To Build a Better City - 1964 City of Vancouver/CMHC film
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- Опубликовано: 24 фев 2014
- There was a time when old poor neighbourhoods were considered an urban blight and needed to be razed to make way for modern concrete towers. This is from 50 years ago, but the very ideology of the thinking involved is like from another planet.
Cinematography Bill Roozeboom
Script Roy Minter
Narration George McLean
Sound recording
Animation Marguerite Roozeboom
Produced by Bill Lindsay and Bill Roozeboom
Produced by Pageant Productions
Another copy of this can be found online at this link
• To Build A Better City...
I grew up within the “blight” in the 60’s and not all homes were demolished thankfully, as the architecture is timeless craftsman. Our’s was a modest 1923 house that my mother stills owns. It hasn’t changed a bit, but the value has grown from $19k (1961) to $3m today. So ironic.
I grew up in Skeena Project 1968 -80. They don't build houses/co-ops or subsidised housing like that anymore. Despite the rep of low income housing it was a good place to live and a diverse group of families and backgrounds. I have great memories of my youth living there.
Gary Smith I used to live a block from Skeena Terrace , many of my friends lived there. The Marslands, Rick West, Dynneson brothers etc.
They're probably mega million dollar homes by now.
@@michaelkennedy4444 Rick have a brother ? Don?
@@benjaminfranklin4760 The only Rick I can recall was Ricky West. Used to play ball hockey with him and Harold Marsland up at Begbie now Thunderbird.
@@michaelkennedy4444 Rick ever live down on Kaslo and 12th Ave/grand view highway in the co-op?
Wow the BLIGHT of then is like paradise to what the DTES is now... !
"Blight is death to a city."
Those look like perfectly reasonable houses. South Vancouver looks like that now and it's the loveliest place to live right now.
Kits was full of gorgeous Victorian houses.....all gone now, and they were in good repair.
Well, at least the film makers didn't recommend sending the inhabitants of the blight to a penal colony for being poor and burning the blight to the ground.
Although, from the tone of the narration I think that idea must have been kicked around at city hall a few times.
...attempted by Bill Bennett back in the 70's....he tried to relocate Lower East Side poor to an old agricultural colony on the highway above Ashcroft near Cache Creek.....which in Winter is barren, windswept and very very cold.....needless to say, it failed at the first Winter.
The narrator's smooth, cultured accent is great to hear again. That's the way most of the well-educated Canadians sounded in the 50's and 60's. Canadianbroadcasters like Bob Oxley, Alan Maitland and Michael Enright spoke withthat intonation but today it has virtually disappeared.
Part of the difference is that a lot of the people we see on TV today are just younger. That's what we get from comparing ourselves to the US - "you have to be young & good looking otherwise you'll never make it."
And they wear too much makeup, dammit! ;-)
i love watching these old vancouver videos
i wish it was still so nice
Same here bro
I am so happy this never became too big.
+Flexron Corp What do you mean? this video or the housing projects?
After leaving home in 1970, I moved into one of those blighted houses. When you're 18 and you can get a rental for half the going rate, you're happy to do so.
Yup....I still remember the East side "Landlord Green" paint....
I moved away In late 1968 to Lulu island
Skeena Terrace was built a block from our home. Many of my friends lived there. We all went to Sir Matthew Begbie Annex now called Thunderbird.
I don't think I've heard the word blight before today. And now I've heard it approximately 500 times.
Haha same
looks like this blight put them in a plight
You've never played Dark Souls or you'd be very familiar with the term.
sounds like the blight is about to cause a fight... .
@@ricktalbot8676 blight! blight! blight!
"...today the industry and ingenuity of man..."
*proceeds to pan over a row of Vancouver specials*
Lol! A different time, society had no idea how complex things were
Very informative watching Vancouver deal with a different kind of housing crisis 60 years ago.
These houses were in pretty bad shape even for 1964; but as mentioned they were built post war. So was my grandmother's houses as well as many other homes in Vancouver areas. Grandma owned two houses side by side in the city that are still standing; they were built in 1913. The last buyer of the one house my grandmother owned took great pride in renovating the now heritage home into its 1913 state I would suppose. But a separate buyer bought the second home and made them into suites; he is considered a slum lord. My sister and I went to visit the homes and the house that we were raised in was unfortunately the house that the slum lord let go terribly; We had the privilege of talking to one of the tenants who allowed us to view some of the house. Very sad that this land lord let this once beautiful home get so run down. Probably charging these poor tenants high rent. But anyways there are still awesome homes in areas of Vancouver that still stand beautifully. We look at them when we visit Vancouver. Thank you B.C. History for the awesome history you share with us.
Cheryl Chaisson :
Bet that Chinese Canadian kid studying at the table is a doctor now...and owns a real nice West Side house with a beautiful suite for mom and dad.
