VOTING WITHOUT THINKING

Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, the Power of Thinking Without Thinking is about the remarkable accuracy of intuition. He explains how the first 2 seconds of a meeting convey impressions and hunches that can be more reliable that careful studies and conscious strategies. 

Voters’ decisions in local politics are likely to be intuitive. Campaigns do not really get underway until a week before an election. Under an at large system, a week is not much time to know much about dozens of candidates.

Chapter 3 of Blink is entitled, The Warren Harding Error. It describes why intuition sometimes goes wrong, particularly in politics.

The first president to visit Vancouver was Warren Harding. There are no statues of Lincoln or Roosevelt here but there is a statue of Harding in Stanley Park. Harding has been considered by historians to be one of the worst presidents in US history. He died shortly after his visit to Vancouver. 

Harry Daugherty, a lawyer and lobbyist, was the classic behind the scenes fixer and a shrewd judge of political opportunity. He ran into the 35 year old Harding while he was having his shoes shined. Daugherty took one look and concluded that he could make him president.

Harding  had it all...well almost all.  He had charm, looks and a great speaking voice. Also he was not very bright. As he rose from one local political office to another he remained safely undistinguished. His speeches were described as an army of phrases searching for an idea. As he grew older, however, he became better and better looking. He could have played Julius Caesar on the stage. Although Harding was unburdened by accomplishments, Daugherty persuaded him to run for the White House, believing that he would make "a great looking president."

So Harding got the Republican nomination and was elected. He was the first president to use modern public relations techniques. Five thousand speakers were trained  and sent abroad to speak for Harding; 2,000 of these speakers were women. Telemarketers were used to make phone conferences with perfected dialogues to promote Harding.

Gladwell states, "Many people who looked at Warren Harding saw how extraordinarily handsome and distinguished looking he was and jumped to the immediate and entirely unwarranted conclusion that he was a man of courage, intelligence and integrity. The way he looked carried so many powerful connotations that it stopped the normal process of thinking dead in its tracks.

The Warren Harding error is at the root of a good deal of prejudice and discrimination. It is why picking the right candidate for a job is so difficult and why on more occasions than we may care to admit, utter mediocrities sometimes end up in positions of enormous responsibility."

Harding was loyal to his friends even though they were bad news. Of them he said, “I have no trouble with my enemies, but my damn friends, they're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!"

Secrecy

He appointed many of his pals and campaign contributors to prominent political positions in control of vast amounts of government money and resources. They were a corrupt gang. Operating in secrecy, they negotiated leases and took gifts. 

One of his friends was ultimately convicted of accepting bribes and illegal no-interest personal loans in exchange for the leasing of public oil fields to business associates. Albert Fall was the first cabinet member in U.S. history imprisoned for crimes committed while in office. Charles Forbes, one of his buddies appointed to the department of Veteran Affairs received traveling perks and alcohol kickbacks, took a $5,000 bribe in Chicago, and made a secret code to sneak through $17 million in government construction hospital contracts with corrupt contractors.

Harding died a month after his visit to Vancouver. Some claimed it was food poisoning, others said it was suicide but recent evidence is that he had a serious heart condition that was misdiagnosed.

The secrecy unraveled and scandals and corruption came to light after he died.

Moral

There is no substitute for learning everything one can about the full slate of candidates. 

Our forthcoming Vancouver election will be a challenge if we accept Gladwell's observations. All candidates - not just Mayor Robertson - are  good looking people. The Harding effect can turn the election into a beauty pageant where the candidates compete making vacuous promises to bring world peace, to repeal the internal combustion engine and to always look  good in swim suits.

GHOST STORY

Harry Rankin was the founder of the Committee of Progressive Electors (COPE). He ran 12 years in a row before finally getting elected  in 1966 as an independent. 

Over the next twenty years Rankin became the most popular alderman in the City. The NPA controlled the other seats but there was a reservoir of affection for Rankin. When election time rolled around the voters who worried about the 'Socialist Hordes at the gate' always "Saved one vote for Harry to keep 'em honest." 

In 1986 Harry ran for Mayor against the NPA's, Gordon Campbell. Harry lost.  In 1988 he regained his council seat. 

Why was he so popular?  He was very funny, highly intelligent and, although he did not suffer fools gladly, showed a streak of kindness to everyone including, on rare occasions, the opposition.

Paradoxically,  Rankin and COPE  for all their socialist rhetoric were extremely cautious.  COPE's acronym was parodied as “the Committee Against Practically Everything.” 

