If you follow the world of regional politics, you may often hear concern about the lack of industrial land and also frustration at how Metro Vancouver’s industry has been disappearing in certain sections of the region. 

You see, both northeast and southeast False Creek’s high class residential communities (Yaletown, Cooper’s Quay, and the Olympic Village) were built on former industrial land. Towers going up in Burnaby around SkyTrain - near Gilmore, Holdom, and other stations - are on what used to be industrial land. The master planned Collingwood community near Joyce station was built on former industrial land. 

This happened because:

  1. The land was cheap 
  2. The land was close to desirable amenities (SkyTrain, downtown, False Creek, etc.)
  3. There’s no NIMBYs for industrial land
  4. Arguably, the land was more productive as residential

The concern arises because with cities north of the Fraser wiping out their industrial land base, this places a regional burden to provide such land on communities south of the Fraser.

My theory however is that this burden is more psychological than it is reality. Because, while a urban area may no longer have sprawling, large, dirty, old, buildings filled with businesses, it makes up for this in other ways.

For example, read this blurb by Joe Urban on the transformation of Charlotte, North Carolina:

My visit focused on the South End neighborhood. The transit corridor runs through the South End along a former freight line between former and current industrial properties with a history rich in the textile business. Old mills are being replaced by imported furniture stores, galleries and architects offices. On either side are stable residential neighborhoods, and the South End is seeing substantial redevelopment. In this portion of the corridor alone, there are nearly 5,000 residential units built or planned, although today’s financial climate will no doubt delay some of these units at best. What endeared me most to the neighborhood was the mix of old and new, including bars, coffee shops and barbecue joints that have clearly served a wide range of customers over the years. They add immeasurably to the urban fabric of Charlotte.

This is what I have seen everywhere I go - in Vancouver, in Burnaby, in Portland. These old industrial areas are being replaced by more modern, urban “industrial” uses such as galleries, offices, studios, live/work spaces, bars, shops, cafés, performance spaces, etc., with residential and other commercial uses of course.

The key is, when becoming an urban area, to make the transition and include these new forms of jobs into the community.

Isn’t this, in essence, the transition from a secondary sector of industry (manufacturing) to a tertiary and quaternary sector of industry - the service, knowledge, and green economies of the future?

If so, isn’t this the direction we want to be heading?

Of course, I understand it’s hard to control the creation of these high quality, modern jobs, especially when you’re bringing in over a thousand new residents per month. But then the question becomes, should you…

  • look at restricting or slowing growth to better manage it, 
  • should you allow free reign so that people have more opportunity to guide their own choices in job direction, or 
  • should you continue down the route of allowing big box retail shopping centres to sprout up so that these new residents get jobs - albeit, shitty ones. 
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