Densification in Vancouver Introduction

Chapter One: Introduction


1.0 - Opening statement and introductory remarks

How to conceptualize and identify the patterning mechanismes that are transforming urban space in Canada? This will be the main subject of this dissertation. Interest in this subject arose as it became clear that our conceptual grasp of urban space was not keeping pace with the manifold changes that were slowly, but steadfastly altering the way that space was being organized.
Particularly in Vancouver, this seemed to be the case. At an empirical level, three different, but inter-related processes of transformation could be observed. Beginning in the 1960s, investment patterns began to change. Rather than dispersing, capital began to concentrate, producing much denser urban spaces in most cities. In the 1970s this change was augmented by cultural shifts that originated within the middle class. Not only was space becoming denser, it was also being reformatted, as new representations of space appeared which were used to guide the regulation of land in a way quite different from that of the modern era. As we shall see this had a profund impact on planning practices. Then in the 1970s, but moreso in the 1980s and 1990s, the demographic profile of the city began to change. Existing settlement spaces started to be eroded by new flows of immigration. They were also being broken up by the colonization of the inner city by the middle class. Lastly, declining birth rates and the aging of the population presented an entirely different demographic context for the urbanization process to evolve within.
Separately or together, these were the forces that were seen to be transforming the spatial order of the city. And it is from these development that it was possible to identify the outlines of the emergence of a postmodern city in Vancouver during the late-twentieth century. How to comprehend and map out what happened will become the central task of this investigation.
The institutional glue which would tie all the various strands of the postmodern city together emerged with the creation of new regulatory order. This happened when postmodern norms arose, establishing a new spatial matrix for the organization of space. Increasingly, whether on the philosophic plane -- where institutional regulation and formal intellectual discourse guide the production of space -- or at the sociological level -- where representations of social space and internalized social norms become important to the regulation of space -- or even at an aesthetic level -- where the status differentiation of urban spaces and the use of space as a transcendent symbol becomes significant -- a new spatial matrix appeared which fundamentally altered the way urban space was produced.
What is interesting to note about the switch over from one form of regulation to another is the pivotal role played by local institutions. While macro economic, demographic and cultural set the overall framework for the postmodern transformatiom, as review of planning Vancouver will show, the final distillation of this new spatial order came about because of the mobilization of local actors, who modified and transformed these larger forces of transformation into a set and reproducible pattern of urban regulation
Since the local state established the institutional context for a new form of regulation to emerge it acted as an important political and cultural filter. For this reason the local state occupies a strategic place in the process of urban transformation. This is a controversial point, since most accounts of urban transformation are pitched towards the global arena. Here metaphysical forces, such as globalization, are commonly invoked to explain changes within the city without specifying how the future actually materializes.
The prognostications for the city generated from this vantage point were unsatisfying. Undeniably global forces are important, but the mechanism involved in urban transformation is much more layered and contingent than this perspective lets on. While fully acknowledging the powerful effect of global influences, it does not follow from this that only one future is ordained. If this were so, all the major cities in Canada would be moving in the same direction and evolving in exactly the same way. But obviously, they are not. As will soon be shown, it is only necessary to compare Winnipeg and Vancouver -- or at the national level, the divergence between Montreal and Toronto -- to see that this is not the case.
Even though it was possible to identify over-arching patterns for the organization of space, this does not mean that only one pathway for the evolution of the city exists.While a classification scheme can highlight the influence of new rules that affect the organization of space, it does not necessarily follow that these rules will be interpreted or applied exactly the same way, in every city. So the adoption of similar rules does not necessarily guarantee uniformity. According to the situation of a city in a specific urban hierarchy, and the makeup of the class structure of each city, a variety of different outcomes are possible.
While global forces may set broad parameters for what might take place, it is only within the domain of the local state that rules are operationalized into signals which directly result in the production of urban space. Here the compromises that are arrived at through struggle and conflict ultimately determin how a specific space is configured. Consequently, there is considerable room for indeterminancy. Especially when looking at the densification process, and the creation of a postmodern matrix, what becomes important to look at, is their mutual interaction. For the Canadian city this is the background context that would eventually bring about the creation of the new institutional organs that would supply the institutional muscle that would be required to set a new trajectory for the organization of space. The history of the Vancouver Planning Department illustrates this quite well, as it is possible to show how the shift towards bureaucratic rule, and later, the shift back to market rule, created the background context for the emergence of two radically different planning discourses. In turn, each of these opposing discourses were linked to contrasting pattern of investment: with land-extensive investment patterns (i.e., low-density suburbanization) articulated to a modern regulatory format, while land-intensive patterns (densification) were articulated to postmodern formats.
