The long-range general plan has long been a foundation of city planning in North America, but its usefulness and purposes are much debated and comprehensive physical plans are not considered a dynamic, central part of city planning today. This article looks at the comprehensive physical plan prepared in the late 1920s by Harland Bartholomew and the local Town Planning Commission for Vancouver, British Columbia—a city known for its livability—and analyzes how the plan contributed to and is reflected in the city's public realm. It explores how key public realm proposals of the plan have continued to inform planning policy over the years. In the end, conclusions are reached regarding the power of simple yet visionary long-range ideas for a city's public realm, the value of building on good ideas, and the identity-building possibilities of building a public realm responsive to its unique natural context.
Conde Nast Traveler magazine has for the past three years (2004, 2005, 2006) deemed Vancouver to be the best city in the Americas; see Tourism Vancouver News Release, "Vancouver Once Again Named Top City in Americas," Tourism Vancouver , http://www.tourismvancouver.com/media/media_home/news_releases.php?id=82 . For the same years, the Mercer Human Resource Consulting annual worldwide quality of living survey has ranked Vancouver the top North American city and third overall; see Tourism Vancouver, "Honours for Vancouver," http://www.tourismvancouver.com/media/media_kit/background/accolades. The international business intelligence firm, the Economist Intelligence Unit, rated Vancouver the Most Livable City in 2005; see "Vancouver is Best City to live," CNN.Com , October 5, 2005, http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/04/eui.survey/ .
2.
See City of Vancouver, "Vancouver Transportation Plan Progress Report," May 30, 2006, for a summary of the city's recent improvements in walking and biking trips over vehicle trips, http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20060530/documents/rr1a.pdf .
3.
For more on the "point tower and podium base" building types and their impacts on livability, see Elizabeth Macdonald, "Street-Facing Dwelling Units and Livability: The Impacts of Emerging Building Types in Vancouver's New High-Density Residential Neighborhoods," Journal of Urban Design10, no. 1 (February 2005): 13-38.
4.
To see how Vancouver's characteristic public realm patterns have been systematically incorporated into the city's new neighborhoods, see City of Vancouver, False Creek North Official Development Plan (1990), and City of Vancouver, Beach Neighbourhood CD-1 Guidelines (1999), which can be found on the city's Web site: http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/ .
5.
John Punter, The Vancouver Achievement: Urban Planning and Design ( Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003), 3.
6.
Harland Bartholomew, A Plan for the City of Vancouver British Columbia Including Point Grey and South Vancouver and a General Plan of the Region (St. Louis, MO: Harland Bartholomew and Associates, 1929).
7.
Alan Altshuler , The City Planning Process: A Political Analysis (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965); and Alan Altshuler, "The Goals of Comprehensive Planning," Journal of the American Institute of Planners31, no. 3 (1965): 186-97.
8.
Some of the most evocative critiques can be found in Jane Jacobs' classic book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York : Random House, 1961). A good summary of critiques is found in Emily Talen, New Urbanism and American Planning: The Conflict of Cultures (New York: Routledge, 2005).
9.
Judith Innes, "Planning Through ConsensusBuilding: A New View of the Comprehensive Planning Ideal," Journal of theAmerican Planning Association 62 (1996): 460-72.
10.
Mary Edwards and Laura Lawson, "The Evolution of Planning in East St. Louis," Journal of Planning History4, no. 4 (November 2005): 356-82.
11.
Talen, New Urbanism and American Planning, 132.
12.
Ibid., 144.
13.
See Punter, The Vancouver Achievement, for a thorough discussion and analysis of Vancouver's recent planning efforts.
14.
Bruce Macdonald , Vancouver: A Visual History, ( Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1992), 40.
15.
This summary of Vancouver's social and economic geography is drawn in large measure from Graeme Wynn, "The Rise of Vancouver," in Vancouver and its Region, ed. Graeme Wynn and Timothy Oke ( Vancouver: UBC Press, 1992), 69-145.
16.
Ibid.
17.
City of Vancouver Archives, " Vancouver Town Planning Commission Fonds, 1913-1970: Administrative History/Bio .," in the City of Vancouver Digital Archives, http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/ctyclerk/archives/index.htm.
18.
Eldridge Lovelace , Harland Bartholomew: His Contributions to American Urban Planning (Urbana: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, 1993), A20.
19.
Ibid., 43-49.
20.
Ibid., 35.
21.
The information on Horace Seymour comes from http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0007311 .
22.
Ibid, A15-A19. The other Canadian cities for which Bartholomew prepared plans were New Westminster (1945), North Vancouver (1946), and West Vancouver (1946).
23.
Bartholomew, A Plan for the City of Vancouver, 10, 39-41.
24.
BC Stats Estimate, http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/census.asp .
25.
A combined emphasis on physical order, economic prosperity, and aesthetics was typical of planning efforts undertaken by American planners in the 1920s. For another example of a 1920s Bartholomew plan that also contains this emphasis, see Edwards and Lawson, "The Evolution of Planning in East St. Louis," 360.
26.
Bartholomew, A Plan for the City of Vancouver, 10.
