Late 20th Century (1975–2000)

Vancouver ‘Living First’ (Central Area)

1991 · Canada · North America – Canada · Innovation districts, knowledge corridors, and economic clustering · Planned by City of Vancouver
Central Area Land Use Plan from Vancouver’s 1991 Central Area Plan: the CBD held tight while surrounding downtown land is turned over to residential neighbourhood and "choice of use" — the core of the "Living First" strategy.
Central Area Land Use Plan from Vancouver’s 1991 Central Area Plan: the CBD held tight while surrounding downtown land is turned over to residential neighbourhood and "choice of use" — the core of the "Living First" strategy. · © City of Vancouver — used with credit · City of Vancouver, Central Area Plan: Goals and Land Use Policy (1991), Central Area Land Use Plan

Core idea

Towers-on-podium, amenity-rich living

Why it matters

Reinvention of downtown residential urbanism

Description

Vancouver's 'Living First' strategy, embedded in the 1991 Central Area Plan, redirected the downtown peninsula from office expansion towards high-density residential neighbourhoods. Prepared by the City of Vancouver's planning department, it rezoned surplus commercial land for housing and paired slender residential towers with continuous townhouse podiums, mandating street-level activity, parks, schools and daycare secured through development agreements. Former industrial and rail lands such as Concord Pacific Place on False Creek became the main sites for this template.

Significance

The plan produced what became known internationally as 'Vancouverism', one of the most imitated models of downtown residential urbanism of the late twentieth century. It showed that a North American central business district could be repopulated at high density while protecting view corridors and delivering amenities through negotiated public benefits. Critics have pointed to housing affordability pressures and the limits of the tower-podium formula, which remain central debates in the cities that borrowed it.

What shaped it

Plans it influenced

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.