Social Housing at what cost?: Allen Garr in the Courier

The following story appeared in the Friday March 26, 2010 Vancouver Courier headlined Social housing at what cost? by Allen Garr, Vancouver Courier

No matter what Mayor Gregor Robertson and his Vision council decide to do with those incredibly costly 252 social housing units at the Athletes Village, they'll be left with a political problem.

Their own supporters are already at odds over solutions. And, come the next election, you can be sure COPE and the NPA will feast on all of this. A project that started at $65 million is now north of $110 million; this could be the most expensive per unit social housing development on the planet.

How did we get here? One significant decision took place under COPE and former mayor Larry Campbell. But many of the decisions that drove the cost up happened while ex-mayor Sam Sullivan and the NPA were running the show.

It was Campbell's council that decided to accept a recommendation from their law department that the title to the land would rest in the hands of the city throughout the development. The argument was that, because the city had an Olympic deadline, this arrangement would allow them to jump in to finish the project if the developer faltered.

I'll get back to that in a minute.

When the NPA swept to power they dramatically reduced the social and low-cost housing components, arguing they were too expensive.

But it was with council's unanimous selection of Millennium as the developer that they really drove a stake into the heart of the social housing option. And that happened before even one yard of concrete was poured.

Three proposals were considered by staff. Based on the "assessment matrix," Millennium was last. Then staff decided to include the price Millennium was offering for the land --$193 million and far more than the other two--as part of the assessment. Millennium jumped to the head of the queue. And council grabbed its offer.

Other developers were stunned at the price. Longtime Vancouver architect/developer Michael Geller figured it came in at about $225 a square foot, double what land was going for in Vancouver's downtown core. There was no way, he now agrees, that starting with that land price you could ever produce social housing.

Then there was another problem. The other two bidders were apparently prepared to self-finance the project. Millennium had to go to the market for money. And with the decision the previous council made about holding on to the title, conventional Canadian lenders were not interested. Enter a very costly New York hedge fund.

Added to the high land cost and high interest rates was a red-hot construction market. The costs of labour and materials were escalating almost daily. Then the project was fast tracked to make the Olympic deadline.

Geller says poor and inexperienced management at both the developer level and the city aggravated matters in terms of cost. The green elements of the building could have been done for a lot less money. The architects had Champagne tastes. The change orders to the social housing portion of the project were dutifully followed by a developer who was working on a cost plus basis. Costs on the Athletes Village were running over projections to the point the city had to step in to shore up its investment, which is about the time of the last election. Welcome Robertson and Vision. This problem was dropped into their laps.

Now for some options: If they keep the units as social housing they will have to dump another $55 million in to subsidize it. But that would score them points on their left wing. If they sell the units and use the money to build social housing elsewhere--an option preferred by Geller and some Vision folks--they will be denounced as traitors to the original concept of an economically diverse neighbourhood. Builders for the rich.

Holding on to the units and renting them out at market rates will satisfy neither the left or right. A staff report with recommendations for council is expected next month. It should come with two Aspirins.

agarr@vancourier.com

While I don't always agree with Allen Garr, (and he doesn't always agree with me), we have been having a dialogue regarding the cost of the Olympic Village housing for years. He called me immediately after the Millennium bid was announced and I said at the time that I thought they had bid too much money. I was quoted as saying it was the highest price ever paid for a residential property anywhere in Canada; although Al Poettker of UBC Properties Trust phoned me afterwards to correct me...he said someone had offered slightly more on a price per square foot for one of his UBC sites, based on 'present value' calculations.

While I question Garr's statement that the other bidders Concord Pacific and Wall Financial would have 'self-financed' the project, (they too would have borrowed money, but both had very substantial assets that could have been pledged) and I can't verify the estimated $55 million additional subsidy requirement....that number didn't come from me...

Garr correctly notes that this is an extremely important issue, and whatever Vision councillors decide, it will be wrong. For this reason, I hope they will do the right thing.

A few more details that I shared with Garr:

1. The 'social housing' was never intended to be all social housing. That's right. In order to ensure a broader income mix and reduce subsidy costs, only half the 252 units were to be leased to 'core needy' income tested-households...the remainder were to be leased at the lower end of market rent to anyone lucky enough to get in line;
   
2. On this basis, the cost works out to about $800,000 per low income social housing unit, plus land;
3. The social housing units were never intended to accommodate homeless people. They were designed for low income families with children, and seniors on Province and City wait lists.
   
4. My proposal was not to just sell the units. It was to sell the units as 'FETTERED' AFFORDABLE OWNERSHIP HOUSING, so as not to compete with the market units to be sold by Rennie on behalf of Millennium. This is was what Vancity and SFU did with Verdant, on Burnaby Mountain.
   
5. What does this mean? For one thing, the land would be leased, not sold. Secondly, units would not be sold to investors; they would be sold to 'end-users' with priority given to Vancouver firefighters, police officers, emergency workers, teachers and others who work in Vancouver, and would like to live here.
6. There could be 're-sale controls' which keep the units more affordable over time, and give the city the right to buy them back;
   
7. Not all the units need to be sold....Some less desirable units could be retained as social housing from the get go...
8. Replacement social housing units could be built on lands immediately adjacent to the Olympic Village. This would ensure the desired social and income mix.

