Urban planning, the Vancouver way

  The geography and conditions generated a city-specific built form, architecture, and urban design, a phenomenon that was dubbed “Vancouverism”. Characterized by a large downtown population serviced by a mix of uses, Vancouverism signifies a high-density cityscape of residential towers, which are often attached to a large podium with commercial uses inside. Combined with the aforementioned traits, the ideal also refers to reliance on public transit, an abundance of parks and green spaces, and the preservation of view corridors. Vancouver has 27 protected view corridors designed to maintain vistas of the North Shore mountains. Though it's a made-in-Vancouver solution to the pressures of urban development, cities around the world have attempted to emulate and implement pieces of the concept.
  In a podcast with the CBC, late architect Bing Thom described Vancouverism in his own words: “It's a spirit about public space. I think Vancouverites are very, very proud that we built a city that really has a tremendous amount of space on the waterfront for people to recreate and to enjoy. At the same time, False Creek and Coal Harbour were previously industrial lands that were very polluted and desecrated. We've refreshed all of this with new development, and people have access to the water and the views. So, to me, it's this idea of having a lot of people living very close together, mixing the uses. So, we have apartments on top of stores. In Surrey we have a university on top of a shopping centre. This mixing of uses reflects Vancouver in terms of our culture and how we live together.”