Public life in Barcelona is vibrant, colourful, and diverse. Yet it is also contested, and many residents perceive that public spaces are under threat from the growing tourism economy, gentrification, commercialization and commodification.
Affordability crisis reaches Vancouver suburbs increasing homelessness threat: Report
The Globe and Mail reported on a joint study between UBC and the Union Gospel Mission that examines the growing threat of homelessness in Vancouver suburbs.
Penny Gurstein, a professor at UBC’s school for community and regional planning, said this trend has now reached a boiling point.
B.C. tourism operators fear damage to industry after two summers of smoke and wildfire
SCARP PhD student Jeremy Stone was quoted in a Globe and Mail article about the effect of wildfires on the tourism industry. Stone, who has researched the economic resilience of businesses to disaster, said that damage to B.C.’s brand could be costly.
Globe and Mail
Vancouver neighbourhood back on the rails
The Globe and Mail ran a story about Railtown, an area of Vancouver that appears to be undergoing a redevelopment boom. However, the efforts to make Railtown a design and tech hub are “too little, too late,” says Tom Hutton, a University of British Columbia planning professor.
Dr. Leonie Sandercock, director of SCARP's Indigenous Community Planning program, received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant to finance the development of the story and the screenplay for the first feature length film done entirely in the Haida language. The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on September 8, 2018 and will be screened at the Vancouver Film Festival this October.
The first Haida language film could have lasting impacts
Star Vancouver
SCARP Instructor Erick Villagomez has released his new book: The Laws of Settlements.
Are there fundamental laws that govern all settlements—from the smallest village to the largest cities? The Laws of Settlements ambitiously describes the principles underlying human settlements of all sizes and across all cultures. It revives, updates and refreshes the ’54 Laws of Settlements’ outlined in Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis’ seminal book Ekistics: An Introduction to the Science of Human Settlements, making them relevant to the problems we face in the 21st century.
Maxime Bernier tweetstorm cost Conservatives the 2019 election
Georgia Straight
Tue Aug 14 2018
By: Charlie Smith
Link to full text
A Georgia Straight article about controversial tweets from Conservative politician Maxime Bernier mentioned a book by SCARP Professor, Leonie Sandercock.
SCARP Adjunct Professor, Dr. Aftab Erfan's paper was shortlisted for the annual AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning) Prize Paper Competition for the best paper published in 2017. Forty journals based in Europe are each invited to submit two nominations, Aftab's paper was nominated by Planning Theory & Practice online journal.
Work done in the 1990's by SCARP faculty and students has stood the test of time and remains relevant today. This is the conclusion of a Victoria Times-Colonist article that describes the work of SCARP faculty Dr. Bill Rees, and his students Mathis Wackernagel and Jennie Moore who coined the expression 'Ecological Footprint'.
The article says we have already used up earth's capacity to produce land to support human activities such as growing food crops, fishing and raising animals for food.
Researchers at the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP-UBC) are looking for volunteers this summer to support an innovative research project on Public Life and Public Space on the UBC Campus.
Our aim is to learn how people’s perceptions and behaviours might change when there are more people moving through and staying in a public space. We need volunteers to be actors in a public space - or just be themselves - for various times in the month of August 2018.