I appreciate Allen Garr's efforts to provide a spotlight on this issue. It is very complex, and politically challenging. When I spoke on CBC last week, Rick Cluff commented that if Council votes to sell the units, they will be seen by some as having lied. He's right.

But as Garr points out, Councils of all political stripes have contributed to the current mess. I think it would be financially and socially irresponsible to keep these units as 'social housing' when the need for housing for the homeless and others who are truly desperate are so great.

One last thing. The suggestion that the city hold onto the units and rent them out seems logical, but is the worst of all worlds. For one thing they would still have to be heavily subsidized and could compete with Millennium's rental units (assuming they stay rental units)

Furthermore, the city needs the money. There is no guarantee it will get the money promised by Millennium for its loans and land payment. It has also gone millions of dollars over budget on the South East False Creek shoreline works, community centre, parks and other facilities...but that's another story.

American McGee's Alice (2000)

American McGee's Alice is a third-person action game released for PC on October 6, 2000. The game, developed by Rogue Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, is set in the universe of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Alice was designed by American McGee and features music composed by Chris Vrenna.

 

The game is based on the id Tech 3 engine first used in Quake III Arena. A PlayStation 2 port was in development but was canceled. Notably, the game's box art was altered after release to show Alice holding the Icewand instead of a bloodied vorpal sword, and to reduce the skeletal character of the Cheshire Cat's anatomy. EA cited complaints from various consumer groups as its reason for altering the original art, though McGee stated the alteration was made due to internal concerns at EA. A third version of the box art has Alice holding the Cards in her hands instead of a sword or wand.

 

Plot

Set years after Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, the game features an older, more cynical and macabre incarnation of Alice.

Shortly after her second adventure, Alice's house is burned down by an accidental fire, killing her family, and leaving her as the only survivor. Due to her survivor's guilt, she tries to commit suicide (bandages can be seen on her wrists), and becomes catatonic. She is institutionalized in Rutledge Asylum, where she remains insane and is consistently mistreated by the workers. Ten years later, the White Rabbit summons Alice to aid a radically altered Wonderland, which became a twisted version of itself as it came under the despotic rule of the Queen of Hearts. The Cheshire Cat serves as Alice's companion throughout the game, frequently appearing to guide her with cryptic comments.

Setting

The game's setting presents a considerably more macabre rendition of Wonderland than seen in Lewis Carroll's original portrayal. Wonderland, being a creation of Alice's mind, has been corrupted by her insanity, which becomes the prevailing theme of the game; if Alice manages to save Wonderland, she will restore her own sanity as well.

The new Wonderland is composed of nine provinces. When Alice falls down the rabbit hole, she finds herself in the Village of the Doomed, the home of the Torch Gnomes. The Village of the Doomed is composed of a network of tunnels and caves, patrolled by the Queen of Hearts' card guards. Beyond the subterranean village is the Fortress of Doors, where the main attraction is a school of insane but harmless children. Within the school lies an ancient book of recipes for magic potions, as well as the ingredients for one concoction in particular which will be useful to Alice.

Beyond the fortress and across a rough, uncharted landscape lies the Vale of Tears, where Alice's friends Bill McGill and the Mock Turtle reside, along with the cannibalistic Duchess. A giant river runs throughout the gloomy, mist-shrouded landscape, and another aquatic location is accessible through a well inside Bill McGill's house. The well is sealed until the Duchess is slain.

On the other side of the Vale of Tears lies Wonderland Woods, one of the largest regions in the game. The woods are initially filled by ponds, cliffs and jump mushrooms, but much deeper into the woods is a region of rock and magma. This section leads to several new regions including the Cave of the Oracle, the Pale Realm, the Jabberwock's Lair, and the Majestic Maze. The Cave of the Oracle is home to a wise entity that is revealed later to be the Caterpillar.

The Pale Realm makes a transition to the surface of a chessboard, as delving further into this area leads to the White Castle of Looking Glass Land, which is home to life-size chess pieces; the White pieces join Alice in the fight against the Red pieces, a deviation from her normally unhelpful "allies" from earlier portions of the game. Alice is twice transformed into a chess piece herself to pass certain obstacles.

Following this is a distorted version of Rutledge Asylum (where Alice has been incarcerated since her parents' tragic deaths). It is run by Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and also houses the Mad Hatter's laboratory.

The path to the Jabberwock's Lair leads into the Land of Fire and Brimstone, a volcanic region of Wonderland and a reminder of the fire in which her family died. It is here that the terrible Jabberwock—a semi-mechanized servant of the Queen of Hearts and the incarnation of Alice's guilt—resides, in the remains of Alice's old home.

The Majestic Maze ends on the road to Queen of Hearts Land, a region heavily guarded by card guards, boojums, and other members of the Queen of Hearts' personal army.

Queensland is the final province of Wonderland. In it lies the Heart Palace from which the Queen of Hearts commands. Tentacles and other repulsive appendages are seen protruding from every organic wall in this area, and numerous areas even resemble body parts, giving the impression that Alice is travelling through her own body.

