Vancouver will be the first city in North America to abolish homelessness, former premier Mike Harcourt predicted Thursday.
Harcourt sat down with Gordon Price, a former Vancouver city councillor and the current director of the city program at Simon Fraser University, for the ninth instalment of the City in 2050 series on the issues of regional land use.
One of the solutions the two discussed was creating housing for the chronically homeless. Harcourt said Vancouver has managed to get away from what he likes to call the “North American planning disease,” where the only solution to a growing population is increasing the number of downtown car lanes.
“Being sustainable is essential,” said Harcourt. “If you’re not a sustainable city, you’re not competitive.”
Vancouver, he stated, has made three major decision flaws in the areas of housing affordability, drugs and crime, and rapid transit.
If different decisions had been made when planning, housing would be more affordable to more of the population, Harcourt said.
The creation of metro police and fire departments would mean that there would never be an issue of who covers which area and that drugs and crime would decrease.
Vancouver should have made a faster move when switching from streetcars to rapid transit, said Harcourt, adding TransLink is respected internationally.
Local news from metronews.ca/vancouver
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