He was the Councillor who most carefully analysed  expenditures. He insisted that the City should only undertake  projects that free enterprise could not do. He was sceptical of most government initiatives because he feared City Hall's propensity to screw things up. When  Council created the position of "children’s advocate" Rankin suggested that for all the good  she was doing,  she might be a valuable source of protein for hungry kids in school.

He refused to attend Expo 86. He referred to the Federal Granville Island development as a "boondoggle". Ditto for Granville Mall. He was ice cold to the Vancouver Land Corporation, the purpose of which,  was to supply market rental housing on City owned land. He dismissed it as "state capitalism."

Rankin served on Council until 1993. He ultimately quit his party in disgust in 1996.  He considered that it had been hijacked by witless opportunists-the same ones who ultimately morphed COPE into VISION. 

When he died in 2002 there was a demand that the flag be lowered to half mast. The Council of the day declined ('if we did it for him we'd have to do it for everyone') but miraculously it lowered itself and stayed there for a week.

Tim Louis articled with Rankin. He and mayoral candidate, Meena Wong, seem to be trying to return COPE  to its roots. Their platform is left-wing and has some strange elements but don't sell COPE short. The party could regain the votes usurped by VISION when it abandoned Harry and lost its soul.

YOUNG DEVELOPERS vs OLD FOLKS IN WALKERS

The bitter laments of young developers at an Urban Development Institute panel discussion,  to the effect that old folks in walkers were giving them the miseries by failing to appreciate their good works, is astonishing.

 
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2014/09/18/developers-cry-foul-on-vancouver-nimbys

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox

*** the 34-year-old president and CEO of [ the company] spearheading the Trump Tower in Vancouver — said he almost wants to leave and open shop in another country because developers are rarely recognized locally for their good work.“We as developers are painted as bad people, that we are making windfall profits all the time,” he said.“We try our best to contribute back to the communities and neighbourhoods and shape our city, but we’re hated by everyone else.”

***“We have lawsuits filed by residents associations that are completely log-jamming legal services at the City of Vancouver,” he said.“The people who show up are literally in walkers and canes. ***

“*** I don’t have time to go and attend these planning sessions... and the people who do have the time aren’t going to be around to see the plan implemented.”

Before zoning, first introduced to North America in Euclid N.Y. in 1924,  land use was governed by private restrictive covenants.

Covenants controlled everything including the acceptable ethnicity of residents permitted to buy into  developments. 

The case of Fleischman v. British Pacific Properties Ltd. [1997] B.C.J. No. 2838 reveals how the system works to this day.

In 1984 Mr. Fleischman purchased a one and one-half acre property in West Vancouver. He wanted to subdivide the lot in order to construct a second, smaller, home.

The respondent in the case, British Pacific Properties Ltd. was incorporated in 1931. B.P. acquired a large tract of undeveloped land which it has developed and sold, one subdivision at a time. .There are 814 homes on 1500 acres.

Each subdivision is subject to a "Building Scheme" consisting of a number of restrictive covenants. Mr. Fleischman's filed an application to the Developer, B.P.  but the plan was refused by the Managing Director.

The first thing to note here is that this is a quarrel between a resident owner who wants to build a small second  house and the developer who wants to stop him. This is the reverse of what has been happening in Vancouver. The developer is the NIMBY or, more properly, NIYBY.

Why would the developer, BP do that?  Why would he choose to pick on the  homeowner and prevent him from building his second house?

If one were to accept the theory of the tadpoles at the Urban Development Institute it is probably that British Properties is run by demented nonagenarians scuttling about in walkers. They have nothing better to do than to torture young developers with their regulatory obsessions.

Another possibility is that the Developer wants the rules enforced because it it was and remains in his best interest to do so. 

Here is what the court said:

“6.      The purpose of the restrictive covenants is to create and maintain a unique residential environment, which will maintain and enhance property values and ensure the continued desirability of the British Properties as a residential area.”

The purpose of land use controls - both zoning and private building schemes - is to enable developers to sell their developments. Who will buy an apartment in a building for a million dollars if the rules on the lot next door will suddenly allow a building with Beijing densities to abut against it? 

There is no room for uncertainty in land use law.

If there were no zoning today, these same Developers would be forced to create their own private building schemes in which either the company continues to administer the system, or the covenants are reciprocally enforceable by homeowners.

The willingness of our Vancouver government to treat the established city as though it is raw land that is available for  redevelopment is contrary to the interests of everyone including developers. Of course, if their purpose is not to create housing but simply investment instruments that no one lives in, then the attitude makes more sense.