 

Characters

The game's characters are generally based on the inhabitants of Lewis Carroll's original novels, but they do not demonstrate the same identities. Many of them are warped incarnations of their conventional selves. The casebook of Q. Wilson (a supplement included with the game and written from the point of view of Alice's doctor) suggests that many of the characters Alice encounters in Wonderland are symbolic of real life people who get through to the catatonic Alice in some way. Other characters within the game are metaphors for Alice's own feelings, and because she is unhappy, they have become twisted. Some people (Cheshire Cat, White Rabbit) help her; others (Mad Hatter, Queen of Hearts) try to cause pain, first by taking away those she loves and then by taking her down with them.

Development

Electronic Arts licensed Ritual Entertainment's Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.² engine, which is in turn a modified Quake III Arena engine. The most notable changes in the engine include the use of the Tiki model system, which enables the engine to use skeletal animation among other things, the Babble dialog system which enables lip synching of audio with character animations, dynamic music system, scriptable camera, particle system and extended shader support. The changes implemented to the engine for Alice remained minimal however. The game's .bsp files even retain F.A.K.K.²'s headers, albeit sporting a different version number.

An early version of the game featured the ability to summon the Cheshire Cat to aid the player in battle. Though this feature was removed from the final product, beta screenshots of this version do exist online. An Alice port for the then-unreleased PlayStation 2 was also in development but was later cancelled, which caused Rogue Entertainment to shut down, another decision which angered American McGee. The game's retail release was also noticeably less gory than the demo that had been released earlier.

The game was ultimately released on October 6, 2000, receiving praise for its visuals; the graphics were very elaborate for its time. Many levels depict a world of chaos and wonder, some reminiscent of the inside of an asylum or a madhouse, visually linking Wonderland to Alice's reality. The exterior views of Wonderland show the Queen of Hearts' tentacles dipping out of buildings and mountain sides, especially in Queensland.

Audio

All of the music created for the fittingly twisted official American McGee's Alice soundtrack was written and performed by Chris Vrenna with the help of guitarist Mark Blasquez and singer Jessicka. Most of the sounds he used were created using toy instruments and percussion, music boxes (in a short documentary about the making of the game that appeared on TechTV, the music box used appears to be an antique Fisher-Price music box pocket radio), clocks, doors, and sampled female voices were manipulated into nightmarish soundscapes, including instances of them laughing maniacly, screaming, crying, and singing in an eerie, child-like way.

The music lends an eerie and horrifying feeling to the world Alice is in. The Pale Realm theme, as well as the track "I'm Not Edible", features the melody of the chorus of a popular children's song, "My Grandfather's Clock". In addition, there are many instances of the ticking and chiming of clocks being used as a musical accompaniment.

Marilyn Manson was originally involved scoring the music for the game. His composition has been described by American McGee as "very cool" and having "a very beautiful Beatles-in-their-harpsichord-and-Hookah-pipe-days-sound to it." Manson's contributions persisted into the final product, notably the influence of alchemy and the character of the Mad Hatter whose adaptation was somewhat influenced by him; for a time Manson was considered for the voice of the Hatter. Manson has indicated that the same music may be used in his forthcoming film Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll.

American McGee's Alice Original Music Score was released on October 16, 2001 by Six Degrees Records. It features all twenty original compositions by former Nine Inch Nails live drummer and studio collaborator Chris Vrenna. It spans a 2-disc set, and includes a previously unreleased theme as well as a remix of "Flying on the Wings of Steam."

 

American McGee's Alice Original Music Score (74:02)

1. "Falling Down the Rabbit Hole" 1:20
2. "Village of the Doomed" 3:35
3. "Fortress of Doors" 3:51
4. "Fire and Brimstone" 3:46
5. "Wonderland Woods" 3:59
6. "The Funhouse" 3:38
7. "Skool Daze" 4:10
8. "Time to Die" 3:55
9. "I'm Not Edible" 3:09
10. "Taking Tea in Dreamland" 3:44
11. "Fungiferous Flora" 3:35
12. "Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum" 3:46
13. "The Centipede" 3:31
14. "Pandemonium" 3:55
15. "Flying on the Wings of Steam" 4:35
16. "Late to the Jabberwocky" 3:17
17. "Battle with the Red Queen" 4:11
18. "A Happy Ending" 3:44
19. "Pool of Tears" 4:08
20. "Flying on the Wings of Steam (Remix)" 4:03

 

Legacy

Film adaptation

In December 2000, director Wes Craven signed on to develop a film adaptation of the game, with screenwriter John August hired to adapt the game for the big screen. American McGee had begun negotiations with Dimension Films 10 months before, with the studio committing to the project before Craven's signing. In September 2001, August explained that he had turned in a script treatment for Alice and was not attached to develop fuller drafts for the film adaptation. In February 2002, Dimension Films signed brother screenwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber to write the screenplay for Alice. In July 2003, the brothers announced that they had completed the script for the film adaptation.

In 2004 the project moved from Dimension Films to 20th Century Fox, but in 2005 Universal Pictures acquired the rights. As of June 2008[update], producer Scott Faye indicated the film was in "turnaround" from Universal. He admitted that the script needed development, but would be used to attract the attention of a new studio.

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is based on a similar premise of an older Alice returning to wonderland to free it from the Red Queen and kill the Jabberwock.