Because history is not made without people, subjects as well as institutions can trigger change. So the actions of privotal individuals or that of the collective subject, which become manifest in class bevaviour, has to be examined. For the North American city, the urban middle-class have been the main agents of change. Their experiences and aspirations became the basis for the articulation of new norms, which would have a profound impact on the professonal discourse that planners would use. As the middle class evolved, and had to respond to the marco-economic and political forces that were impinging upon them, these experiences were distilled into political and economic action, actions that would later determin how the city would be regulated. In the mid-twentieth century this led to the depoliticization of space. In the late-twentieth century just the opposite occurred, as the regulation of space became repoliticized once more.
This happened when a new middle class arose, and when it rebelled against its parent culture, as it increasingly resisted the administration of space by experts, which was quite a departure from the modern era. To the great consternation of bureaucrats, developers and local politicians, participatory formats for public involvement in the decision making process were now necessary if legitimacy was to be preserved. Since this fraction of the middle class was also the bearer of a new sensibility, substantive as well as procedural changes were also forced upon the institutions and agents who were economically or institutionally involved in the regulation and production of urban space.
In Canada the switch-over from one mode of regulation to another took place in a different context from the United States. The same thing happened with regard to the regime of accummulation which informed the production of space in each country, as a wave of densification, which washed over every major Canadian city, largely bypassed most American cities. As a result, the Canadian city started to diverge from the American city. Not only were denser spaces created in the Canadian city, unlike the United States unique spaces arose that were guided by the systematic application of the ideology of the livable city .
Differences as well as the uniformities are therefore important. Consequently, a central challenge in the construction of a new classification scheme for studying the evolution of the city is posed by the need to embrace complexity. Rather than avoiding complexity in order to search for common patterns, the opposite will be attempted. A classification scheme which allowed complexity and difference to be recognized without producing a chaotic conceptualization of urban transformation was what was needed. This was the primary challenge. Could common patterns be identified without reducing or simplifying the processes of city building to a set of slogans, or a formula that ignored the importance of historical context.
1.1 - Posing the Question and finding a Method
The search for such a framework became the point of departure for this investigation, and the basis for engaging in an empirical and conceptual exploration of the issue of urban transformation. Hence, with all the flux and contradictions that was apparent in this new order; the following questions remained: how was this emerging spatial order to be comprehended? Exactly what intellectual tools were to be used? And what patterns were to be singled out?
Beginning with the conceptual issues, from political economy a conceptual framework which could look at the mutual interaction of economic, demographic, cultural facets of change was found. A framework that could take linear and non-linear trends into account was discovered when regulation school theory was examined. With some modification, this framework could be used as a conceptual compass. Using categories from regulation theory some assessment of the direction of change could be made, one which would allow both the positive and negative consequences of uneven change to be better understood. Also, with some modification the catorgies derived from regulation theory could be used to construct a periodization scheme of urban transformation, one that would be able to shed some light on how the local state mediated the transformation of the city. Finally, with some amendment, this approach could be adapted so that an open-ended reading of urban transformation could be taken, one which would better enable common patterns to be discerned despite the noise and contradictory flow of events that usually accompany any period of transition.
The empirical challenge was to objectively record and establish proof of the existence of significant new spatial patterns. Despite all the flux, the changes that could be observed revealed that the postmodern transformation of the city were neither random or chaotic, but were patterned: with the densification process, the introduction of a postmodern norms for the regulation of space, and a postmodern social ecology emerging as the most significant empirical manifestations of this urban transformation .
To establish the existence and significance of these three aspects of urban transformation a great deal of data had to be gathered and digested. While personal observations were a legitimate and natural starting point, many other types of information were needed to sketch in the picture of the postmodern city that was emerging in Greater Vancouver.
In order to understand the effects that postmodernism was having on the landscape it would be necessary to document the subjective impressions that people had of space. One method for accomplishing this was to become a participant-observer in a wide array of organizations, groups and public meetings (held in the early and mid 1990s), to see how politicians and citizens were accepting, modifying or rejecting the postmodern matrix for the organization of space in different ways, within the core and periphery of the urban region (P0-1 to P0-9). Information gained from being a participant-observer was supplemented by an extensive array of interviews, which were conducted over a period of several years with different agents who were responsible for the production and regulation of space in Greater Vancouver (PI-1 to PI-58). Even hermeneutics was employed, as planning documents, texts and the statements that people made about space were analyzed for their meaning.