HIGH ANXIETY OVER THE ARBUTUS CPR LINEAR TRANSIT BIKE THING

Vancouver has been able to avoid buying the CPR right of way because 8 years ago the City got lawyered up and won its expropriation case. [ Canadian Pacific Railway Co. v. Vancouver (City), 2006 SCC 5] The Supreme Court of Canada held that the Official Development Plan (ODP) merely freezes the use of the land with a view to preserving it for future development by precluding present uses that might interfere with that development. The City is not obliged to compensate CPR for the land even though the CPR said  in 2006 that it was no longer useful as a transit corridor.

Since then the old corridor has been used by trespassing gardeners. The City treated  it with benign neglect. They didn't have to buy it and the CPR could run trains up and down for fun if they liked.

When development obsessed, VISION started their mass rezonings the CPR hit upon a strategy borrowed from Mel Brooks in his Hitchcock parody, High Anxiety. Brooks’ character, a psychiatrist and Madeleine Kahn are in the airport toting guns. They need to get through customs. Brooks tells Kahn, counter-intuitively, that instead of avoiding attention, she should be as obnoxious as possible. They both become quite disgusting. The security is so turned off that they push them, with their cargo of weapons, onto the plane.

The CPR after carefully studying High Anxiety announced that they were going to run trains from here to there on their tracks. Pursuant to Mel Brooks’ strategy, they trampled the farmers cumquats and bulldozed their fences. Their next act would likely involve blowing horns at midnight or a food fight out of Animal House.

Lets suppose that Council's very own psychiatrist, Kerry Jang, possibly a student of Brooks, is planning the next move. I have never met a psychiatrist I couldn't help, and this is what I would suggest.

"Professor Jang, there is an election coming up and you incumbents have a dilemma. If  you do nothing other than say things like, “That’s no way to run a railroad!” you will seem weak and ineffectual in the face of the CPR’s brutish behavior."

"If you agree to a price or even compromise with the CPR, it will seem like you are rewarding pigs with breakfast."

Then I would tell him that the Expropriation Act offers a solution that allows both sides to win and the public to lose. Section 3. (1)  would allow the CPR to agree to transfer land to the City without going through the full expropriation process. If they cannot agree on the price the City can pay a tiny fraction of its fair value to the CPR. That would all happen before the election. The VISIONISTAs would trumpet their business acumen: "We paid $500 dollars and they accepted. Ha. "

The farmers, who have been described by Pete McMartin as Marxists, would thank the council commissars

The CPR’s wax mustachioed executives would slink out of town.

Scene 2 would occur long after the election. A hearing would take place before a judge as required by the Expropriation Act and based on appraisal evidence would set the price for the sale as of the date the owner agreed to transfer  the land to the city.

The Expropriation Act states that the court must award as compensation the market value of the owner’s estate or interest in the expropriated land *** In determining the market value of land, account must not be taken of (g) any increase or decrease in value of the land that results from the enactment or amendment of a zoning bylaw, official community plan or analogous enactment made with a view to the development in respect of which the expropriation is made.

There are also special provisions for unique properties like railroad right of ways and abattoirs.

After the purchase and the election, the City could repeal or amend the OCP anyway it liked. The change would not affect the cost of the purchase. What is likely to happen, though, is that the City would have to pay much more than what it has been calling “fair market value.” The CPR would get fair market value.

You can bet that at midnight when the Supreme Court delivers the next CPR decision, the VISIONISTAS will not let the railroad turn back into a pumpkin patch. A strip casino will be more like it.

If they manage to get re-elected in November by a heavy turnout of kale growers and residents on Point Grey Road, the public will promise not to vote for them when the next election rolls around in four years.


Note: Since writing the above I have been asked whether the City has the power to expropriate. This is a complicated issue but the CPR seemed to think so. It argued in CPR v Vancouver SCC 2006

35     CPR also argues that the British Columbia Expropriation Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 125, requires the City to compensate CPR (Appendix B). Section 1 of the Act defines "expropria[tion]" as "the taking of land by an expropriating authority under an enactment without the consent of [page241] the owner", and goes on to define "expropriating authority" as "a person ... empowered under an enactment to expropriate land". Section 2(1) of the Act provides that "[i]f an expropriating authority proposes to expropriate land, th[e] Act applies to the expropriation, and, if there is an inconsistency between any of the provisions of th[e] Act and any other enactment respecting the expropriation, the provisions of [theExpropriation Act] apply." The Expropriation Act requires compensation for land expropriated, while the Vancouver Charter states the City is not obliged to compensate for adverse effects to land caused by an ODP. CPR argues that this constitutes an inconsistency and that, under s. 2 of the Expropriation Act, the requirement of compensation in that Act must prevail.