Sequel

With a movie adaptation of American McGee's Alice in the making, Electronic Arts had also expressed interest in releasing a remake of the game, although initially it was unclear whether it would be a remake, an update, or a sequel.

On 19 February 2009, EA CEO John Riccitiello announced at D.I.C.E. 2009 that a new installment to the series is in the works for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. It is being developed by Spicy Horse, who recently worked on American McGee's Grimm. Two pieces of concept art were also released, depicting Alice and large allied birds fighting an oversized, semi-mechanized snail and its children on top of a lighthouse, and Alice swimming in a pond, with the Cheshire Cat's face in the background. Although no official date has been announced, it is planned for release early 2011.

In November 2009, a fan-made video based on the Alice 2 announcement was mistaken by gaming websites as a teaser trailer for the game. In it, Alice is in therapy after a relapse nine months after the events of the first game, and appears to hallucinate an image of the Cheshire Cat in place of her doctor.

20 Most Creative Anti-Smoking Ad Campaigns

It appears that some of the most creative and inventive advertising is coming from nonprofits these days.

This month, I will be taking a look at the nonprofits and "for a good cause" marketing techniques. Today, we turn to the the advertising campaigns being used to increase awareness about the bad effects of smoking.

How would you urge people to stop smoking?

Over the years, the anti-smoking movement has had terrific and inventive print and television ads. They are now broadening to some pretty creative guerilla marketing techniques. If you remember, in June, I showed one example of a great stop smoking direct mail campaign , but the anti smoking movement has taken it to great lengths to get their message heard

This is one used in gyms around the country.

This one is found outside in city streets.

They have even created and handed smelly strips (similar to those used when testing perfume). The sniff strip reads: "This is how you smell when you smoke. 4,000 toxic chemicals leave a stench no perfume can mask... just ask the people around you. Please stop smoking, You'll smell better instantly. Call 1-800-438-2000."

This ad uses real cigarettes at bus stops.

These ads were used on the public transportation.

This one is from an anti-smoking promotion for ‘World No Tobacco Day’ (May 31), and it can be found at coffee shops in Dubai, where people come to smoke!

some more.....

Do you think these ads are effective? will this make any sense? please post your comments here. 

Deathday: Billy Wilder 1906-2002 RIP

Billy Wilder (22 June 1906 – 27 March 2002) was an Austrian-American journalist, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. Wilder is one of only five people who have won three Academy Awards for producing, directing and writing the same film (The Apartment).

 

He first became a screenwriter in the late 1920s while living in Berlin. After the rise of Adolf Hitler, Wilder, who was Jewish, left for Paris, where he made his directorial debut. He relocated to Hollywood in 1933, and in 1939 he had a hit with the screwball comedy Ninotchka. Wilder established his directorial reputation after helming Double Indemnity (1944), a film noir he co-wrote with mystery novelist Raymond Chandler. Wilder earned the Best Director and Best Screenplay Academy Awards for the adaptation of a Charles R. Jackson story The Lost Weekend, about alcoholism. In 1950, Wilder co-wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Sunset Boulevard.

 

From the mid-1950s on, Wilder made mostly comedies. Among the classics Wilder created in this period are the farces The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959), satires such as The Apartment (1960), and the romantic comedy Sabrina (1954). He directed fourteen different actors in Oscar-nominated performances. Wilder was recognized with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1986. In 1988, Wilder was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. In 1993, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Wilder holds a significant place in the history of Hollywood censorship for expanding the range of acceptable subject matter.



Wilder died in 2002 of pneumonia at the age of 95 after battling health problems, including cancer, in Los Angeles, California and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, Los Angeles, California next to Jack Lemmon. Walter Matthau is mere steps away. Marilyn Monroe's crypt is located nearby. Wilder died the same day as two other comedy legends: Milton Berle and Dudley Moore. The next day, French top-ranking newspaper Le Monde titled its first-page obituary, "Billy Wilder is dead. Nobody is perfect." This was a reference to the famous closing line of his film Some Like it Hot spoken by Joe E. Brown after Jack Lemmon reveals he is not female.

Extreme Babies

'Pregnant Man' Gives Birth to Girl

Thomas Beatie says he is just like any other normal father. 

But he is about as far as you could be from typical. He claims to have given birth to the child. 

Although born a woman, Beatie had his breasts removed and lives outwardly as a man after changing his gender to male. 

The 34-year-old says he retained his female sex organs because he intended to have children one day.(Link)



1 Year Old Child  Pregnant

One year old child found Pregnant in Saudi Arabia. Doctors says it’s a unique case for this world!

Medical Science Report says : “When the mother of this child was pregnant, she had 2 foetuses inside her. But one of the foetus grew inside the other, this why this girl was born with the other foetus inside her womb.”

World's Smallest Baby: 21 weeks and six days

On October 24th 2006, Amillia Taylor was born at 21 weeks and six days. No baby born at less than 23 weeks gestation had ever survived, but 10 ounce Amillia was able to pull through (and even was trying to breath and cry on her own at birth). Hospitals had initially hoped to release her yesterday, but decided to keep the now healthy baby a few extra days for observation. Her mother doesn't mind the wait, she's just proud and happy that Amillia is healthy: "Even though she's only four pounds (1.8 kilos) now, she's plump to me." 

