Intermediate Impressions: Vancouver

When I first pulled in to Vancouver on that rainy evening and looked out over the city, I was struck by a very different looking skyline. I had heard that Vancouver was a very modern city and expected something like a small New York. But I was disappointed. The skyline looked... wrong. I've since figured it out. Unlike most American, or even European skylines, the Vancouver skyline is dominated by residential high rises. So it has a very different feel to it. Combine that with the local ordinance limiting the height of downtown skyscrapers to protect the view of yonder mountains, and it makes for an unexpected cityscape.

Adding to the unexpectedness of Vancouver's appearance, but in an entirely pleasant way, is the natural beauty of this city. (Seattle shares this in common.) Vancouver is surrounded by mountains in the distance, flanked with trees in the nearness, and boasts beaches and bays in between. Parks are everywhere--large parks, right by/in downtown (which is impressive given the ridiculous real estate prices here). Stanley Park is even Vancouver's biggest attraction.

The parks are one obvious example of Vancouver being a pedestrian oriented city. Not being in the US, they don't suffer the affliction here of assuming everyone has a car and wants to drive it everywhere they go. So Vancouver is very much designed around the walking person. Many streets (outside of downtown) only fit one car, after the nearby residents park on the street, because Canadian studies have shown that pedestrians feel better about crossing streets below a certain width. They also don't like to cross driveways, so you won't find any here.

Since they're not driving, you won't find any Drive-Thrus, either. All the shops a neighborhood needs--because each neighborhood has its own local everything--are storefronts along the commercial district. They don't quite have the charm of European shoppes, but are leaps and bounds beyond the American plague of strip malls.

What minimal driving there is brings with it some interesting quirks. First of all, gas only costs about a dollar. But, mind you, that's a Canadian Dollar (which I can't believe is worth more than the US Dollar, about $1.03!), and it's buying only a litre. Do the math. It hurts.

The interplay between pedestrian and automobile is also curious for Americans. For one, pedestrians will jump right out in front of oncoming traffic. What's even stranger is that the cars always stop, let them cross and carry on like it's normal... because it is. If a driver is going through a traffic light, he or she is likely to find it more than just green, but blinking green. In other parts of Canada, this means a protected turn signal, but here in Vancouver it means that the light is pedestrian controlled and at any moment, you may have a pedestrian changing the light to "amber" before you must stop at a red light to let them cross.

Whether pedestrian or behind the wheel, there is really no guarantee what the Vancouverite will look like. This must be one of the most heterogeneous populations I've seen. The city is at least half filled with non-Caucasian Canadians, most of whom are Asian. Thus, Vancouver boasts the third largest Chinatown in North America, and arguably, the most authentic.

Regardless of their ethnicity, Vancouverites currently all share a very smelly problem: the garbage service for the city has been on strike for months. Consequently, since they're such nice Canadians, many other public services have gone on strike in sympathy. So the libraries are closed and many other city offices. But cross your fingers, because this week's vote may bring the long strike to a much anticipated end.

As a final thought, among the charming peculiarities that distinguish this nearby neighbour sharply from her southern counterparts, I have to say I particularly miss American bookstores. In Vancouver, they don't put chairs in their bookstores. Can you believe it? They expect you to come in, buy your book, and leave. Even if there's a Starbucks attached (yes, they're en force here!), the signs and scanners prevent you taking an unpurchased book to your table as you sip a latte. So while huddled on the floor of the "Cultural Studies" isle, I stumbled upon the insightful commentary below from a new book about the TV show, "The Simpsons." Coincedentally, the author makes deliberate note of the show's Canadian writers along with some generally insightful comments:

"I have to say that Canadians tend to be a good deal more introspective and self-effacing than Americans, much slower than their southern neighbors to celebrate their triumphs and much quicker to expose their flaws. This is a disposition, note, that is ripe for the development of satire. Another fundamental difference is that many Americans believe--are in fact raised to believe--that everyone else in the world lives like they do, or else wants to live like they do, and that the American way of life is compelling to pretty much everyone. Whereas Canadians are raised with the absolute certainty that not even their closest neighbours live like they do, nor want to, and that their way of life is not even particularly compelling to those neighbours. America's enormous global influence--politically and economically as well as culturally--and Canada's comparative invisibility confirm these beliefs to some degree. America sees itself everywhere, Canada almost nowhere. The former thus develops a highly insular and inwardly focused culture, the latter an obsessively outward-looking culture. And the place Canadians most often gaze out upon is their big, brash next-door neighbour. This has provided Canada with a point of view utterly unique in the world: Canadians are by nature and circumstance experts in American studies, nearly as well versed as Americans themselves in the society and culture of the United States, able to identify every cultural referent, able indeed to pass for Americans--to produce pop culture that an American audience frequently mistakes for its own. Canadians almost instinctively get American culture, but at the same time they are profoundly aware that they are not entirely of it. And this allows Canadians to be critical of it with a degree of detachment impossible for an American, even as their privileged point of view ensures that their criticisms ring true."