I live in Southeast False Creek, on Quebec Street, just outside of downtown Vancouver. My neighbourhood is part of the 2006 Southeast False Creek Public Realm Plan, with the construction of Olympic Village for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games at its forefront, so it’s a very new neighbourhood.

From Wikipedia I learned that human settlement on False Creek began 8-10,000 years ago.  Citing the Historical Atlas of Vancouver, this Wikipedia page points out that settlement began when the as the Sumas Glacier retreated, but thousands of years before salmon appeared. Salmon runs began about 5000 years ago, in tandem with a Douglas Fir/ Western Red Cedar ecosystem. The people who settled here were part of a wider language grouping known as the Halkomelen”.  The coastal sub-group were known as “downriver Halkomelen”, in distinction from the Vancouver Island Halkomelen and the upriver Halkomelen.  Among the downriver Halkomelen, those living in the False Creek area were the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, until recently known as the Burrard Indian band.

From the Tsliel-Waututh website we learn that this Coast Salish Nation numbered about 10 000 at contact.  They lived by a “seasonal round,” which their website describes as “a complex cycle of food gathering and spiritual and cultural activities that formed the heart of our culture.”   July and August saw the Tsliet-Waututh travel to the Fraser River for Sockeye salmon, followed by fishing on smaller rivers and inlets for other salmon species. Winter involved carving and weaving blankets from mountain goat wool. The area is classified by the EPA as a Marine West Coast forest eco-region  – a temperate biozone – and as such it produced a rich variety of foods, allowing for the gathering of berries, camas, oysters, clams, wild cabbage, sea asparagus and mushrooms.

Following contact and the fur trade, the Tsliel-Waututh were decimated by disease, dropping to a nadir of a few dozen by the early 20^th Century.   (Today they are rapidly increasing in population, and number 500.) This area soon became the heart of colonial settlement.  From a  2006 City of Vancouver planning report for this area, we learn that Southeast False Creek had been an industrial hub since the late-nineteenth century, which included a shipyard, steelworks, sawmills, and salt processing facilities. In the 20^th Century, the original shoreline was erased as fill was used to build more industrial land and port facilities.  The creek became polluted with sewage and industrial wastes.  In the 1950s Vancouver built its first sewage treatment plants for sewage going into Burrard Inlet. This city report from the time that I found online discusses the building of these plants while affirming the continuation of the more widespread practice of piping untreated sewage into the Strait of Georgia.

From the same Wikipedia page cited above, I learned that a gradual demise of industrial activity left SEFC somewhat abandoned by the late 1960s.  With increasing ecological awareness in the 1960s, this area became a key battleground between what I would describe as the older forces of modernity and automobility, and the growing ecology movement.  I could see that something like the famous American freeway revolt of San Francisco happened here, as a reaction over plans to fill in the entirely of False Creek to allow for more parking and to build expressways through here into downtown Vancouver.

These plans suggest to me that urban land here was subject to the same forces that our Steinberg text describes in Chapter 13: suburban sprawl was definitely occurring around Vancouver, and what mattered most at the time seemed to be encouraging speedy entry and exit into the downtown for single vehicle commuters.  Again from Wikipedia I learned that UBC Geography professor Walter Hardwick led an environmentally minded group that envisioned turning the ‘brownfields’ here into a residential area instead.   Presumably enough citizens now shared these values, as this group gained control of Vancouver City council in 1968, prompting the city to plan a redevelopment of the land into the residential community it is today.

Though sewer upgrades and regulations on industrial pollution came into effect in the last 40 years, the water of False Creek still suffers from the effects of sewage overflow (a common urban issue), pollution run off from storm water and sewage from boaters.  A simple Google search found this article from the Georgia Strait, which points out that city councilors passed a motion in 2017 to make the creek swimmable by 2018.   Some improvement has happened through a city funded program offering free sewage disposal to boaters.  But the long range plan is to renew the sewer system to prevent source contaminants from entering the water as overflows. On their website, the City of Vancouver points out that there is a long term plan to replace all combined sewage/ storm systems with separated systems by 2050.

Today most of SEFC consists of the urban development of residential communities, mainly high-rise apartment and some commercial buildings.  Several historical buildings have remained as anchors to the industrial history of the area. The 1918 Opsal Steel Company building and 1931 Vancouver Salt Company building are now homes to two beer halls, and the track remnants of the old rail corridor run through the residential communities on Industrial Avenue, where old train wheels have even been upcycled into park benches in community spaces.

It is evident that planning for pedestrians and cyclists was central to the re-design of this area. The entire district has a cycle path and there are tree-lined wide paths for pedestrians.  A new 6 acre park is being planned by the Vancouver Park Board, partly on parking lot lands used for Expo ’86.  Part of the goal here is improving water quality and the biodiversity of East False Creek with waterfront green space.  Public transportation includes a Skytrain Station and an Aquabus Stop.  Parking is hard to come by, though most who own here do have vehicles and parking spots included with their condo.

Overall, if one did a sustainability survey of my neighbourhood, I believe it would score well.  Walkability has massively improved.  Downtown living is far more sustainable, and prevents sprawl, congestion, pollution, while building on existing infrastructure.   Any audit of the air and water quality would find it has improved greatly, though still has room to improve. Affordability, which some see as an ecological factor, is the biggest issue.  Environmental justice issues are less applicable here, I believe, because no existing residential area was gentrified.