Baby Macie Hope was born twice

When Chad and Keri McCartney say their infant daughter, Macie Hope, is born again, they aren’t referring to religion — the month-old miracle baby really was born twice.

The first “birth” was about six months into Keri McCartney’s pregnancy, when surgeons at Texas Children’s Hospital took the tiny fetus from Keri’s womb to remove a tumor that would have killed Macie before she was born.

The second time was on May 3, when the McCartneys welcomed their surgically repaired — and perfectly healthy — baby girl into the world.(Link)

44 pound Baby

This baby born in Iran six months ago, currently weighs an enormous 20 kilos (44 pounds)! The parents say the baby was born a normal weight close to 8 pounds when he was born, but he keeps eating every hour. The Iranian doctors do not know what this eating disorder is or where it came from.

Cyclop Baby

On 2006, this baby was born with a only one eye in India. Medical staff who helped deliver the child believe that the child's condition was caused by an experimental anti-cancer drug. Another cause written in the report by the hospital was that it could also be the result of a chromosomal disorder. The child was diagnosed with a rare chromosomal disorder, known as cyclopia. She was born with a single eye in the center of her forehead, no nose and her brain fused into a single hemisphere. With such severe deformities, it was a miracle that the girl survived even a few minutes after delivery. The baby died days later.

Frog-like Baby

On 2006, this bizarre-looking baby was born in Charikot, the headquarters of Dolakha district, attracting a huge number of onlookers to witness the astonishing sight.

The neck-less baby with its head almost totally sunk into the upper part of the body and with extraordinarily large eyeballs literally popping out of the eye-sockets, was born to Nir Bahadur Karki and Suntali Karki at the Gaurishnkar Hospital in Charikot. The Karki couple is a permanent resident of Dolakha's Bhirkot VDC.

The bizarre baby, however, died after half an hour of its birth, Suntali, the mother, informed. It was taken to the hospital after its death. The news about such a baby being brought to the hospital spread like wildfire and there were hundreds gathered at the hospital to have a look. The police had to be deployed to control the crowd.

The baby weighed 2kg at birth and was born after the normal nine-month gestation period. Suntali, already a mother of two normal daughters, was not suffering from any illness during the pregnancy. Nir Bahadur, the father, says he does not feel any remorse for the newly-born baby's death. "I am happy that nothing happened to my wife," he said.

Baby with Three Arms

This 2-month-old baby named Liu Junjie from Anhui Province, China, was born with a third arm on 2006. Doctors successfully removed the extremely rare and well-developed third arm, but the baby required long-term physical therapy to gain function in his remaining hand, which has no palm and flexes in either direction. "We're hoping to exchange information with doctors who've dealt with similar cases anywhere in the world," said Chen, head of the orthopedics department at Shanghai Children's Medical Center. "This is so rare that we have virtually no information to go on."

Born with 17 pounds

A Siberian woman who gave birth on 2007 to her 12th child was stunned to find that little Nadia weighed in at a massive 17.1 lb (7.75kg). "We were all simply in shock," said Nadia's mother, Tatyana Barabanova, 43. "What did the father say? He couldn't say a thing - he just stood there blinking." "I ate everything, we don't have the money for special foods so I just ate potatoes, noodles and tomatoes," she told the reporter, adding that all her previous babies had weighed more than 5 kg. 

Globe 2010: A few observations

I was interested in the following on-line The Tyee account of a panel discussion that I attended yesterday at the Globe 2010 conference....

No room for single-family zoning in Vancouver's future: panel

By Colleen Kimmett March 25, 2010 12:50 pm

Vancouver could halve its greenhouse gas emissions simply through rezoning laws, said one of the city's leading green building architects today.

Peter Busby, of the firm Busby, Perkins + Will, joined Mayor Gregor Robertson and former mayor Michael Harcourt for a panel discussion of the future of cities, part of the GLOBE conference on business and the environment.

Rest assured, said Busby, there is no room for single-family zoning in cities of the future.

"We have this vast area of single-family residents. These are the models that emerged out of city planning post-war, when planning departments were set up," Busby said. "They largely thought this was the right thing to do. . . put all the officers together. . . you live out there in your houses, and over there is where you shop.

"But it's the wrong model today."

By creating 'nodes' around the city of dense, multi-use buildings clustered around major transit stations, the average Vancouver citizen could reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions from five to 2.5 tonnes, said Busby.

While all panelists agree that public education and outreach is key, they acknowledged that rezoning is a contentious issue and political hot potato. Mayor Sullivan's plan to brand and sell 'EcoDensity' was also a focal point for resident backlash against city-wide rezoning efforts.

Robertson said 'EcoDensity' was really just a bundling of existing city practices and planning, and said residential groups felt left out of the process.

"My approach has been, let's embrace this all together," Robertson said. "Keep them in the dialogue."

He pointed to city council's recent approval of laneway housing as a positive for density and individual property values.

Although it will take a "Herculean" effort to change zoning patterns, not just here but around the Western world, Busby said two trends offer a great opportunity for densification: Single-family homes passing from one generation to the next, and growing immigrant populations from countries like Asia where high-rise apartments, walking and public transit are typical.