True....but most were post WW1....and to service industrial employees...like the wooden tenements that used to be off Oak and 5th...a short walk away from the sawmills, cooperage plant and the fishing boat docks...all on Granville Island...
@@stevethrendyle8406 True.....less likely to be hanging with ahh....."group of young men with alternative wealth generation options"....
I just struck up s conversation, with a random stranger the other day. Turned out to be Clyde Herrington's grandson! Gotta love Vancouver!
Well that is cool
At 4:46 the car travels through Active Trading a scrap yard where my grandfather worked as the crane operator that put the scrap in the big hydraulic compactor. It’s right at Glen Dr below Hastings . It’s been closed for years now and is closed in by a fence due to the toxicity in that area .
Slower pace then.....it's the pace of Hong Kong now......
Hong Kong? My god, we are a gazillion miles away from the pace of Hong Kong.
the music just reminds me of the Bugs Bunny cartoons
Am I the only one who wishes those neighborhoods weren't just completely obliterated and rebuilt? Surely not all of those buildings had to come down! This city has such little history because of actions like this and is today a concrete sea and full of bicycle nuts thanks to planers such as the ones shown in this video. What were those new buildings are now dilapidated BC housing dwellings which hasn't really succeeded in making Vancouver a better city. Thankfully some of those turn of the century houses still exist in what I consider one of the most beautiful and historical, even if one of the poorer neighborhoods in the city. Some were unfortunately replaced with "Vancouver specials" or highrises rather than being maintained. Perhaps a better plan would have been for the governments to provide for needed upgrades to the houses with rebates such as the ones that exist today rather than committing to having to perpetually maintain the BC housing buildings that were put up thanks to this plan; I think that would have been much cheaper, especially back then. It also would have created work and stimulated the economy.
Lol they would have to go someday. Nothing lasts forever.
VinylToVideo I feel the same way it's fucking depressing
today all those homes would be worth just over a million each today...awesome vid btw! thanks.
No, the homes would be worth nothing these days. The land they occupied is worth millions.
The redevelopment plan sounds like a Simcity idea.
Thank you for posting. BTW. I think there's some wayward image stabilization going on in the video... it's trying to stabilize elements that are moving in the video not any shake of the camera. Perhaps it's the RUclips image stabilization at work.
The replacement of the old buildings/neighbourhoods "Blighted areas", have already been transformed to concrete and steel. The market took over from the planners, and completed the job. Funny thing is that market pressure changes will not be viewed as a draconian, outdated ideology.
doesnt sound funny to me
50 years later and this area of Vancouver is still the worst area.
Till Communist China come to buy you all up till your realize.
they should have preserved those old houses---they would have been heritage homes by now
Anyone who downgrades old houses could be a real estate agent. And they love population growth, no matter how few square feet you have to live in.
I was born at VGH in 64.
They couldn't have imagine that over 50 years later that area is full of addicts and crime.
There were even more addicts and crime back then. That's why they called it a "blight.
@@visaman An interesting tidbit I heard from some old hypes in E Vancouver back in the 80's. (former social worker here)...there were a few guys who had formerly been longshoremen on the docks....in the late 40's and 50's...at the time heroin was plentiful, high quality and cheap....like, less than a case of beer cheap. These guys could maintain a habit, often they used to deal with the pain of a day's hard labour, and could still work, have families, own a home....then the beginnings of the original war on drugs came into full force in the late 50's and the Vancouver cops went after these guys....they were no longer able to work and resorted to crime or dealing to survive. Unintended consequences....and often worse than the moral outrage the purists want to eliminate. I wish now that I had the foresight to record some of them, as they pretty much are all gone now.
Obviously you've never been in that area . @@visaman
…”knowing that to build a better city requires only the industry and ingenuity of man”…
Man, that place got squandered!
Yeah! This video broke 10,000 views
the older it is the more viewers you'll get.
13:21 This building is 714 Jackson Ave.
Quite right, VinylToVideo. Give the people rebates on the cost of home repairs so you could have a home that you could take some pride in. Tearing everything down and replacing it with a new housing complex is just more warehousing of people in dumps that they care nothing about. And it always shows.
And its happening again!!!
For everyone's information, after these two developments were completed, nothing else happened. Most of those old houses are still there today and being restored. Strathcona is a thriving community well worth visiting for those who want to see a bit of Vancouver's history.
While the overall plan was misguided, wouldn't it be wonderful if someone would step in today and build low cost housing for the people of Vancouver today? As most of us can't afford to buy, we will need low-cost rental units if we expect non-professionals to continue living in the city.
And high cost of housing aside, Vancouver is a fantastic place to live. I have lived here for 50 years and it is more dynamic and exciting than ever before. Vancouver was a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere then. It has changed, and for most it has been for the better.
