Who is the city for? Sports facilities and the case of Vancouver’s public golf courses

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article contributes to literature on the politics of sport facility provision through a case study of urban public golf courses in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Vancouver is consistently rated among the least affordable cities in the world. The city’s three primely-located public golf courses – McCleery, Langara, and Fraserview – have thus been subjects of periodic debate: might they be redeveloped for other uses, such as housing? Herein, we report on a frame analysis aimed at unearthing and contrasting different responses to this question. Drawing from publicly-accessible materials, we specifically identify three positions on public golf’s future: 1) that golf courses should remain as they are; 2) that golf course land should be redeveloped, in part for housing; and 3) that golf courses should be converted to public parks and other recreational facilities. Notably, the same three frames have been mobilised in support of these three positions, albeit in competing ways: an economic frame where public golf is positioned as either sufficiently profitable, or not; an access and equity frame that focuses on matters such as affordable housing and fairness in leisure service provision; and an environmental frame that focuses mainly on the ecology of green space. These findings inform a discussion of the Vancouver case and the issue of competing virtues in sport facility provision. The fact that proponents of all three positions in the Vancouver debate effectively present an argument based on sustainable development is deemed a complicating factor in arriving at a consensus pathway forward.