"Single-family ownership of a place to live is incredibly important in this society," said Busby. "But there can be many forms of that."

Colleen Kimmett reports for The Tyee.

The following are a few observations on this panel discussion, and the Globe conference as a whole...

The first Globe conference took place 20 years ago in 1990, just as concern for the environment was beginning to become a regular front page story. As the President of UDI Canada, I was invited to speak at the inaugural event on the topic of real estate development and the environment. Working with my then speech writer Frank O'brian, we prepared a talk on how real estate developers could actually enhance, rather than destroy the planet. My speech outlined things like brownfield development/site remediation, densification, and transit oriented development as three examples of what should be done.

Just before starting my talk with panelists from other parts of the world, I realized that I was the only speaker from North America. So I decided to start out with how proud I was to be representing not just Vancouver, or British Columbia, or Canada, but my continent. At this point, from the back of the room, a lady stood up and shouted out "And I don't think there could be a more inappropriate person to be speaking!"

She wasn't a delegate, but rather one of the people who had been protesting the Spetifore Lands Development, with which I was involved at the time. She had read in the newspaper that I was a speaker, and had decided to crash the event. I never really recovered from her intrusion!

At this year's event, I attended the session described above in The Tyee story. There was no one there to heckle the Mayor, or Peter Busby, or Roland Aurich, President of Siemans Canada, or Mike Harcourt who moderated the panel. But it was a very interesting discussion and worth commenting upon.

Just after the Mayor finished his presentation, the person next to me whispered "he looks like Clark Kent but sounds like a politician". It was true. However, I will say that the Mayor seemed very comfortable and relaxed talking about the future planning of Vancouver, and comes across as a much better speaker than two years ago, when I first heard him.

Peter Busby's presentation is a must see for anyone who cares about the future of the city. While he somewhat wavered on whether we really need to replace all lower density single family housing around the city, his basic notion of creating a network of mid and higher density mixed use 'nodes' is worthy of careful consideration. Essentially, he is proposing an arrangement that would result in densification not only along main arterials, but at the intersections of secondary arterials...such as 16th, King Edward, 49th, and 57th and corresponding north-south streets. This would allow people to walk to shops and offices, rather than always having to get into their cars. The following image was not in his presentation, but is an illustration of an idea his firm put forward in a recent Vancouver design competition....Peter illustrated the GreenHouseGas impacts of different forms of development...comparing the West End with Kerrisdale and lower density areas. His conclusion was that the nodal approach would allow single family areas, with a mix of low and mid density forms to continue, while still allowing us to reduce GHG's significantly.

The first questions from the floor all addressed the most obvious challenges...how to get neighbourhood residents to accept increased density nodes, on lands currently occupied by single family homes. The mayor correctly talked about the need for political will. I'll be curious to see if he is prepared to demonstrate such political will when rezonings do come forward...so far he and his councillors did rightly support a higher density proposal at W41st and Balaclava.

However, I do have to somewhat disagree with the Mayor's assessment of why EcoDensity failed and the beneficial impacts of Laneway Housing. While I have been a longstanding proponent of this housing forms, and statistically he is right...there are 70,000 single family properties where laneway houses could be built, I doubt whether we will see any really significant take-up of this idea, as it is currently structured.For one thing, the forms of housing most people would like...a small flat over a two-car garage, or a single story inexpensive 'modular' home, such as I was proposing, are not permitted on most lots. Secondly, with the complex approval process and considerable fees, the total cost for a small rental unit is too high for most homeowners. (My understanding is that to date, about 33 laneway homes have received City Hall approval, and another 36 are in the system... quite modest numbers. I am also told the total cost is closer to $250,000 than $150,000 for a unit not much more than 500 sq.ft.) If the units could be sold off, the response might be quite different.

After listening to Peter promoting grey water recycling and a variety of other engineering innovations, I had to ask the panelist how to deal with government bureaucrats who are usually reluctant to allow such innovations to be constructed. Former Mayor and Premier Harcourt jumped on the question, pointing out how the Fire Marshall often determines the width of roads in communities, to ensure that two fire trucks can pass each other....etc. etc. The Mayor astutely observed that it is often a question of risk, and politicians have to encourage and support officials to take these risks when they have environmental benefits. He pointed to the 'district heating' system at South East False Creek as a good example of what can be done.

As for the gentleman from Siemans, he preferred to focus on the global perspective...his company is one of 70,000 truly global operations, with a very impressive array of products in energy, transportation, health care, etc. His company is keen to serve the increasing number of mega-cities rising around the world. So the challenges of a rezoning in Dunbar didn't really cross his radar. But he had some nice pictures.

In the afternoon, I moderated a panel on Smart Cities with David Helliwell, co-founder of Pulse Energy (a company that can measure energy consumed by buildings and communities), Eamann Percy, President of Powertech, BC Hydro's subsidiary specializing in clean energy; Anthony Haines, the new President of Toronto Hydro, and Hellmuth Frey, a gentle engineer overseeing a major project in Germany. I learned about new technologies that allow electric power to be distributed and energy to be priced according to the time of use, and other innovations to reduce consumption and GHG's.

