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Vancouver's got an "urban blight": UN
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by Kaitlin | June 28, 2007 at 10:27 am
1679 views | 19 Recommendations | 3 comments
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Whatever you think about the UN and its usefulness as a body capable of effecting change, there is no question that they are good at pointing at world problems and saying "That's bad!" The latest in these Captain Obvious moments is a statement about Vancouver's Downtown Eastside:
"It's one of the worst areas of urban blight that I've ever seen and I've travelled all over the world," said Patricia Leidl, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Population Fund.
surprising to hear that we're woefully ignorant of how bad things are
here, I will admit it's a bit shocking to hear "one of the worst in the world").
What I do find most interesting is how quickly the Mayor's office
scrambled to say, "Um, but...we get ranked really highly as a city! For real!"
"Vancouver is a great city. It's constantly rated near the top on a whole bunch of rankings that are done. I think looking at Vancouver on a whole we have a great quality of life," said David Hurford, director of communications for Mayor Sam Sullivan.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 10:51 on June 28th, 2007
Kaitlin, this is good stuff. I think the reaction of the Mayor's office, and perhaps the general attitude in Vancouver, reflects a wider trend in western society to hide our problems behind our successes. I hope that the message from the UN is heeded by those that can help and by those that are just ignorant of the extent of the problems the downtown east side faces. Perhaps the best way to tackle the issue is by tackling ignorance first.
at 10:54 on June 28th, 2007
Ever day at dawn I walk through this neighborhood to get to NowPublic Global HQ. One starts to recognize faces and then worry if a "regular" isn't hanging around one day. Vancouver wrings its hands over whether or not it's a "world class city", but it definitely has world-class poverty and drug-addiction issues.
at 11:29 on June 28th, 2007
Kaitlin, you've written something quite genuinely interesting here. It's also quite true. Ryan has put it extremely well in the comments section as well. Good stuff.