To measure and tract the progression of the densification process and the effects of immigration, data supplied by Statistics Canada (SC-1 to SC-55), Canada Mortgage and Housing, The Greater Vancouver Regional District and the B.C. Government (GBC-1 to GBC-8) were important in establishing a database from which a number of a surrogate measures could be constructed to measure changes in the densification process, as well as the creation of distinctive postmodern settlement spaces.
This presented some problems. For example, densification was a new term for which standardized measurements had yet to be created. Consequently, it was necessary to use various proxy measurements in order to track the progression -- as well as regression -- of the densification process over time. Hence measurements such as the densification ratio or the proportion of new dwelling units constructed as single detached units were used as surrogate measures for the densification process. This made it easier to obtain an empirical grip on the progression or regression of the densification process, allowing the uneven and non-linear movement of densification process over time and space at the national, regional and local levels to be easily charted.
Similar problems were confronted when looking at the creation of postmodern settlement spaces. Rather than using proxy measurements, it was necessary to formulate labels which would describe and highlight the postmodern settlement patterns that emerged from studying data provided by Statistics Canada. Using models from the Chicago School as a foil, it was possible to set up a series of idealized constrasts in order to show how the modern city was different from the postmodern city in Greater Vancouver. To this end a postmodern typology was created, and new settlement zones such as the Zone of Middle Class Resettlement, Zone of Asian Resettlement and Zone of Caucasian Resettlement were named and analyzed against their modernist counterparts.
Meanwhile, significant empirical attributes that could be used to measure the spread of postmodern norms were identified and compared with their modern counterparts. Here a list of eight attributes was compiled which documented strategic orientation points of the postmodern matrix along three dimensions of regulation that were to be looked at. This was carried out so that the impact and spread of postmodern spatial constructs could be gauged and traced over the institutional terrain of the local state at the local, regional and national levels. For the most part this required an extensive and broad ranging review of planning discourse. However it was also necessary to see what developers were thinking and doing. And this is where going through the promotion material put out by the real estate industry proved useful. Hence real estate publications like Real Estate Guide, Condo Guide, Renters Guide and other promotional material (i.e.. PM-1 to PM-6) handed out by developers was looked at over a period of several years, on a monthly basis. In this regard B.C. Business and Business in Vancouver were other useful information sources that were used.
Since the City of Vancouver was both the incubation ground for the densification process, and the place where the postmodern spatial matrix was first gestated, special emphasis was put on the evolution of planning in this one city.
Consequently, a fairly extensive background research of urban issues was undertaken by looking at back issues of the city's two most prominent newspapers -- The Vancouver Sun (VS-1 to VS-524), and the Vancouver Province (VP-1 to VP-57) -- during the modern and postmodern eras. Alternative and local papers such as The Vancouver Courier(VC), The Georgia Straight, The West End Times, The Carnegie Newsletter, The Vancouver Echo (VE), the WestEnder and Xtra West were consulted on regular basis for several years as well. In addition to this, newspapers from other cities, articles from numerous journals and books on the subjects of densification and postmodernism were reviewed, to see if what was happening in Vancouver corresponded to what was taking place in other cities.
Because of the amount of material that was used in this study was so large, much of the commentary and many of the references could not be incorporated in the main text. For this reason another text composed of supplementary notes and comments, as well a bibliographical appendix was produced as an unpublished second volume, and appended to the main text.
Furthermore, because what happened in the Vancouver Planning Department captured the essence of the transition from one mode of urban development to another so well, and provided a model of regulation which has gradually spread throughout the region, a thorough study of the evolution and history of the Planning Department was carried out. This very detailed case study was also useful because it revealed the link which existed between the densification process and the evolution of certain forms of postmodern regulation. Other than collecting the material to establish a profile of the densification process this became the most time consuming part of the investigation since it involved a massive review of the internal documents generated by the Planning Department over a 40-year time span (CV-1 to CV-33; CVS; CVC0-1 to CVC0-84; CVPD-1 to CVPD-176; CVSP-1 to CVSP-11; CVTPB-1 to CVTPB-12). To supplement this work and provide a broader context for what was unfolding in Vancouver's Planning Department, a literature review of recent planning reports and documents from across the country was conducted to see how extensive the shift to postmodern regulation had become across the country (Refer to plans listed under the lead word of cities and municipalities in bibliography).
