Unlivable Strategies: The Greater Vancouver Regional District and the Livable Region Strategic Plan

Region Strategic Plan in 1996 with the goal of main- • In the name of offering more housing "choice," taining the livability of the Vancouver metropolitan the plan accepts (and, in fact, relies on) dramati- area. [...] All of these problems were predictable and pre- Density, housing types, and the balance of jobs and determined by the decision to treat the region's labour-the tools emphasized in the plan-have only problems through a central planning process, a deci- marginal effects on the amount of driving people do. [...] For one thing, Blumenfeld noted, most GVRD "It should be admitted that the main reason for board members had an inherent conflict of interest the preservation of farmland in the GVRD and the about the future growth of the region. [...] The Fraser Institute 13 Unlivable Strategies The Livable Region 1976/1986 The new plan maintained the restrictions of farm- which has jobs spread out in more than 100 job cen- lands and formally ended the possibility that "de- ters, none of which have more than 4 percent of the tailed studies" might allow future development of region's jobs, is the classic polycentric region. [...] The ignoring the needs of the majority of commuters in Official Regional Plan was based on a monocentric the region.