APOLOGIES

Everyone wants an apology.

The CBC ran a story last Thursday about an association of street workers  who were demanding an apology from the City of Vancouver for having obtained an injunction prohibiting the practice of their profession in some of the better streets of our town.

This had happened in 1972. The judge who issued the order was the late Allan McEachern.

One  of several  advocates for the street workers was a professor of Sociology at UBC.

She and others said that the times were right for apologies and that while it was not quite as big a deal as the Holocaust,  these street women were quite "statuesque" and deserving. They had been driven out of the West End by a group called "Shame the Johns."

She has a good sense of timing.

The Mayor a few weeks earlier declared himself amicably separated from his wife. His own political party,VISION, from the vantage point of another dimension, denounced the NPA  for spreading false rumors to the effect that the separation was not as  morally sublime as the Mayor had intimated.

Strangely though, the rumours  in this morality play were contained in a private email to the Mayor. They were then spread (or "published" as lawyer's say in the libel biz) by the Mayor himself. Had he not done so, no one would have known about them.

Through all of this there was general agreement by the media that the private lives of politicians should be off limits unless they in some way relate to their ability to perform their duties.

If the Mayor would spread rumors about himself by publishing private insults, and expects an apology, maybe this is consistent with some of the other disappointing aspects of his job performance.

Another demand for an apology made the news a few weeks ago. Councillors Raymond Louie and Kerry Jang wanted the City to apologize and perhaps pay reparations for the  head tax that was imposed on Chinese immigrants over one hundred years ago. 

All people, including Canadians have ancestors who were pushed around by other people's ancestors in other countries.  While the Chinese were paying the head tax and building railroads in Canada, my  ancestors were not even here. They were Latvians. They had troubles of their own getting their heads bashed  during the pogroms that seemed to be weekly occurrences in Riga.

It is hard enough for politicians to govern in their own time. The past can not be revised by future generations on behalf of ancestors who had not apologized, had no inclination to do so and may have had nothing to do with the problem.

THE GRANVILLE ISLAND TRUST

There are lots of lessons to be learned from Vancouver's enormously successful redevelopment of Granville Island.  One is that projects should be carried out using local talent rather than experts from outside. Another is that the most unlikely, seemingly out of touch government agency can produce a winner with the help of a capable advisory committee whose advice they follow. Most importantly, as Marlene Dietrich said,  beware of what is trendy. What works today may make you look ridiculous tomorrow.

In 2005, Denmark undertook a study of successful waterfront developments around the world. In search of a model for the renewal of their own coastal regions and villages, the Danes concluded that Vancouver was the one most worth emulating.

The following is the outline of a speech I delivered in April 2005 in Copenhagen to 250 Danish Planners. They specifically wanted to know how Canada succeeded in producing what they considered to be the best waterfront repurposing project in the world.

“In 1973 Ron Basford, the Federal Minister of Corporate Affairs, came up with the idea that a 40 acre, fading industrial area on a peninsula, under a bridge near the centre of Vancouver should be converted to a people place. A young architect named Richard Rabnett was hired to recommend a concept plan and a process for development. Rabnett provided a set of alternative solutions and suggested that a Trust be created to choose the concept and oversee the the project to completion.

Canada has a complex system of overlapping jurisdictions. The title to the land and control was with Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation, a Federal Agency. C.M.H.C was the last place in the federal bureaucracy one would have chosen to be responsible for the project. As Voltaire said of the Holy Roman Empire (“It wasn’t Holy, it wasn’t Roman and it wasn’t an Empire) so Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation was not central and would provide no housing on the Island.

As it turned out CMHC was a serendipitous choice. CMHC’s Western Chairman, King Ganong, made it clear at the outset that  he would work by consensus with the appointed trust. Although he had received a legal opinion that there was no power to operate through the trust, he did it anyway. There was a lot of give and take but over a period of ten years, he always reached a consensus. 

Ganong was a great administrator. He brought out the best in people.

The trust was appointed in 1976. It was composed of five individuals with significantly different backgrounds. Geoff Massey had a distinguished career as an architect and had served on City Council. Doug Sutcliff was an experienced developer. Another, Helen Pattison was active in many philanthropic and political activities in Vancouver. My own background was in social planning and law.

