Everybody works but the vacant lot, Henry George as quoted by Fay Lewis

This is a parody artwork at Vancouver’s 221A Artist-Run Centre, parodying the “Micro Loft” building being erected next door to it in the current lightning-fast condo land rush taking place in Chinatown.

From their website:

221A is pleased to present Cube Living (Phase 2), a 4-week artist-in-residence with artist and designer Alex Grünenfelder, running from January 23 to February 25, 2013. Grünenfelder will examine how real estate developments operate as containers that capture living space as urban spatial commodities through the packaging of bodies, objects, lifestyles, identities, capital and politics.
Grünenfelder will begin a limited release of micro-properties measuring 1 cubic foot. This innovative product addresses the stagnation and endemic unaffordability of Vancouver’s real estate market. In developing a spatial commodity that can be purchased in very small units, Cube Living is able to offer affordable properties at prices under $50! Micro-properties are an accessible solution to the inflated real estate market crisis that threatens to push Vancouver’s economy into decline.

Many Vancouver residents find it difficult or impossible to enter the market. Despite government urban densification policies that have brought 10,000 new condo units to the city each year, [1] Vancouver remains the second least-affordable city in the world. [2]

Vancouver has experienced explosive real estate development since 1986. In the 2000s, then-mayor Sam Sullivan’s Ecodensity program initiated radical urban densification with the aim of promoting housing affordability and environmentally sustainable neighbourhoods. Pundits declared that flooding the market with new condos would result in more affordable—or at least stable—prices, so that new buyers could purchase small units and eventually trade up into a larger living space. Buildings got taller and condos got smaller, but prices have kept rising. Development and construction hasn’t been able to meet the goal of affordability and now the city is faced with a dire situation.

“The current property market is almost saturated. Sales are in decline because people can’t afford to lower their asking prices. We need to expand into new markets, and the only way to produce a lower tier of affordable entry-level properties is to create highly liquid, easily tradeable micro-spaces. This is the only way to address the affordability crisis within our market-driven real-estate economy.”

[1]RBC. “Vancouver’s housing market: moderation in store but vulnerable to a harsher outcome.” April 2012. Page 6. http://www.rbc.com/economics/market/pdf/vancouverhouse.pdf

[2]Demographia. “9th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survery: 2013”. Page 2. http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf

Ha.

221A website, twitter, Facebook event.

Photo by Dan Toulgoet , Vancouver Courier - Elvy Del Bianco presents rare films shot in Vancouver between 1964 and 1988 at the Waldorf Hotel in 2011.

This is one of the more interesting short talks I’ve listened to, and I’m posting it here in the hope that it gets wider distribution. It was presented by Elvy Del Bianco, a researcher with major BC credit union VanCity, itself a cooperative. Del Bianco’s position at VanCity is quite unique; his job is to research the relationship between arts and innovation and promote a cooperative business model in an attempt to foster social capital locally. What is social capital? Well, the short answer is that it’s the various benefits of cooperation. Del Bianco explains using the model of Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, one of the most profitable in the EU thanks to its “lego economics” in which smaller businesses (balsamic vinegar, parmesan, even Ferrari) combine resources to leverage economic power. Culture both plays a role in and benefits from this model. It is also interesting to note that the region is not just wealthy but is one of the most democratic anywhere, with a small income gap in what is historically a left-wing Italian heartland with a long history of employee-owned companies.

Below is Del Bianco’s 6-minute talk at Vancouver’s Pecha Kucha, and it’s well worth watching no matter where you live. The audio is a little challenging at points, and as I found out when I spoke at Pecha Kucha, you have to speak quickly if you want to fit complex ideas into a 6 minute spiel. But it’s an extremely interesting talk. His comments the challenges facing arts and culture in Vancouver are interesting; he talks about condo development speculation driving unaffordability, as well as the massive, unique-in-Canada massive cuts to cultural investment on the part of BC’s provincial government.

Bianco is himself an artist, having worked many years as an actor after training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He grew up in East Vancouver.

Please join the Or Gallery, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation and the Riste Family in saying Happy 100th Birthday to the Del Mar Inn! The Vancouver Heritage Foundation will be awarding a Places That Matter heritage plaque to the building on the occasion of its birthday. The ceremony and reception are this Thursday, August 2, 7 pm at the Or Gallery on the building’s main floor. 555 Hamilton Street. Refreshments.

It is unarguable that the Del Mar Inn has one of the most fascinating building histories in Vancouver. I have detailed it here. In short, for many years the building’s owner George Riste resisted extreme and creative pressure from BC Hydro to sell the building so that they could develop the whole block. In the end they were forced to develop the block around the Inn, but they have not given up. The more stubborn the Ristes become, the more bizarre the Crown Corporation’s behaviour. George’s family, in particular his son Mike Riste, continue the tradition. For decades they have consistently provided clean, affordable housing to low income Vancouverites, and not just in the Del Mar Inn but in other buildings around the city as well. And they’ve done it in the most dogged but quiet, limelight-avoiding manner. Meanwhile they have also saved one of the last old residential hotels in the downtown core.

See a description of the event on the Vancouver Heritage Foundation site and this blurb for more information about the building.

We’ll be hosting a reception. If you’re interested in Vancouver’s heritage and the amazing, iconoclastic Riste family, please come and help celebrate.

Note: The building was actually opened on August 1, 1912, so our party is technically a day late.

Drawing above by Won Kang.