When people ask what went wrong, and how did Vancouver get to this crisis point of inequality and unaffordability — I’ve often pointed to the Richard Florida mantra of the creative class / creative cities: a school of urbanism that has dominated our city’s politics and planning for the last decade.
Florida’s premise: that economic and urban renewal could result from wooing the “creative class”, that things like hip coffee shops, bike infrastructure, and social engineering with a progressive veneer would fuel urban transformations.
