The Globe and Mail

No one is better at making something out of nothing than arts groups in pricey Vancouver. We have heard the grim news recently about our theatre, dance, film and visual arts groups getting the heave-ho from their residences and studios in downtown, Gastown and the Downtown Eastside. Our cultural class is scrambling for space and making-do — as our creators always do — but a downtown without the studios and residences of artists is a dismal prospect, Calgary without the old world charm. The reason for this is that Vancouver's great condo transformation continues unabated, and no corner of our downtown peninsula (or anywhere nearby) is safe from the prevailing urban ideology of hausen uber alles. What a strange new city we are making: chock full of boomers preparing retirement nests; hub to global investors transforming their dollars/euros/pesos/yuan/rupiah into condo walls. But as a direct result, we are also shrinking core-area offices and studios, the very spaces where culture is created and where new businesses are grown.