Finally, although more attention was devoted to the emergence of this new spatial matrix in the City of Vancouver, it was necessary to look at the entire urban region since the City of Vancouver only covers a limited part of Greater Vancouver. Therefore plans from most of the other municipalities that make up the Greater Vancouver Regional District were looked at. In addition to this, information was gleaned from local suburban newspapers such as the Tri-City News (Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody - TC), The (Richmond) Review (RR), Burnaby News Leader, The North Shore News, The Maple Ridge/ Pitt Meadows News, The North Delta/Surrey News Leader (SND), New Westminister News Leader and The Langley News.
For several years these publication were perused weekly in order to obtain a more nuanced understanding of the differences that existed between the core and periphery of the urban region. So articles in local papers that dealt with the opinions and outlook of suburban and exurban developers, politicians, planners, citizens and consumers within Greater Vancouver were given special consideration since a significant time lag existed between what happened in the City of Vancouver and the rest of the region. Additional insight into this gap was gained by living in one of the most distant suburbs in the region -- Maple Ridge -- for several years. What newspaper articles and personal observation showed was that there could be considerable variation in a single urban region something which many planners, policy makers and academics who live only in the inner city are often unaware of. As a result, rich insights were gained from being forced to live as a suburbanite after having lived as an urbanite for most of my adult life. Although the densification process had spread over the entire region, in Greater Vanocuver postmodern norms have diffused much more slowly and less uniformly throughout out the same space, with much of this variation accounted for by the uneven settlement geography of the new middle class, which, in turn, affected the constitution of the local state apparatus in each locality.
Even with all this detailed information and data, the questions that were posed about the transformation of Vancouver could not adequately be answered by simply pointing to some of the empirical contrasts that separated the urban form of Greater Vancouver in the late-twentieth century from the mid-twentieth century. Additional conceptual labour was required. Although this empirical information provided irrefutable proof that some important changes had taken place, without a conceptual grounding or understanding why these changes were taking place, only a muddled and incomplete understanding of the total picture could be sketched.
As mentioned earlier, an organizing framework was needed, not one which necessarily generated laws of causation, but one which could identify important patterns such as densification, the spread of postmodern regulation or the emergence of postmodern settlement spaces. Developing such a framework would also make it easier to see the connections between structure and agency, providing additional information on how urban transformation follows a path that varies according to the policies and political mobilizations which mediate the impact of larger macro forces.
For what a detailed examination of Greater Vancouver revealed was that the rules used to organize space had changed, but that the source for many of these changes did not originate from the international and national levels, but from the local level. So it was important to get a handle on what was happening within this sphere. That is why a theoretical framework was needed which could embrace several different levels of analysis, especially one that could identify institutionally signficant sign posts at the level of the local state, for this was a precondition for the construction of definable and repoducible patterns of regulation.
So while information on urban change and transformation was being collected a parallel search was undertaken for a theoretical framework that could organize all this data into a system of categories that could be used to create a new urban typology. While not ignoring the larger macro forces, what was required was a set of constructs that could focus attention on the profound impact that actions within the sphere local state could have on the evolution of the city, and take into account the multiple dimensions of urban transformation that could be seen in Greater Vancouver.
One approach that was considered was Regime theory. Although this largely American approach paid attention to what was happening at the local level, this perspective was far too bound up in the political aspect of institutional change, thereby ignoring the other dimensions of change which orginate within the sphere of the local state. Eventually urban political economy was chosen. More specifically, after reviewing several different approaches from within urban political economy one interpretative framework, known as regulation theory, was chosen because it was deemed to be the most flexible and non-reductionist method available from within urban political economy that could be used study densification and the postmodern transformation of Vancouver.
Three organizing constructs were borrowed from regulation theory. One construct was a model of urban development. The two other organizing constructs were a regime of accumulation, and a mode of regulation. When these constructs were recalibrated to analyse the production of urban space, they provided signposts that could be employed to periodize the evolution of urban space in Vancouver, as well as in other cities in Canada.
