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The city of vancouver itself is a pretty small geographic region comparative to most other canadians cities has there ever been talks of amalgamation of any of its surrounding metro regions like north vancouver or burnaby etc? What do you think some reasons against would be?
I don't think it would work, nor do I see the purpose of it. Metro Vancouver's municipalities are all very unique - with vastly different approaches to things like urban planning, transportation and many other political issues. The City of Vancouver and it's residents generally have a very urban agenda and are dismissive of the concerns of the suburbs (example, the Port Mann Bridge and the Gateway Program).
Although amalgamation may be a good solution in theory to ensure issues are handled based on what's best for the region as a whole, I don't imagine the COV would ever allow it due to the fear their viewpoint would become even more watered down.
Also, the smaller city model has proven more effective at creating density in suburban areas. Burnaby, New West, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey etc. are all growing their city centre areas. When each municipality runs out of the land, the only solution is to build "up". If that changed, it increases the availability of cheap land for a greater number of municipalities.
Example, let's say Burnaby annexed Coquitlam. Burnaby now has less incentive to develop density in the Metrotown or Brentwood areas (both of which have impressive density), because they can focus on on the easier, cheaper alternative - which is developing vacant land in the Burke Mountain area.
As an outsider who arrived in the Greater Toronto area, I see amalgamation here as a failure for the most part. The City of Toronto is in financial disarray, and community resources have been spread too thin.
Also it's allowed suburban communities to build new single family homes in distant areas, instead of focusing on developing regional town centres. Look at the the North GTA (York Region + Brampton). The combined population is in excess of 1.5M without any functional "downtown" serving the area. Markham and Vaughan are both trying to build this, but it will be a long road.
I think a more appropriate solution is having individual cities, but creating "districts" or "regions" amalgamating certain municipal services such as police, garbage collection and possibly education. I find Metro Vancouver's municipal services lacking in many areas, and this may be a way to improve this. The GTA is successful in this area, as you have a larger tax base to draw on for these services and you achieve greater economies of scale.
Example:
Vancouver District: COV, Burnaby, New West, Richmond
North Shore District: North Van City, North Van District, West Vancouver, Bowen Island
NE District: Port Moody, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows
South Fraser District: Delta, Surrey, Langley City, Langley Township
I also think fracturing Surrey into 3 distinct cities may be beneficial. South Surrey (amalgamate with White Rock - WR is in financial trouble and needs the more affluent tax base that exists north of 16th Ave to revitalize itself), Cloverdale and Surrey. As it stands right now, the city has 3 distinct developed areas that are separated by farmland and with cheap abundant land, making it challenging for Surrey to develop its city centre into what it desperately needs to be. It also solves a big political problem for Vancouver - which is that in a few years, Surrey will have a greater population - and a larger voter base. Vancouver is still the region's main city and still deserves the hold the balance of power.
Last edited by Liberated in TO; 09-26-2012 at 02:04 PM..
Yes on surrey it does appear projected to overtake Vancouver's pop. within a decade or so. However i doubt the city would allow itself to be split in three. I wonder if the balance in power will shift in metro BC. When/if surrey does become the largest city in BC?
I'm not too familiar with the region but i believe it is somewhat more of a conservative city than vancouver? I wouldn't be surprised if Vancouver would not then consider perhaps expanding its region as not to lose its status as BC's largest city.
Who knows. Even when Surrey surpasses Vancouver, it will have a long road ahead before people consider it BC's main city. A fair comparison would be San Francisco / San Jose. SJ passed SF in population several years ago, but SF is still considered the main city and cultural capital of the region.
At best, you may see a twin cities type situation where the area becomes known as Vancouver - Surrey Metro I'm a big fan of Surrey's potential, but it has alot of work to do in terms of improving it's central city area, and attracting new business to the city before it can be considered in the same league.
Nonetheless, I see the rivalry heating up over the years.
What blalance of power Victoria is our Provinces Capitol and you have your own ridings to vote in and I have my Riding ato vote for and you would stil have the same amount of power and I like having a home with a yard and we are a Car based out side of Vancouver city limits in the Rest of the GVRD and as person that lives in the Tri-citites the the Port Mann Bridge Bridge expansion was neded because it took 45 minutes to of gridlock traffic to cross it on the Number #1.
I mean should I have my F-250 idle for 45 minutes in rush hour gridlock be home in 10 minutes and turn it off for the evening and not get cut of or be les tresed afrom people forcing their way into my lane without a signal plus the portmann major flaw from the Surrey side into coquitlam was it has a step grade down onto the bridge deck and people slam on the brakes just before the get on the bridge and cause everyone behind them to hits their brakes and cause a sea of red Tailights as far as you can see as you came down onto the bridge.
