News and Features
Larry Beasley's Simple Plan - continued
By Frances Bula published Dec 1, 2008
Cities all over the world, in love with the image of Vancouver as an urban utopia, are eager to clone it. But as former planner Larry Beasley will tell anyone who’ll listen, it’s not quite that easy.
He was also a genius at telling the Vancouver story, with slides and slogans and a spiritual-sounding passion for describing the impact of a beautiful crescent of townhouses or a safe-feeling park on quality of life. That compelling salesmanship, the unique result of his American upbringing (he was born in Georgia 60 years ago) overlaid with 37 years of Canadian modesty, sometimes attracted criticism inside City Hall. Beasley was warned occasionally that, as a bureaucrat, he was too public, too visible. But those days, of course, are behind him; today he's free to go wherever he wants and preach his core message, which is that cities have to take back control from developers if they want to create beautiful spaces.
"You have to move away from just being a policeman," he tells everyone he meets. "The city must build the city. The city must be an agent." That means demanding that developers give back in the form of parks, cultural spaces, walkways, and more. Sometimes, he says, all people want to hear about is how Vancouver convinced councillors to be brave and got developers to contribute to amenities.
That wasn't a problem for the people who came looking for him from Abu Dhabi. They were already prepared to be bold, and they had far more wherewithal than most cities to demand the best.