Over the last half of the twentieth century this framework shows that two dominant patterns emerged. The first arose between 1945 and 1973, when development patterns were largely regulated by the application of modern norms , at a time when investment in the built environment was shaped by a land-extensive regime of accumulation. While much of the institutional framework for this pattern of urban development remained intact in slow growing cities, such as Montreal and Winnipeg, in the 1980s and 1990s, in the nation's more dyanmic and faster growing urban centres, where more capital and labour were being attracted to, a different framework for the organization of space developed. In cities such as Toronto and Vancouver (but more especially Vancouver, where the middle class appeared to be larger in relative terms), a new pattern of urban development took hold in the 1970s, which clearly separated the late-twentieth century city from its mid-twentieth century counterpart. Here international and national flows of capital and labour provided the fuel for the creation of a land-intensive regime of accumulation, one that was governed by postmodern rather than modern norms for the organization of space.
As mentioned before, instead of just focusing upon supposedly immutable technological and economic forces (which post-industrial theory has tended to do), where change is reduced to a few abstractions -- such the information revolution, or globalization (Cohen 1996) -- a different tack was taken. Although developments such the information revolution and globalization cannot be dismissed, by themselves, these forces operate in an open ended fashion. As a result, they can create more than one scenario. As a consquence, by themselves these abstractions provide little insight into the specific evolutionary course of a city. Here the sweeping generalization that arising out of over-reliance on such abstractions tend to discount many of the more intangible aspects of change that need to be captured and analysed (Macleod 1997).
Moreover, the emphasis regulation contructs placed upon the operation of institutions provided a unique vantage point for looking at how the articulation of economic, political and demographic forces have created reproducible patterns of regulation over a set period of time. That is why regulation constructs provided an attractive alternative framework from which a periodization of the city could be constructed. Moreover, these constructs established a different analytical space from which variations as well as similarities could be studied.
Because no other urban regions have been so affected by densification, immigration, and the adoption of postmodern norms, Toronto and Vancouver have become emblematic of the new urban order. That is why both cities have been singled out by numerous commentators as alternative models for the North American city.
Initially, Toronto was the leading city. However, over the past ten years Vancouver has gradually taken over from Toronto. Ultimately, this is why Vancouver rather than Toronto was chosen as the place to conduct a detailed examination of the process of urban transformation. For the present at least, no other urban region in North America has been so profoundly influenced by the densification process, the influx of new immigrants, or the application of postmodern norms to the regulation of urban space, than Greater Vancouver.
This has become more apparent since 1986. Although land-extensive development experienced a resurgance in Canada, in British Columbia, and in Vancouver, in particular, the opposite occurred. Rather than regressing, densification became even more pronounced in Vancouver. Although densification is still significant in Ontario, since the mid 80s its influence has diminished. In Toronto there has even been some regression, as land-extensive development experienced a massive resurgance between 1986 to 1991, but has slowed down considerably since 1991, because of the collapse of the real estate market after 1989.
The partial regression that took place in almost every major urban centre outside British Columbia since the mid 80s raises several questions about the relevance of Vancouer to other Canadian cities. For example, is what is taking place in British Columbia an aberration? If so, then the bi-modal pattern of densification that currently predominates in Toronto and Ottawa-Hull, and, to a lesser extent, in Montreal, may turn out to be a more accurate reflection of the evolutionary course that most other Canadian cities are liable to follow. However, if the opposite turns out to be the case, and what happens in Vancouver turns out to be the norm, then Vancouver, and not Toronto, will become the bellwether for next stage of urban development.
Here the closer examination of the institutions of the local state in each city provide a clue. If a longer term perspective is taken on urban development, particularly if attention is paid to the institutional supports (which are not readily visible to the general onlooker) that play a key role in fostering land-extensive or land-intensive development, the current wave of suburbanization that gained momentum in the mid 80s may end up being an historical blip in the more general evolution of the city, or it could be the inauguration of a more contradictory pattern of urban development -- where land-intensive and land-extensive development co-exist in an uneasy equilibrium. Except for Winnipeg, an examination of the institutional supports that allowed land-extensive development to regain momentum in Montreal, and parts of Greater Toronto, may not be sustainable for much longer. If institutional transformation can be seen as a precursor of what is likely to follow in the longer term, then there a strong signs that the current resurgence of suburbia could be a fleeting and illusionary phenomenon.
