Exploring Vancouver through the lens of UPE has exposed the arguably grey consequences of an otherwise green city functioning. The management and maintenance of water sources, both incoming and outgoing, deems itself one of the greatest issues faced by the metropolitan in its urbanisation story. Defined as one, if not the most, ‘liveable’ cities in…
Category: Vancouver
Oil Spills Spoil All – The threats to ecology posed by tanker traffic
The Port of Vancouver sees the most activity out of all Canadian ports. It’s ice-free conditions as well as deep ocean waters provide ideal terminals for cargo ranging from crude oil, to containers of bulk goods and chemicals. When visiting the beaches of central Vancouver, I was surprised to see the coastline packed with vessels,…
Indigeneity and Urbanism – taking back the land.
In the field of UPE, urban environmental governance is viewed through a lens of distributional justice, one which follows a defined and standardised notion of “producing environments with an inclusive and equitable division of social power” (David, 2002: 45). In the case of Vancouver, much of its environmental governance has shown less priority and care…
Keen to be Green: a focus on green infrastructure development
This is going to be a big post – brace yourselves… Remember the metabolism metaphor? Urban political ecologists examine the city by using the laws of nature “to optimize the flows and transformations of materials and energy within and across the boundaries of industrial systems” (Dunn and Steinemann, 1998: 661). We’ve discussed the ‘within’ (drinking…
The We(s)t Coast: Part III – Stormwater
Only Rain Should Go Down the Drain! In the analogy of the city as being a metabolism, we have so far discussed what goes into the body (drinking water) and what comes out of it (poo). The third hydrological aspect related to city living I wish to touch upon is storm water: the water resulting from…
The We(s)t Coast: Part II – Sewage
What goes in, must come out. UPE helps to extend the notion of the interrelation between human bodies and financial/ infrastructural networks; these networks rely on and depend upon urban metabolisms (Loftus and March, 2016). My experience with sanitation in Vancouver were all-round positive: I saw little issues with flooding, I happily swam in the…
The We(s)t Coast: Part I – Drinking Water
Water is paramount in Vancouver; not only is the city surrounded by ocean and glacial lakes, it’s also located in a region of heavy rainfall, giving it the nickname of “Raincouver” among locals. All this emphasis on water has spiked my interest in the water governance and blue infrastructure systems of the city. This first…
Vancouver – Sustainable or suppressing?
Vancouver is one of my all-time favourite cities. I was lucky enough to attend the University of British Columbia for my year abroad and lived in Vancouver for a period of 8 months. There, I had access to the privileges of a fantastic educational institution, as well as the leisure and recreational activities offered by…
The Urban Digest 