Plus Ontario has a Manufactring base and we do not have the space to build a GM or Chrysler plant here or be like Quebec and have Bombardier open a factory making Comerical Jets because that would be in Boeings backyard and their is only Room for one large Aeropace Giant in the PNW
I mean Vancouver is the place where people who are are already very wealthy buy overpriced homes plus ontyario has record azmoints of debt andclose to that of a meduim sized 2nd world Country and the highest cost for power in the country so you pay more but get less and Comapanies leave if it is cheapeer to get power to Run manufacturing plants to reduce costs and they won't come back once they leave.
Ontario should of built Nulcear power plants due to the fact yiou already operate them and Toronto gets 50% of it's power from them and Bruce is one masive plant qwwhen al 8 cores are up and runing you have the largest power output nulcear power plant in North America with 8 Candu-6 Cores and should of made built 8 ACR-1000 cores.
What blalance of power Victoria is our Provinces Capitol and you have your own ridings to vote in and I have my Riding ato vote for and you would stil have the same amount of power and I like having a home with a yard and we are a Car based out side of Vancouver city limits in the Rest of the GVRD and as person that lives in the Tri-citites the the Port Mann Bridge Bridge expansion was neded because it took 45 minutes to of gridlock traffic to cross it on the Number #1.
I mean should I have my F-250 idle for 45 minutes in rush hour gridlock be home in 10 minutes and turn it off for the evening and not get cut of or be les tresed afrom people forcing their way into my lane without a signal plus the portmann major flaw from the Surrey side into coquitlam was it has a step grade down onto the bridge deck and people slam on the brakes just before the get on the bridge and cause everyone behind them to hits their brakes and cause a sea of red Tailights as far as you can see as you came down onto the bridge.
Plus Ontario has a Manufactring base and we do not have the space to build a GM or Chrysler plant here or be like Quebec and have Bombardier open a factory making Comerical Jets because that would be in Boeings backyard and their is only Room for one large Aeropace Giant in the PNW
I mean Vancouver is the place where people who are are already very wealthy buy overpriced homes plus ontyario has record azmoints of debt andclose to that of a meduim sized 2nd world Country and the highest cost for power in the country so you pay more but get less and Comapanies leave if it is cheapeer to get power to Run manufacturing plants to reduce costs and they won't come back once they leave.
Ontario should of built Nulcear power plants due to the fact yiou already operate them and Toronto gets 50% of it's power from them and Bruce is one masive plant qwwhen al 8 cores are up and runing you have the largest power output nulcear power plant in North America with 8 Candu-6 Cores and should of made built 8 ACR-1000 cores.
Vancouver is very different from the rest of the cities. Really, all of the cities have their differences. The north shore (where I live) is vastly different from the city of Vancouver, even though it's a 2 minute car ride over the bridges. West vancouver is west van. They're too rich to care what anyone else does. Burnaby is kind of like Vancouver's younger brother and on and on with the rest of them.
Regarding Surrey, It'll be interesting to see what happens with that place over the next 20 odd years. They need to stop thinking "big suburb" and start thinking big city. Develop the areas around the skytrain stations at surrey Central and King George, and stop just building sh*t for the sake of building it. I personally like Surrey, but they have some other problems that need to be addressed before I'd consider living there.
I just moved to Vancouver this past summer, and I've asked myself this question several times.
From my experience living in Toronto and having family in the GTA, Liberated in TO is spot-on regarding the drawbacks of amalgamation. Whatever town centers any of the frontier cities ever had have now disappeared beneath condo towers and tract housing. Had it just been the amalgamated cities that went this way - Etobiocoke, North York, etc. - things might not have turned so bad, but turning them into only bedroom communities (and Mississauga into a giant corporate park) doomed the rest of the GTA to a similar fate.
From what I've been able to observe, metro Vancouver hasn't turned out this way due to its early attempts to decentralize. The unique local geography has probably helped as well; like San Francisco, there's just too much water in the way to spread all the way out (here mountains play a role too).
The results of this experiment are what I'd expect: the suburban/metro areas aren't nearly as monolithic or extensive as in the GTA (or Dallas, or Los Angeles...) maintaining a real heart or at least capable of finding it again. But at the same time, Vancouver appears less intensely a city, missing some of the hustle and bustle and dense development that makes a place hum. In avoiding the lowest depths we may have prevented ourselves from reaching the highest heights. For all its fault, amalgamation would, I think, increase the region's "buying power" or clout and perhaps draw more resources here.
I do agree that the decentralization helps promote development in the core parts of each city and requires municipalities to be sustainable (economically, environmentally) to some degree, rather than producing a series of jewels and waste areas. But without any strong regional oversight I worry that the cities will gobble up all the available green space and/or do no planning for a healthy region.
I've never been to the Netherlands but I wonder how their regional Randstad approach would fare here.
Canadians are very resistant to change, so if you ask maybe we should XXX? Usually the response is, no, we like the way things are.
So if you ask does it make sense for Vancouver to amalgamate, the response is the same as if you ask if it makes sense for Toronto to de-malgamate. And it were 1997 and you ask if Toronto should amalgamate, the answer would be no too. Basically the instinct is, we like how things are, thank you very much. There is no reason to change, no matter what the change is about.
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