By looking at how the regulatory apparatus of the local state is being altered, this most recent surge in land-extensive development may simply turn out to be the last gasp of a mode of urban development whose institutional base is now undergoing rapid decomposition, even though the empirical effects of this institutional deconstruction and restructuring is not yet fully visible in terms of the production of new urban spaces. That is why the third densification wave (that appears to be gathering momentum with the current upsurge in housing starts across the country) should provide important clues to the overall direction present institutional changes will bring. After this cycle has run its course, it should be possible to make more definitive statements about which model may become more representative. Will it be Vancouver, where densification functions as a hegemonic or dominant influence on the production of urban space? Or will it be Toronto or Ottawa-Hull, where a bi-modal pattern has emerged because densification only functions as an ascending influence. Furthermore, it should be possible to acertain whether the contradictory directions the city is moving in may be just symptoms of a transition period, where opposing tendencies are present because of the turbulence and flux that any period of transition generates.
Whether consumers like it or not, a different rationale for the production of urban space may be in place in most cities with the completion of the current building cycle, that began in 1996. In the end, what happens will ultimately depend on the willingness of government to end invisible subsidies - which is beginning to happen because of on going fiscal constraints -- and the willingness of the consumer to buy into unsubsidized forms of land-extensive patterns of development (Litman 1998). If the consumer is willing (or able) to absorb these costs then land-extensive patterns will continue to be reproduced on a large scale. If not: then then monumental changes that are now so apparent in Vancouver may spread to the rest of the country. However, it remains to be seen which pattern is most likely to prevail? Does Vancouver represent the future? Or will the bi-modal pattern now present in Toronto and Ottawa-Hull become the more common pattern.
Which ever pattern becomes dominant, the writing already seems to be on the wall. Hidden costs and subsidies given to the automobile and the single detached dwelling unit are beginning to become visible because of changing tax regimes and thefiscal crisis of local governments, as municipalities are increasingly unable to provide the hidden subsidies that were once given as a matter of course. Consequently, the material anchors upon which land-extensive development was organized -- the car and the single family dwelling unit -- may, at last have to pay their own way. With the call for road tolls, higher gas taxes, development levies, and the elimination or reduction in subsidies for new home construction that has come with the introduction of the GST, this, along with the increasing call for equal assessment rates for apartments and single detached units in Toronto has exposed yet another hidden public subsidy that has invisibly supported land-extensive development patterns.
As earlier mentioned, because of the flux created by all these changes, what happens during the present construction cycle should therefore be very instructive. For example, already in Toronto, the pressure on home-builders is mounting, as can be seen in the construction industry's vigorous opposition to development levies and taxes, which now account for between ten to twenty percent of the cost of a new home in Toronto (Toronto Star 1998b; 1998o).
If government and the consumer are not willing to bear these mounting costs, then the recent revival of land-extensive development experienced outside British Columbia may, in the longer run, appear as nothing more than the sunset effect of a dying mode of urban development! If governments and consumers somehow find a way to absorb these costs, then the bi-modal pattern of urban development that can now be seen in Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal, is likely to prevail. If this happens, then the intense densification that is now present in Vancouver will likely be seen as interesting aberration rather the norm for urban development in the late twentieth century and the early twenty-first century. But his remains to be seen.



1.2 - Statement of hypothesis
The existence of a new mode of urban development is the hypothesis that will be tested by comparing the rationale that governed the production of urban space in the mid-twentieth century with the rationales that now establish paramaters for the production of urban space. If the first model of urban development was defined by a land-extensive regime of accumulation that was articulated to a modern system of regulation, the second model of development, which began to take shape in the mid 1970s, is one characterized by densification and the diffusion of postmodern norms .
At this point an important caveat must be made. This study does not include all the built environment in the city. The locational dynamics of producer spaces are not taken into consideration or focused upon very much. Although some mention has to be made of them, in this investigation the primary focus will be on what has happened to the spaces of reproduction and consumption, that is to say space that primarily serves residential, retail and recreational land uses. While these spaces take in most of the land area of the city, there is still a considerable amount of space taken up by industrial land uses that are not dealt with in this study.

1.3 - Outline of dissertation and arguments to be made

This dissertation is organized into six chapters. After the introduction, regulation constructs will be presented in the second chapter.
Having introduced the three organizing constructs that were borrowed from regulation theory, chapter three will then move on to a detailed discussion of the densification process. When this is completed, this investigation will examin the postmodern spatial matrix in chapter four. This will be the longest section, because of the historical background that needs to be given if modernism and postmodernism are going to be used as markers for different stages in the development of the city. In chapter five the link between densification, postmodernism and new immigration patterns will be examined by looking at the emergence of new social spaces. A concluding chapter will then follow, where some comparisons between Vancouver and other Canadian cities will be made in order to further explore whether Vancouver or Toronto will emerge as the model for future urban development.