“I wonder if Vision Vancouver will lose votes when people renting start losing their homes, as houses are torn down and replaced with townhouses and apartments which will rent for 3 to 4 times their rooms or basement suites. Vision Vancouver is always bragging about the number of units of affordable housing that they have created, but they never, never say how many they have destroyed.”

      -- Linda MacAdam, leading figure in the Dunbar neighbourhood fight against mass rezoning, now living on the Island

The City is far from providing for our homeless. In addition, rampant real estate speculation is producing massive evictions of renters. People who have lost their home are hard pressed to find permanent alternative accommodation in a city where rental suites are scarce and very expensive

Vancouver used to be a city with little pollution. City Council seems bent on changing this. We are losing our gardens and backyards as towers multiply and our roads get filled with cars. The City is allowing towers to take over our landscape with no requirement that they be surrounded by ample green space.

We are dutifully reminded to recycle our pop cans, and we should. But why are buildings, even new ones, being so readily torn down? The answer? Developers don’t just need to make money. They need to make a bundle of money. And the big bundle comes their way every time they buy two or three house lots and erect a building with tiny divisions that can each be sold for an exhorbitant amount of money

Consultation, when it happens, is token. Community activists who have spent much time discussing changes to city plans have been disappointed to see that their recommendations made no difference.

Many neighbourhood groups and individuals who - through letters to the editor, websites, forums, rallies - continue to fight to save the city, are facing a daunting task.

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Council's recent move to mass rezone Vancouver on a short notice speaks loudly of the kind of autocratic city governance we have been enduring.

As the city continues to be filled with towers, Downtown Vancouver loses its charms and so do many other neighbourhoods. Neighbourhood community centres have come under attack. Next on the agenda seems to be the elimination of small neighbourhood community centres and their replacement by a few mega ones intended to serve the entire city.