Ellen Dunham-Jones – who was last in Vancouver as An SFU Urban Studies Fellow and the VIA Architecture lecturer on urban design – explains “How to Fix that Ugly Strip” in a New York Times opinion piece.  She gives some good examples of strip conversion in the U.S. – and one from … guess where?

Cambie Corridor in Vancouver is employing similar techniques but has upped the ante with some stunning modern mixed-use buildings and a highly efficient district energy system that balances out daytime commercial energy demands with the residential night-time peak loads.

Philip Langdon, in New Urban News, also writes about the Cambie Corridor :

Mid-rise living: A new best practice?

 

Vancouver, British Columbia, is known for glassy residential towers that rise from podiums containing housing, stores, restaurants, and other pedestrian-scale uses. … Now Vancouver is eyeing a different form of development — one that achieves substantial density, but in buildings closer to the ground.

In May the City Council approved the Cambie Corridor Plan, which over the next 30 years should fill much of the Cambie Street corridor between downtown and Vancouver International Airport with buildings of four stories and higher …

A slightly more acerbic view here.