27.
Harold Spence-Sales and John Bland, Report upon the Establishment of a Planning Department in the City of Vancouver, July 20, 1951; Wynn, "The Rise of Vancouver," 128; Vancouver City Planning Commission, "History of the Vancouver City Planning Commission," Vancouver City Planning Commission, http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/COMMSVCS/BOARDSCOMMISSIONS/PLANNINGCOMMISSION/planningcommissionhistory.htm.
28.
Harland Bartholomew , A Preliminary Report upon Administration of the Plan (St. Louis, MO: Harland Bartholomew and Associates, 1948).
29.
Advisory Committee on City Planning and Zoning of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Standard City Enabling Act (United States Government Printing Office, 1928); and Ruth Knack, Stuart Meck, and Israel Stollman, "The Real Story Behind the Standard Planning and Zoning Acts of the 1920s," Land Use Law (February 1996): 9.
30.
Punter, The Vancouver Achievement, 18; and Bartholomew, A Preliminary Report (1948), 11.
31.
Vancouver City Council Special Committee Minutes, "Proposed Review of Vancouver's Town Plan," February 10, 1944, in the Vancouver City Archives.
32.
These reports include: Harland Bartholomew, A Preliminary Report upon Economic Background and Population Growth (St. Louis, MO: Harland Bartholomew and Associates, 1944); A Preliminary Report upon Public Buildings and Civic Centre (1945a); A Preliminary Report upon Transit (1945b); A Preliminary Report upon the Downtown Business District (1945c); A Preliminary Report upon Parks and Recreation and Schools (1946); A Preliminary Report upon the Major Street Plan (1947a); A Preliminary Report upon the City's Appearance (1947b); and A Preliminary Report upon Administration of the Plan (1948).
33.
"Face-Lifting Urged for City," Vancouver Sun , March 11, 1948.
34.
"Expert Defends City Centre Plan," Vancouver News-Herald, December 3, 1945; "Razing Required in Parking Plan," Vancouver Sun, January 4, 1946.
35.
Spence-Sales and Bland, Report upon the Establishment of a Planning Department, 4.
36.
"Town-Planning Brochure Found Impracticable," Vancouver Sun, February 5, 1949.
37.
Punter, The Vancouver Achievement, 18.
38.
D. Gutstein, "Vancouver," in City Politics in Canada, ed. W. Magnusson and A. Sancton (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983), 199.
39.
City of Vancouver Archives, Vancouver Town Planning Commission Fonds, in City of Vancouver Archives Digital Database, http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/ctyclerk/archives/webpubhtml/w_vtpc.htm.
40.
Punter, The Vancouver Achievement , 26.
41.
City of Vancouver, Urban Design Panel, http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/planning/udp/Udp.html.
42.
Vancouver City Planning Commission, History of the Vancouver City Planning Commission, http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/BOARDSCOMMISSIONS/PLANNINGCOMMISSION/ planningcommissionhistory.htm.
43.
Ibid.
44.
Vancouver City PlanningCommission, Goals for Vancouver (Vancouver: Vancouver City Planning Commission , February 1980), 4.
45.
Ibid.
46.
Vancouver City Planning Commission, Vancouver's Future: Toward the Next Million, (Vancouver City Planning Commission, 1989).
47.
Punter, The Vancouver Achievement , 149, 154.
48.
Ann McAffee , "City Plan," in The Greater Vancouver Book: An Urban Encyclopedia, ed. Chuck Davis (Linkman Press, 1998). This essay can be found on the Discover Vancouver Web site: http://www.discovervancouver.com/gvb/vancouver-city-plan.asp .
49.
City of Vancouver Urban Landscape Task Force, Greenways, Public Ways (1992), iii, 22; City of Vancouver (1995a), 9.
50.
City of Vancouver, Greenways Plan (1995a), 13-24.
51.
The legal definition of a freeway was formulated in the early 1930s. See Edward Bassett, "The Freeway: a New Kind of Thoroughfare," American City (February 1930).
52.
Cities were confronted with ever-increasing automobile-based congestion in the 1920s, and relieving it had become one of primary purposes of planning. See Jeffrey Brown, "From Traffic Regulation to Limited Ways: The Effort to Build a Science of Transportation Planning," Journal of Planning History5, no. 1 (February 2006 ): 3-34.
53.
Bartholomew A Plan for the City of Vancouver, 48-57, 78-85, Plate 7, Plate 9.
54.
Ibid., Plate 7.
55.
Ibid., 61.
56.
Ibid., 55.
57.
Bartholomew, A Preliminary Report (1947a), 9.
58.
Ibid., 9.
59.
Ibid., 19, 28.
60.
Ibid., 28.
61.
"Bartholomew's Double-Deck Bridge," Vancouver Sun, December 5, 1945.
62.
Lovelace, Harland Bartholomew, 124.
63.
Jeffrey Brown , "A Tale of Two Visions: Harland Bartholomew, Robert Moses, and the Development of the American Freeway," Journal of Planning History4, no. 1 (February 2005): 3-32.
64.