In the audience was Dianne Watts, Mayor of Surrey and some of her councillors. I was impressed that they would take the time to attend Globe and learn about such innovations. It seems that Helliwell is already working with Surrey....he's someone to watch! And so is the Mayor of Surrey!

Deathday: Raymond Chandler 1888-1959 RIP

 

Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an Anglo-American novelist and screenwriter who had an immense stylistic influence upon the modern private detective story, especially in the style of the writing and the attitudes now characteristic of the genre. His protagonist, Philip Marlowe, is, along with Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, considered synonymous with "private detective."

Early life

Chandler was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1888, but moved to the United Kingdom in 1900[1] with his Irish-born mother after they were abandoned by his father, an alcoholic civil engineer who worked for a North American railway company. His uncle, a successful lawyer, supported them.[2] In 1900, after attending a local school in Upper Norwood, Chandler was classically educated at Dulwich College, London (the public school that also taught P.G. Wodehouse to write prose[2] and which also taught C. S. Forester). He did not attend university, instead spending time in Paris and Munich. In 1907, he was naturalised as a British subject in order to take the Civil Service examination, which he passed with the third-highest score. He then took an Admiralty job lasting just over a year. His first poem was published during that time.[3]

Chandler disliked the servility of the civil service and resigned, to the consternation of his family, becoming a reporter for the Daily Express and the Bristol Western Gazette newspapers. He was an unsuccessful journalist, published reviews and continued writing romantic poetry. Accounting for that time he said, "Of course in those days as now there were...clever young men who made a decent living as freelances for the numerous literary weeklies..." but "...I was distinctly not a clever young man. Nor was I at all a happy young man." [4]

In 1912, he borrowed money from his uncle (who expected it repaid with interest), and returned to North America, eventually settling in Los Angeles with his mother in 1913[5]. He strung tennis rackets, picked fruit and endured a lonely time of scrimping and saving. Finally, he took a correspondence bookkeeping course, finished ahead of schedule, and found steady employment. In 1917, when the US entered World War I, he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, saw combat in the trenches in France with the Gordon Highlanders, and was undergoing flight training in the fledgling Royal Air Force (RAF) in the United Kingdom at war’s end.[2]

After the armistice, he returned to Los Angeles, California. He soon began a love affair with Cissy Pascal, a married woman eighteen years his senior.[2] Cissy divorced her husband, Julian, in 1920 in what was an amicable separation but Chandler's mother disapproved of the relationship and refused to sanction marriage. For four years Chandler had to support both his mother and Cissy. But when Florence Chandler died on 26 September 1923, Raymond was free to marry Cissy on February 6, 1924.[6][2] By 1932, during his bookkeeping career, he became a highly-paid vice-president of the Dabney Oil syndicate, but a year later, his alcoholism, absenteeism, and threatened suicide[2] contributed to his firing.

Pulp writer

To earn a living with his creative talent, he taught himself to write pulp fiction; his first story, “Blackmailers Don't Shoot”, was published in Black Mask magazine in 1933; his first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. Literary success led to work as a Hollywood screenwriter: he and Billy Wilder co-wrote Double Indemnity (1944), based upon James M. Cain's novel of the same name. His only original screenplay was The Blue Dahlia (1946). Chandler collaborated on the screenplay of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951) - a story he thought implausible - based on Patricia Highsmith's novel. By then, the Chandlers had moved to La Jolla, California, an affluent coastal neighborhood of San Diego.

 

Later life and death

In 1954, Cissy Chandler died after a long illness, during which time Raymond Chandler wrote The Long Goodbye. His subsequent loneliness worsened his natural propensity for clinical depression, he returned to drink, never quitting it for long, and the quality and quantity of his writing suffered.[2] In 1955, he attempted suicide; literary scholars documented that suicide attempt. In The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved, Judith Freeman says it was “a cry for help”, given that he called the police beforehand, saying he planned to kill himself. Chandler’s personal and professional life were both helped and complicated by the women to whom he was attracted — notably Helga Greene (his literary agent); Jean Fracasse (his secretary); Sonia Orwell (George Orwell's widow); and Natasha Spender (Stephen Spender's wife), the latter two of whom assumed Chandler to be a repressed homosexual.[7] (Unfortunately, Judith Freeman's book perpetuates errors dating back to the Frank MacShane biography relating to the death of Florence Chandler and a number of residences.[6])

After a respite in England (Chandler regained US citizenship in 1956.[3]), he returned to La Jolla, where he died (according to the death certificate) of pneumonial peripheral vascular shock and prerenal uremia in the Scripps Memorial Hospital. Greene inherited the Chandler estate, after prevailing in a lawsuit vs. Fracasse.

Raymond Chandler is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, San Diego, California, as per Frank MacShane's, "The Life of Raymond Chandler" Chandler wished to be cremated and placed next to Cissy in Cypress View Mausoleum, but was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, by the County of San Diego, Public Administrator's Office because he left an estate of $60,000 with no will (intestate) apparently found. The lawsuit over his estate complicated life for Helga Greene, but didn't take place until 1960.