This is how things stood:

• The land was owned by the Federal Government which was immune from either Provincial or Local control in terms of zoning and building regulations. 
• The Federal Government agreed that it would pay for all infrastructure costs – roads and the entire physical plans but not operating costs. 
• Since the government was behind it and was anxious to see it succeed approvals were quickly obtained. 
• The members of the trust had highly varied backgrounds but were all deeply rooted in the community and had a good sense of what would work and what would not. 
• The existing form of development on the island felt like the ruins of a medieval city. It had a scale and nice feel to it. A policy of conservation was therefore easy to adapt. 

No MacDonalds

• The first staff manager of the project, Russell Brink, was an astute businessman who was politically connected and had deep roots in the community. 
• Brink retired and was replaced by Alan Hammond whose background included managing a large Canadian museum 
• We hired locally and did not seek outside experts- even from Denmark. The Market was organized by a former local Safeway employee. The project architects, Hotson, Bakker & Assoc. were young Vancouverites. 
• The streetscape and general configuration of the existing buildings would be maintained i.e. low-rise industrial steel buildings and curving streets both of which were atypical for Vancouver. 
• Contrary to precedent, all land uses would be allowed. That is industrial, commercial, office, cultural and service would be permitted. 
• National chains like MacDonald’s or Starbucks would not be permitted. 
• Cars and pedestrians would mix on the streets. There would be no sidewalks. 
• Two major markets would be permitted. One was the Farmers market and the other was the Maritime market. 
• Major cultural institutions would be encouraged on the island.
• An economist, Phil Boname,  was retained  whose experience was in Shopping Center leasing. He recommended and established differential rents depending upon the use. Certain commercial uses like food sales in the market might pay higher rents. Arts and Crafts would enjoy lower rents. 
• Each tenant in the market and anywhere else in the island was reviewed by the trust. (Some were turned down including a skating rink, a movie theatre, and  food chain. Even Venice has its MacDonald’s but not Granville Island. )
• The industrial architecture was preserved. 
• Even the buskers were auditioned and licensed.

The Island has an aura that borders on the chaotic. It is anything but. This is as strictly controlled as any shopping centre but the mix is  different.

How long can it last? 

It can last as long as it works and as long as people like it. Through successive political changes, the original policies have been re-affirmed. Tenants have come and gone but management has ensured an eclectic mix of uses and tenants. Local people shop there – not just tourists.

• The rental structure continues to permit small, funky businesses to operate. With the success of the island, some retail and commercial uses pay high rents and are able to subsidize arts and other programs. 
• The island avoided the sometimes stifling influence of Municipal zoning regulations and controls.
• The Policy of allowing all uses ensured that the market could take up slack in buildings as needed.
• Buildings on the island were available for parking.
• There was a massive presence of arts institutions and artists.

Effect of the Island on the rest of Vancouver

• The nascent Gastown farmer’s market of the 70's collapsed. It could not compete. 
• Private super markets copied the look of the Granville Island Market. 
• Other similar markets were created throughout the Vancouver region with mixed success. 

Troubles

The original Trust set the course for ten years. It resigned in 1985 led by its Chairman, King Ganong, when CMHC decided to run it by itself. It relegated the Trust to an advisory position. Its advice was often disregarded. The Trust seemed to function like a neighborhood association rather than a Board of Trustees.

The flavour of the island comes from small local businesses. Demand for extended hours of operation creates pressure for national chains to replace mom and pop operations.

Summary

There is no doubt that because of its central, waterfront location any number of alternative solutions would have made money. It could have been a conventional residential subdivision or an office or light industrial area. 

 It could have been highrise or lowrise. The revenues might even have been higher. 

Marlene Dietrich once warned on the danger of following trends in fashions: What looks good one year looks ridiculous the next. Granville Island avoided that mistake. It was anything but trendy. The mixing of cars  (not to mention cement trucks) and pedestrians on roads without sidewalks ran counter to conventional  engineering practice then and now.

The Island has had an enormous impact on Vancouver and other cities. It shows what can happen on a small piece of land without the  separation of land uses. It has been a successful example of private - public partnership. 

The most valuable lesson for Denmark might be in the process by which it was created. It is fine to study the world,  but the project should be carried out locally and reflect who you are - not who  foreigners think you ought to be.

Jonathan Baker

April 15, 2005

DEMOLISHING VANCOUVER

Nantes is a lovely medieval town in Brittany, roughly the size of Vancouver. I was there two weeks ago and had lunch with a ninety year old architect. He was at home the night Nantes was carpet bombed after the Normandy Invasion. “There was,” he says, "a lot of noise. It lasted about 20 minutes. When it stopped there was only one house left standing in the town centre. We thought that it was the Germans who were bombing. Actually, we learned later, it was the allies who somehow missed their military targets.”

