Livability for whom?: Planning for livability and the gentrification of memory in Vancouver

Abstract

‘Livability’ is common planning term that erases conflict over urban space: who would oppose a more livable city? This article investigates differing manifestations of the City of Vancouver's commitment to livability. Planning policy in two adjacent downtown neighbourhoods frames livability in distinct ways: in one neighbourhood, it is centred on aesthetics, design and amenities; in the other, its focus includes affordability. A frame analysis helps to understand what aspects of reality are included and omitted in these differing interpretations of the same term. Because this framing of livability has spatial boundaries, we argue that when land is shifted from one planning area to another, policy priorities change, and gentrification can occur as a result. But in both neighbourhoods, livability discourses facilitate and justify dispossession through the gentrification of memory – selectively omitting the past to build more productive narratives in the present. Vancouver's heroic story of urbanity and livability come at the expense of others who are erased from these narratives. Planners and scholars can render visible these histories by centring conflict and displacement within any analysis of livability, building stronger and more meaningful ties with community activists and advocates, and by addressing the question of ‘livability for whom?’