In the United States, the 1944 Federal-Aid Highway Act created the Interstate Highway System, which was funded in 1956 through the creation of a dedicated highway trust fund.
65.
Ibid., 53.
66.
Punter, The Vancouver Achievement, 24.
67.
Stanford Research Institute and Wilbur Smith and Associates , "Review of Transportation Plans-Metropolitan Vancouver, B.C," (September 1964). Extracts of this report can be found at http://www.vcn.bc.ca/t2000bc/learning/background/history/1964.html .
68.
"Chinese Seethe Over Freeway," The Vancouver Sun, October 16, 1967.
69.
Macdonald, Vancouver: A Visual History, 55.
70.
Punter, The Vancouver Achievement, 24.
71.
William H. Lathrop , Jr., "San Francisco Freeway Revolt," Transportation Engineering Journal97, no. 1 (February 1971): 133-44.
72.
City of Vancouver (1995a), 9.
73.
City of Vancouver Planning Department, "Policy Report on the Re-design of Pacific Boulevard," April 11, 2002, http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/020423/rr2.pdf .
74.
These dimensions come from field observations.
75.
City of Vancouver, Arbutus/Vine Industrial Area CD-1 Guidelines (1994).
76.
City of Vancouver, False Creek North Official Development Plan (1990), 24; City of Vancouver, Roundhouse Neighbourhood CD-1 Guidelines (1993), 15, 19.
77.
Michael Southworth and Eran Ben-Joseph, Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities, (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2003).
78.
Bartholomew, A Plan for the City of Vancouver, 249.
79.
Ibid., 38.
80.
"Face-Lifting Urged for City," Vancouver Sun , March 11, 1948.
81.
Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, "Facts and Figures," http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/parks/trees/factsnfigures.htm (accessed 8/3/2006).
82.
Bruce Macdonald, 26-43.
83.
Bartholomew, A Plan for the City of Vancouver, 238.
84.
Ibid., 252.
85.
Ibid., 253.
86.
Bartholomew, A Preliminary Report (1947b), 19.
87.
Ibid., 25.
88.
Vancouver City Planning Commission (1980), 8.
89.
Ibid.
90.
Ibid.
91.
Vancouver City Planning Commission (1989), 10.
92.
Ibid., 5.
93.
City of Vancouver Urban Landscape Task Force, 7.
94.
City of Vancouver, CityPlan (1995b), http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/planning/cityplan/dfvf.htm.
95.
See, for instance, City of Vancouver, Downtown South Guidelines (1991), and Roundhouse Neighbourhood, CD-1 Guidelines (1993).
96.
Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/parks/index.htm.
97.
American Public HealthAssociation, Planning the Neighborhood (Chicago: Public Administration Service, 1948).
98.
Bartholomew, A Plan for the City of Vancouver, 170.
99.
Ibid., 171-76. Diagrams of park needs similar to those that Bartholomew included in his plan for Vancouver can be found in many of his other city plans, see Lovelace.
100.
Frederick Law Olmsted, "Public Parks and the Enlargement of Towns," in The Urban Design Reader, ed. Michael Larice and Elizabeth Macdonald , 28-34 (London and New York: Routledge, 2007).
101.
Bartholomew, A Plan for the City of Vancouver, 208.
102.
Ibid., 176.
103.
Bartholomew, A Preliminary Report (1946), 17, 19, 21.
104.
A Vancouver Sun editorial of February 22, 1945, "A City in a Frame," expressed support for Bartholomew's "noble conception" of a pleasure drive framework for Vancouver, while at the same time lamenting the city's lack of maintenance of King Edward Avenue, which had gone to weeds.
105.
Vancouver City Planning Commission (1980), 9.
106.
Ibid., 9.
107.
Ibid.
108.
City of Vancouver (1995b).
109.
City of Vancouver (1995a), 1.
110.
Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, Park Land Acquisition Strategy for Vancouver (2006).
111.
Ibid.
112.
City of Vancouver, Vancouver's New Neighborhoods: Achievements in Planning and Urban Design (2003).
113.
City of Vancouver, Southeast False Creek Public Realm Plan (2006).
114.
This project, called the East Fraserlands, is expect to accommodate over ten thousand new residents and will be built out over the next twenty years; see http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/ currentplanning/current_projects/east_fraserlands/index.htm.
115.
Bartholomew A Plan for the City of Vancouver, 205.
116.
Ibid., 200.
117.
Ibid., 205-6
118.
Ibid.
119.
Ibid., 237.
120.
Bartholomew, A Preliminary Report (1946), Plate3.
121.
Vancouver had successfully petitioned the provincial government to enact policy giving control of the English Bay foreshore to city.
122.
Vancouver City Planning Commission (1980), 6.
123.
Vancouver City Planning Commission (1989), 6.
124.
City of Vancouver Urban Landscape Task Force, 10-11.
125.
Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, Management Plan, (1992), 44.
126.
City of Vancouver (1995a), 44.
127.
Personal conversation with Michael Gordon in 2005.
128.
Talen, New Urbanism and American Planning, 138-53.
129.
Bartholomew, A Plan for the City of Vancouver, 26.