Critical reception

Critics and writers from W. H. Auden to Evelyn Waugh to Ian Fleming, greatly admired Chandler's prose.[2] In a radio discussion with Chandler, Fleming said that the former offered “some of the finest dialogue written in any prose today.” [8] Although his swift-moving, hardboiled style was inspired mostly by Dashiell Hammett, his sharp and lyrical similes are original: "The muzzle of the Luger looked like the mouth of the Second Street tunnel"; "The minutes went by on tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips", defining private eye fiction genre, and leading to the coining of the adjective 'Chandleresque', which is subject and object of parody and pastiche. Yet, Philip Marlowe is not a stereotypical tough guy, but a complex, sometimes sentimental man of few friends, who attended university, speaks some Spanish and, at times, admires Mexicans, is a student of classical chess games and classical music. He will refuse a prospective client’s money if he is ethically unsatisfied by the job.

The high critical regard in which Chandler is generally held today is in contrast to the critical pans that stung Chandler in his lifetime. In a March 1942 letter to Mrs. Blanche Knopf, published in Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, Chandler complained: "The thing that rather gets me down is that when I write something that is tough and fast and full of mayhem and murder, I get panned for being tough and fast and full of mayhem and murder, and then when I try to tone down a bit and develop the mental and emotional side of a situation, I get panned for leaving out what I was panned for putting in the first time."

Although his work enjoys general acclaim today, Chandler has still received criticism for certain aspects of his stories; in one interview, Washington Post reviewer Patrick Anderson described his plots as "rambling at best and incoherent at worst", and chastised his treatment of black, female and homosexual characters, calling him a "rather nasty man". Anderson did, however, acknowledge Chandler's importance as a lyrical writer, and said that, despite his flaws, "he often wrote truly beautiful scenes and descriptions".

Chandler’s short stories and novels are evocatively written, conveying the time, place and ambience of Los Angeles and environs in the 1930s and 1940s.[2] The places are real, if pseudonymous: Bay City is Santa Monica, Gray Lake is Silver Lake, and Idle Valley a synthesis of rich San Fernando Valley communities.

Raymond Chandler also was a perceptive critic of pulp fiction; his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" is the standard reference work in the field.

All but one of his novels have been cinematically adapted. Most notable was The Big Sleep (1946), by Howard Hawks, with Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe. William Faulkner was a co-writer on the screenplay. Raymond Chandler's few screen writing efforts and the cinematic adaptation of his novels proved stylistically and thematically influential upon the American film noir genre.

References

Notes

1.^ 1900 U.S. Census, Plattsmouth, NB
2.^ Iyer, Pico (December 6, 2007). "The Knight of Sunset Boulevard". The New York Review of Books: pp. 31–33.
3.^ [1]
4.^ Raymond Chandler: Raymond Chandler Speaking (Dorothy Gardiner and Kathrine Sorley Wakker, ed.) p.24 (Houghton Mifflin Company (1962) ISBN 978-0520208353.
5.^ Florence arrives 12/1912 - Passenger Manifest S.S. Merion
6.^ Raymond Chandler's Shamus Town Timeline and Residences pages using official government sources (death certificate, census, military & civil - city & phone directories)
7.^ http://www.nysun.com/arts/man-who-gave-us-marlowe/65983/
8.^ Chandler/Fleming discussion, BBC Home Service, 10th July 1958

Further reading

Dorothy Gardiner and Katherine Sorley Walker (eds.; 1962), Raymond Chandler Speaking. Boston: Houghton Miflin.
Bruccoli, Matthew J. (ed.; 1973). Chandler Before Marlowe: Raymond Chandler's Early Prose and Poetry, 1908-1912. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
MacShane, Frank (1976). The Life of Raymond Chandler. N.Y.: E.P. Dutton.
MacShane, Frank (1976). The Notebooks of Raymond Chandler & English Summer: A Gothic Romance. N.Y.: The Ecco Press.
Chandler, Raymond (1976). The Blue Dahlia (screenplay). Carbondale and Edwardsville, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Gross, Mirian (1977). The World of Raymond Chandler. N.Y.: A & W Publsihers.
MacShane, Frank (ed.) (1981). Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler. N.Y.: Columbia University Press.
Chandler, Raymond (1985). Raymond Chandler's Unknown Thriller (unfilmed screenplay for Playback). N.Y.: The Mysterious Press.
Hiney, Tom (1999). Raymond Chandler. N.Y.: Grove Press. ISBN 0-80213-637-0
Hiney, Tom and MacShane, Frank (eds.; 2000). The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction, 1909-1959. N.Y.: Atlantic Monthly Press.
Ward, Elizabeth and Alain Silver (1987). Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-351-9
Howe, Alexander N. "The Detective and the Analyst: Truth, Knowledge, and Psychoanalysis in the Hard-Boiled Fiction of Raymond Chandler." CLUES: A Journal of Detection 24.4 (Summer 2006): 15-29.
Howe, Alexander N. (2008). "It Didn't Mean Anything: A Psychoanalytic Reading of American Detective Fiction". North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 0786434546
Moss, Robert (2002) "Raymond Chandler A Literary Reference" New York Carrol & Graf
Freeman, Judith (2007). The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved. N.Y.:Pantheon. ISBN 978-0-375-42351-2 (0-375-42351-6)