Vancouver: (Re)presenting urban space

… the production of a new space commensurate with the capacities of the productive forces (technology and knowledge) can never be brought about by any particular social group; it must of necessity result from relationships between groups – between classes or factors of classes … Only a political party can impose standards for the recruitment of members and so achieve ideological unity. It is precisely the diversity of the coalitions just mentioned that explains the suspicious attitude of the traditional political parties towards the issues of space. (Lefebvre 1991: 380–1) The objects of the past retain importance only in respect to the joy and instruction that they offer to the present. And we have no choice but to reinterpret them in terms of our contemporary understanding. However, there must be something there to reinterpret. Wipe the event away so that it leaves no mark and it can never be recalled … Like a doll-faced, well-dressed, painted lady who has carefully and foolishly obscured the traces of the richness of her life, the city too without its history, may present a face that flashes prettily at first, but then seems vapid, dull and ultimately disappointing. (Birmingham and Wood et al 1969: 7) Introduction It was Lefebvre's assertions about the necessary role of spatial coalitions in the production of space that provided direction for an important stream of the empirical research documented in this book. Therefore, uncovering the history of those coalitions became a major imperative for the research. Another kind of history is shown in this and the subsequent empirical research chapters to be fundamental to understanding the production of urban space. Eloquently, but with perceptive precision Birmingham and Wood et al (1969) point to the importance of material city history and its contemporary interpretation in ways which Lefebvre would have perhaps found satisfactory. Vancouver needs scant further introduction. Since the dawn of the 21st century, the city has been deluged by superlatives from urbanists, city planners, politicians and millions of ordinary visitors. Depending on the particular proclivities of the writer, Vancouver is fabulously: sustainable, cultured, friendly, hip, trendy and socially equitable (Brunet-Jailly 2008). It is a place of pilgrimage, a dream city, more exotic than its west coast neighbour Seattle: a veritable utopia it seems.

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