Part 4 (second of two sections) from a discussion guide, Density in a City of Neighbourhoods – my perspective of a journey from the earliest years of land-abundant settlement to the towering glass city of 2012 – written for Carbon Talks at SFU.
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THE MODERN ERA – A Decade of Highrises
… almost every building over eight storeys in the West End was constructed in the decade between 1962 and 1972.
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This was change, but it came at the expense of the community fabric that was bulldozed along with the mansions, walk-ups, and gardens. The West End was characterized at the time as a concrete jungle for swinging singles: young people attracted by jobs in the adjacent downtown core, as well as the nearby amenities of beaches and parks.
But for many the West End was an example of what they feared would become a highrise slum, similar to the American public-housing projects of that time. Even by 1964, the Planning Department was expressing reservations: concern was raised about “excessive densities” and potential traffic flows from new residents.
The shortage of parks and school space and the visual effect of 350 acres being built up with high-rise apartments could ruin the residential environment of the West End.
Not for the first time would height be confused with density, and high-density with overcrowding. As Jane Jacobs noted at the time in her ground-breaking book, Life and Death of Great American Cities, people confused the two:
High densities mean large numbers of dwellings per acre of land. Overcrowding means too many people in a dwelling for the number of rooms it contains. … Almost nobody overcrowds by choice. But people often do live in high-density neighbourhoods by choice.
In 1951, when the Sylvia Hotel (right) was the highest building west of Burrard Street at eight storeys, the population of the West End was just over 20,000. 
Two decades later, at the end of the highrise boom when the number of units had increased five-fold, the population barely reached 40,000. In other words, the West End had become less crowded, as many chose to move from tiny suites to more spacious apartments in what was becoming a more livable high-density neighbourhood.
From across the water, however, the wall of highrises that rose above the beaches was another manifestation of out-of-control development.
By the mid-1970s, as a result of the oil shock, overbuilding, a change to the income-tax laws, political backlash, and an anti-growth movement, the highrise housing boom came to an end. The excesses of modernism – concrete skylines, freeways, the loss of heritage buildings and the sterility of modern architecture – resulted in downzonings, design controls and demolition prohibitions.
In Kitsilano, older houses awaiting demolition had become the low-rent habitat for the hippies of Fourth Avenue. There was an immediate backlash in 1972 when a 10-storey apartment was proposed for a site across from Kitsilano Pool. After negotiations, Council froze any further highrise development. (More on that story here.)
Eventually, every neighbourhood around False Creek, including the West End, was downzoned. There would be no more residential towers built in Vancouver for the next decade and a half.
In time, a new generation of politicians and planners tamed unconstrained growth with processes for negotiating better urban design, bringing the community into the planning process, and saying no to further road capacity for the single-occupancy vehicle. Comprehensive traffic calming was implemented in the West End for the first time in North America.
Vancouver was taking a breather. For only the first time in the city’s history, in an economic downturn, we would actually lose population. The process of gentrification began.
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Part 3: The Beginning of Densification
Part 4(a): The Modern Era – Transition
Density in a City of Neighbourhoods (full document)
