Vancouver is preparing to take the global stage when it hosts the Winter Olympic next month. With all the sports-related pomp, the city's unique approach to sustainability will also fall under the spotlight.
"To a degree probably unmatched anywhere else in North America, the city of Vancouver has tried to impose notions of sustainability in its decisions on what, where and how to build.
The result has come to be known as "Vancouverism," an urban motif of public transit instead of freeways, a low-carbon energy infrastructure and gleaming high-rise condominium towers in sunlit, walkable neighborhoods laced with urban parks.
The 2010 Winter Olympic Games next month provide a showcase for how Vancouver is trying to evolve. A $1-billion development that houses the athletes' village generates up to 70% of its power from converted sewage, and the vaulted ceiling of the Richmond speed-skating venue emphasizes that most renewable of resources, wood."
By stressing urban growth and densification, Vancouver has developed a distinctly urban core over the last two decades.
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