Hello! Vancouver Follow-Up Thoughts, Including Special Thoughts about Vancouver's Downtown Association Efforts

So...I reassured Temple Lentz and the rest of the Hello! Vancouver team that I wouldn't just go blogging a half-cocked rant about what I *think* they shouldve focused on - or done or not done. I'm in love with the new, yet old-school, Johnny Carson-esque flair they're bringing to town - I think its high time we had a sort of vaudeville/Chatauqua-esque community gathering to look at current goings on that WASNT a prayer meeting at an Orchards-area megachurch. The Hello! folks just did awesomesauce, and I'm really proud of our town for showing up and supporting their efforts. 

Along these lines of my promise NOT to rant, I'm not going to discuss the new Housing First! ventures making their way onto the Vancouver scene, at least not til I hear back from the Council on Homelessness and a couple other "in-the-know" folks, whom I've directly asked questions of regarding my concerns and insights into their tack. This is, of course, good anthropology - drawing hypotheses and conclusions using deductive methods that involve going straight to the "horses mouths" for information. 

Good fieldwork and good anthropology (and I am a professionally trained cultural anthropologist - fat lot of good that grad degree does me with paying work right now...but that's another story) also involves being able and willing to critique, bear witness, and speak up when things just don't jive with observations "on the ground" of human experience. 

In this case, what doesn't "jive" with what I, and other locals, are seeing, is the snazzy and jazzy Vancouver Downtown Association's ten-minute promo video, which aired (premiered?) last night at Hello! Vancouver's pre-show funk. The video showcases all the awesomesauce things the Downtown Association has done to turn downtown Vantucky into a "vibrant place to work and live" (including the Farmers Market, Esther Short condos, a weird aerial shot of the albatross-massively-in-debt Hilton Hotel & Convention Center, the Central Library, and the new City Hall; also shots of young "hip" people working at "creative high-tech" jobs downtown - apparently we're now a "hub" for these things; shiny-faced volunteers watering hanging baskets, spreading mulch, picking up litter). 

I'm sure the Downtown Association means well. Don't get me wrong. Neighbors I know and love are featured in the promo spot. And said neighbors are solid, sensible, smart folks doing good in this town. 

What irritates me about this congratulatory puff piece showcasing downtown Vancouver as this rising star of 21st century urban cool and sophistication is what the video DOESN'T show: 

-dozens of blocks containing nothing but gravelled or badly paved empty parking lots

-other blocks with nothing but debt-burdened half-empty parking garages

-many blocks with bland late 70s/early 80s style 5-8 story office towers, that lack ground-level retail or any amenities open after 5 pm that draw tourist/resident traffic
-the giant morass of parking lot surrounding City Hall (backing onto the train tracks)

-the numerous empty "for-lease" or abandoned retail spaces lining lower Main (around 6th to 8th), Broadway (above Evergreen), and cross-streets, especially to the west of the downtown core

-the constant ebb and flow of homeless folk around Esther Short, Turtle Place, and lower Main, also those folks carrying giant black plastic garbage bags full of cans to recycle

-the unfinished empty field (parking garage proposed) next to snazzy new Library, and 3/4 empty Regal Cinemas building beyond

-the dilapidated and half-shuttered historic Academy building 

-the gigantic Jail and County complex/warehouses, with adjacent Bail Bonds district

-the "convenient" train station, with adjacent steel refinery

-the giant canyon of I-5, and dead zone just north of downtown (along 15th)

I am NOT in any way saying that downtown Vancouver is worse off than it was even five years ago - that is NOT my point. Rather, to stop efforts and "rest" on one's laurels, in the face of so much work that needs doing, is ridonkulous - as is spending good money on promo videos when the Downtown Association could say spend it on, I don't know, breaks on rental costs for small indie businesses seeking downtown spaces; active lobbying of development, including marketing specifically geared towards attracting companies/shops/developers to "infill"; 

active renovating of empty lots - including beautification, trees, flowers; 

active work to fill up empty storefronts with ANYTHING (Tacoma, for instance, puts temporary art galleries in their empty windows; Portland does "pop up" shops); 

active outreach to draw new residents to LIVE downtown, including low-income ones, and retain the mix of residents downtown already has; 

active work to fix broken transportation connections for pedestrians and vehicles alike - including connecting the train station, revitalizing pedestrian corridors to Uptown, Jantzen Beach, and along the waterfront, as well as to Fort Vancouver.

I'm sure the Downtown Association people are working their best (and thinking they're going about things the right way). However, from what I see, promotional feel-good efforts are NOT working - and aren't addressing downtown's issues head on. However warm and fuzzy they make us feel about "how far we've come". 

And, of course, the Downtown Association shouldn't have to revitalize downtown alone - other agencies (such as, oh, the SW Wash Contractors Association, or Columbia River Econ Development Council, for example) or businesses (the banks that squat all over the downtown core in their generic towers) or gov't folks (City Hall, hint hint - gear zoning & permitting, and planning/land-use, towards actually fulfilling downtown's wish to be a "vibrant place to work/live" by specifically changing regulations to address downtown's actual needs) could help. Shiznit, I'll even plan out and secure plantings, at wholesale price, for goodlooking container pots to put on the downtown sidewalks. Or I'll come water the hanging pots - wherever the heck those are...?

The Downtown Association, however, should NOT be sitting back and looking pretty - I'm sorry, its gonna take alot more than lip gloss promo shots of Esther Short's trees to actually make downtown's "wish" to become the "next Pearl" come true. Ultimately, ignoring the actual issues (or downplaying them) is the most damaging, and suburbanite, thing (ala Stepford Wives) we could do to our already ailing downtown core. 

Of course, if we want just glossy promos and brochures, and don't care about having a real downtown (like other cities), we can just use Van Mall as our city center and tangle back into being a giant suburban ooze. I think we're better than that.