What defines community for many people is a sense of cohesiveness, interactions, shared experiences, and relationships. We know the value social interaction plays in our overall moods as well as its importance on our mental health, yet it is so easy to become isolated in day to day routines. How does community look in Vancouver’s fast moving high-tech downtown core today? How do we want it to look in the year 2040?
These are the questions Re-Imagine Downtown Vancouver is asking. It is an initiative that enables individuals to collaborate in creating a vision of what the downtown Vancouver experience could become over the next 25 years. Everything learnt through the process will be collected, studied and synthesized in order to shape the downtown of the future.
Though the process is still ongoing, some consistent themes have emerged. The downtown Vancouver of today is described as stunning, diverse, and lively, yet empty—but with a lot of potential. When asked what will the downtown core look like in 25 years, people want the downtown of 2040 to be more welcoming, with a strong sense of belonging. There would be more public squares, plazas and public spaces. This vision of our future downtown would be more integrated and inter-generational, with a focus on becoming family and child friendly.
For a more in depth look at this topic, check out Vancity Buzz‘s article on Re-imagining the community experience in downtown Vancouver.