NANTES POST BOMBING

He was interested to learn that it took investors  more than a year to demolish about 1000 Vancouver houses. The Allied armies accomplished this for Nantes in under 20 minutes.

There are other parallels. 

The Allies,  criticized by some Americans for taking out the entire residential town centre, explained that they had to destroy it in order to save it. Facing similar criticism, Vancouver politicians  have  instructed us that the demolition of character homes in Vancouver is necessary to produce better, healthier, more diversified and denser neighborhoods with a variety of housing types.

Paradoxically, Vancouverites seem to be more upset about the demolitions than were the surviving residents of Nantes. They welcomed the Americans with kisses and flowers. In contrast, Michael Kluckner, the author of Vanishing Vancouver says, “There are all kinds of anger type issues that are rolling together *** there’s a general sense that people are frustrated with things just not working,” he continued. (Globe and Mail, Friday May 30, 2014)

Both President Francois Hollande and  Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, have to deal with immigration issues and cultural conflicts.

There are today a great number of Chinese tourists in France, some of whom are investing in vineyards and castles. These investors do not demolish heritage buildings because Napoleon outlawed the practice. To the contrary, the French provide grants to owners to restore old castles.  

The problem for the French government is that the Chinese tourists do not use credit cards. They carry their castle money in their pockets. As a result, they are the preferred victims of pickpockets and thieves. 

 Quite naturally, they complain about their safety.

About two weeks ago, President Hollande suggested that the Chinese should stop whining. He told them to bring in their own police force to protect them while in France. The French media said that this suggestion proved that the president was as dumb as he looked. (The French are sensitive about foreign police forces occupying their country.)

The French dealt with the demolition of Nantes' town centre by restoring it in its original style. It took a while. Of course they preserved the one house left standing. Below is a picture of downtown Nantes taken two weeks ago.

ONLY HOUSE TO SURVIVE BOMBING

NANTES TOWN CENTRE TODAY

Investor led demolitions are more subtle than bombing.  For one thing, there is more than one house left standing. This gives the planners and engineers the chance to create heritage classifications and to recycle the components of demolished homes. The June 3 report from the General Manager of Engineering Services notes at p. 4 that “By using deconstruction techniques, wood and other materials can be separated, sorted and can be more easily reused and recycled. For example, if 80% of wood from a typical pre 1940’s one/two story family home is captured for reuse or recycling an additional 40 tons of waste could be diverted from landfill per demolished home.”

The Strategic Analysis section seeks to encourage retention of pre 1940s homes by increasing the burden on demolition which the report calls deconstruction. “The rationale for this additional recycling requirement is to recognize that character homes often have more character elements and material features that can be salvaged, reused, recycled and kept out of the landfill.”

Strategic Analysis will be required to deal with preservation of new components in old buildings. In 1978 Vancouver's Heritage Advisory Committee would not allow alterations to Umberto's restaurant.  They did not want to lose a part of our heritage described as "finely turned balustrades." Umberto, however, produced the invoices to show that these 'character elements' had been made five years earlier. 

Another issue is what to do with old components like getting nails out of old floors. If salvaging costs more than the value of the materials salvaged the stuff will just lie around and rot.

The Allies may have had a strategy as well to retain ancient homes by focusing on military targets,  but the bomb sight technology was not up to the task. As to recycling, I could find no statistics on how Nantes recycled the stone in the downtown but they probably did.

Vancouver ingeniously proposes to pay for recycling by moving stuff around in the budget. Even if that doesn't do anything for heritage, it promotes the more important Green Action Plan. 

All of this demonstrates the enormous advantages of a local government run by public relations specialists.

The engineering report says, “Additional resources may be required to implement certain aspects of the proposed C &D Waste Diversion Strategy; however any near term expenses will be covered through re-prioritization of existing budgets. Any financial implications not noted will be identified and proposed as part of the 2015 operating budget process”

Re-prioritization is a technical term for robbing Peter in one department to pay Paul in another.

 Just as there were critics of the carpet bombing of Nantes, Vancouver has its own neighborhood fussbudgets. They say that the pre 1940 deconstruction rules might actually increase the rate of demolition of pre 1940 homes. They whine that the character designation was arbitrary and that existing density bonuses encourage destruction. They describe the whole thing as “poorly thought out.” 

They are right.