 2005 provincial election, the BC Liberal Party
and the BC New Democratic Party each won five seats.
Federal representation
In the Canadian House
of Commons, Vancouver is represented by five Members of Parliament. In
the 2004 federal elections, the Liberal Party of Canada won four seats
and the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) one. In the 2006 federal
elections, all the same Members of Parliament were re-elected. However,
on 6 February 2006, David Emerson of Vancouver Kingsway defected to the
Conservative Party, giving the Conservatives one seat in Vancouver. As
of February 2006, the Liberals hold three seats, and the NDP and the
Conservatives hold one each.
Affiliated
cities and municipalities
The City of Vancouver
was one of the first cities in Canada to enter into an international
twinning arrangement.
Special
arrangements for cultural, social and economic benefits have been
created with these sister cities.
These sister cities are:
-
Odessa,
Ukraine (1944) -
Yokohama,
Japan (1965) -
Edinburgh,
Scotland, United Kingdom (1978) -
Guangzhou,
People's Republic of China (1985) -
Los
Angeles, California, United States (1986) -
Seoul,
South Korea (2007)
There are 21
municipalities in Metro Vancouver. While each of these has a separate
municipal government, the Metro government oversees common services
within the metropolitan area such as water, sewage, transportation, and
regional parks.