Philip Langdon of New Urban News captures the significance of what Larry Beasley and other New Urbanists are achieving in Abu Dhabi.
“They have a real consciousness of building a nation,” Beasley says. “There’s that sense of mission. They want things quickly and they want them to be the best.” In addition to having a highly intelligent crown prince, from a royal family that has distributed wealth broadly, Abu Dhabi offers another advantage, according to Beasley: “You’re not dealing with a vested power structure that wants to do something else.”
The full story here. For an earlier (and illustrated) version of the Beasley story, check out this issue of Price Tags.
Great article thanks for your insight. Stan Douglas rocks! However this photo in this location is dreary, ugly and unfriendly and doesn’t really tell a story well – only looks like a poclice state gone wrong. If we are stuck with it might be useful to have some descriptions (like yours or the one in Walrus magazine) and maybe a streaming video of Mayor Tom Campbell talking about inciting a police riot (I saw this at the VAG about two years ago – hilarious and scary)
This incident in August, 1971, saw Vancouver police charge on horseback about a thousand hippies having a “smoke-in” on the streets of Gastown – which led to the arrest of 79 people, of whom 38 were charged with various offences. A later judicial inquiry criticized the action, characterizing it as a police riot. An interesting point-in-time but is it as relevant as the Woodwards squat or any other act of police getting out of control?