NeilandDonalyn Simpson it’s a underdeveloped shit hole
...Yup...after looking at the date I realized this was a year before the Raymur Project was built...and that was the last attempt to do much of anything but let the area decay.
absolutely not for the better
I was born at the Grace Hospital in 1964
and how is that working out down there in Chindia?
"Property values fall". Ahhh yeah right!
Ah the sixties, when governments actually cared about low income people...
And to think they could have spent all that money on more bike lanes to make the TB simply vanish with more exercise.
Two areas of 'blight' were attacked. South False Creek turned out beautifully. Strathcona resisted the loss of old wooden homes and the neighbourhood still has big problems. A few lucky people live in the fixed up classic homes still, very nice, but the neighbourhood failed until more aggressive building occurred starting in the 1990s.
That's the old CHQM announcer
How many times can you say "blighted" in 14 minutes.
Not as many times as you'll hear the word 'sustainable' uttered in the PA system while walking through an IKEA store in late 2020 and early 2021. This coupled with the fact that Vancouver is allowing new construction of condos with 1 bedroom units having less than 530sq feet and 2 bedroom units having less than 680sq feet. It seems that after 56 years, they didn't learn a single thing except to build more bike lanes.
where is that development in the city?
+wade gibson I don't believe the plan was fully implemented as new councils and mayors likely came into power before it could be fully realized, and thank goodness. Some of the BC housing buildings just east of Chinatown are the ones mentioned in this video.
+wade gibson Strathcona. Those buildings are now themselves considered a blight.
+momsterous This post war idea of housing the poor in tall concrete towers was one the dumber ideas out there
by busters towing .. by 1st and main
In the now full of high rise condos.
Blight blight blight = it ain't right right right
Pre bike lanes and all that laundered China money
great humans live in vancouver
Made it worse nobody can afford the super high rents, people living on the streets
He said property values fall ! LOL
Adjacent property values fall, which is still true today, despite the ridiculous cost of housing. Cost is determined by neighbourhood value, just as it is everywhere else in the world.
1:11
Why doesn’t the city council watch this.
Towards what end?
Daniel. Maybe you didn't read my comments but as I said, I was here 50 plus years ago and I obviously have a much better idea of what Vancouver was like than you do. If your information comes only from that 1964 City of Vancouver promo, then you've got to be pretty gullible. That video doesn't show the complete picture by any means. But you don't have much credibility to me or are worthy of my time anyhow if you don't have the courage to state your full name, as I did. The same goes for that Nima whoever or whatever.
you wouldnt know how to use the internet if you were there 50 years ago...lol
@@HintonburgRep Really? I lived here 50 year ago and am an IT guy, Remember, we were around when the first PC's were introduced. And we built them ourselves. All you guy's know how to do is use social media. When your device has problems, off to the service dept you go.
Does that old dude at 4:34 have a Hitler moustache? Classy fella...
Wrong assumption, Hinto.
I wish Vancouver never changed from when it was like in 1964. Now Vancouver is a mess with overpopulation of immigration and high costs of housing and employment issues. Expo 86 and 2010 Winter Olympics should of never happened! Vancouver would of been a hidden gem still and people would of felt the old community feeling, knowing their neighbors. Life was more innocent and simple back in those days. I was born and still live in Vancouver since mid 70's. My parents are from BC and Saskatchewan. The population in Vancouver in mid 70's was at same population from previous years and no major growth. I wish the city was the old way it was back in those days. Sad.
BB
Agreed man. Indeed sad.
Lar M whites built the roads and ground you walk on ya ungrateful racist dipshit
The west end was pretty bad aswell
2023 and it's a dump.
My how times have changed, "notice in Cantonese", it'd be in Mandarin now. Cantonese is practically a dying language at this point :(.
Cantonese and mandarin use the same characters. They can communicate through writing, but not through oral language.
Cantonese is not a written language so that made me laugh. It should have been “a notice in Chinese”.
looks like a sheethole to me
the narrarator is dead......
bob damri That's why he sounds like that.
Its kind of depressing watching these videos because of what the world has become.
I would disagree, I watich them and I can see how so many things have improved
@@BCHistory improved for who. rich baby boomer asset owners and their inheritors. selfish pr8cks
Vancouver has fallen so far.
Vancouver has a rich British and Christian heritage not so much now but it's forming years was much so !.
and was a much better place back then
Nice propaganda film about kicking out poor people from their homes and neighbourhoods
Well...they at least succeeded in ruining Vancouver, making it..ugly, unaffordable, and unliveable....and I grew up there at that time...
That area is shitty again .. lol looks worse
Peaceful but boring
Why is it just east van strathcona area and science world Olympic villages the decayed area tf?
that is a long and complex answer. It was one of the oldest neighbourhoods and it was by far the cheapest but those are only some of the factors
Colonialism remnants and blight is DTES lmfao