Tag Archives: public spaces

Discovering a Town Square

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It rained, and rained, and rained.

Early spring on the west coast can be like that.

Somehow we’d managed to be on the ball enough to all be in Squamish on the same weekend. That in itself was a major triumph for a group comprised of a dad, a gypsy pirate with no fixed address, a serious diver who lives on the island, and a Northerner with two massive (and massively high-maintenance) dogs that need a dedicated sitter if he’s away for more than 5 minutes.

Yahoos, the lot of us.

So there we were, on the best granite around, but it was wet.

Soaked.

Even the bouldering, half-protected by trees, had gone damp.

Smearing was really smeary, more like spreading butter than sticking rubber, you could aid up a crack that would normally be a walk in the park, desperately fighting for every inch of vertical progress.

I should mention we’re not the supermen and superwomen mountaineers who climb massive mixed routes or redpoint/onsight/free climb. We’re regular humans who got bitten by the climbing bug a few years ago in Northern BC, when dragged out to a little top-rope crag outside of Chetywnd.

We’ve led 5.10’s, but been scared as hell doing it.

tea in a cave

Cave tea is good tea

So, being in a climbing locale and not being able to climb, we did the next best thing,  maybe the next-next-next best, it depends on how you feel about trundling, rock-fights, and tea-in-caves) we invaded public swim at the rec-centre.

Only, we weren’t really invading much, because a good three-quarters of the people there were yahoos too. Mostly concentrated around the hot tub, conversations started with nods and “hey weren’t you working on…” questions.

We soaked our battered selves in the tub, and as we sat there it dawned on me that this was the town square of a community focused on active living – and a beautiful thing.

There’s been a lot of debate in Vancouver over where the real Town Square is or ought to be, even here on the ‘boot, but the more I connect with communities of practice or interest, rather than of physical space, the more I find a town square can be anything from your local haunts, to the dog-park, or even your own home.

Dear readers give some thought to your communities and let us know, where’s your town square – the hub of your community? Is it more important during your downtime, or is connecting there part of your daily routine?

Where’s the Square?

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Squares
Any healthy city has got to have one decent main square. I don’t care how many parks, pedestrian walk ways, sea walls, bike paths Vancouver boasts, a city without a main square lacks a solid pulse; it lacks an incubator for community. We do meeting up online really, really, well. But right now, we kinda lack the physical spaces to do it in real life.
Sure, Vancouver has plenty of ‘squares’, but it lacks a grand open space for us to gather. Most Canadian cities don’t possess the typical main square that European urban centres do. It’s not our fault, we just kinda sucked at urban planning back in the day. But let’s look to the future not to the past, ok?

Vancouver cries out for an urban space with a fountain and some naked angels spouting water, and some cafés with cloth umbrellas and wicker furniture. Or at the very least a central area so that we can hold free concerts, stage some demos, or just sip a coffee which isn’t ‘to go’ and watch the world go by.

Yes, we have Victory “Square”, Granville “Square” and Robson “Square” but does ANY one acutally go there? The closest thing Vancouver has to truly filling the role of square isn’t even a square, but STEPS! Hey, I like the VAG steps, don’t get me wrong. When the sun is shining I sit on them on my lunch break and take in the crazy lady who gyrates to a stereo on wheels or admire how the side walk artist uses spray paint in novel ways. That said, Vancouver is really missing the type of “grand public square” that could – and should – act as a centre point for civic life in the city. I mean, the poor break dancers need more room to do the worm than an expanded side-walk! Even arch nemesis Toronto has in recent years created a grand central square at Dundas and Yonge. It has funky fountains, slick paving stones, some stylized furniture and plenty of space to do whatever. While the visual onslaught of electronic billboards and condo towers make it a bit too, um, Blade-Runnery for my old-world sensibilities, T.O. deserves points for effort in recognizing that its downtown desperately needed a square.

And Toronto’s square has succeeded in getting people to gather and take a time-out in a very commercial, hectic, urban core. So Vancouver! Catch up! Use some land slated for a few condo towers to make a square. Communities will thank you for it.

Check out this list of urban squares around the world, for some inspiration. Take your pick. These cities do some neat stuff with squares. Tehran’s is a little weird, in my view. Maybe we shouldn’t model ours on that one. But that’s also open to debate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_squares_by_size

Fireworks

The fireworks festival was great for creating community. Masses of people gathering along Vancouver’s shores and exclaiming “Ooooo” and “Aaaaaa” = bonding, plain and simple. It was also a very expensive and somewhat environmentally detrimental way to get us all together. Still, the summer and our community will be worse off now that the festival has been canned. Fireworks, beyond being really cool, tapped into our desire to gather and share in something collectively. A square could help fill that need on a daily basis without millions of dollars going up in smoke. Sure the fireworks created more business for the downtown core. But they also created a lot of garbage and car traffic. So, if we could just repeal some of the most draconian fireworks legislation in the world, build us a square, we’d not only have ourselves a kickin’ place to meet up, display our talents and have our voices heard, we’d also have a great spot for lighting off some rockets come New Year’s!