1980/06/01 by David Ley · 5 citations
Social Sciences · #Canadian Identity and History
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.1980.tb01310.x
openalex publication_date 1980/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
A new ideology of livability in urban development changed the Vancouver landscape between 1968 and 1978. The agents of liberal ideology were a new elite of professional, technical, and administrative workers whose consolidation coincided with Vancouver's transition toward a service oriented postindustrial city. This group founded an urban reform party which assumed political power in 1972. They challenged the commitment to growth, boosterism, and the city efficient held by former civic administrations, presenting in its place a program of apparently humane, socially progressive, and aesthetic urban development. Despite some significant successes, the new ideology was also elitist and has generated new problems of social justice, giving rise to a countervailing political movement in the late 1970s. Except in special circumstances it seems the ideology of the livable city is rarely compatible with criteria of social equity or economic efficiency.