The Land Remembers

 

In my last post I wrote that no one is illegal on stolen ground. Today I want to talk about what happens to that ground after it is taken, rezoned, and built upward.

I once worked in a 100-year-old industrial building near False Creek.

It was the operational guts of Expo 86. Costumes, computers, uniforms, cleaning equipment — all of it moved through that warehouse.

Years later I learned that during WWII, parts of Vancouver’s industrial lands were used to process Japanese Canadians before internment. Much of that happened at Hastings Park, but the broader waterfront and warehouse district carried that era’s weight.

Land remembers.

Then came the transformation after Expo 86 — when industrial waterfront became global real estate.

Now, council has approved a residential tower on industrial-zoned land in the Mount Pleasant industrial area.

We are told this is progress.

But what is lost when industrial land becomes housing?

Industrial doesn’t mean smokestacks.

It means:

Bakeries

Industrial laundries

Film studios

Repair shops

Recycling centres

Trades yards

Food distribution

It is the backstage of the city.

When we erase backstage space, we change the economy itself.

I’m currently on a housing list near 12th and Cambie. So yes — I understand housing need.

But I also understand infrastructure.

And I wonder:

Can a city survive when everything becomes residential?