Community Identity
East Vancouver has a strong geographic and community identity. This identity is about a diverse community living together within a dynamic urban neighbourhood. This diverse identity is strengthened by many active ethnic communities, a vibrant artistic presence, a politically engaged youth population, and vocal sexual-orientation and gender-identity groups.
The political identity of the community is reinforced by newspapers such as the Republic of East Vancouver newspaper (the name of which invokes a long-time joking reference to the left-leaning nature of the community and its labour history) and frequent political and social activism - such as the Commercial Drive Car Free Festival and protests.
The artistic identity is reinforced by events at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, a community poetry anthology ("East of Main"), the Eastside Culture Crawl, and "the Drift", an annual event where local artists present their work centred around Main Street.
While many East Vancouver residents are proud of the diversity in their community, some perceive a long prejudice against East Side neighbourhoods. These concerns include the protests against the 1960s effort to push a freeway through (and over) parts of the East Side, to a perception that municipal spending and planning favours other areas of the city (especially the West Side), to recent debates, such as expansion of the Port of Vancouver operation in East Vancouver and the expansion of the Port Mann bridge and predicted increased traffic through the East Side. Mayor Sam Sullivan's plans for increased population in Vancouver with "ecodensity" includes coach houses and densification plans via zoning changes mainly for the East Side, with few plans to change zoning or densify the West Side.
Read more about this topic: East Vancouver
Famous quotes containing the words community and/or identity:
“I am convinced that our American society will become more and more vulgarized and that it will be fragmentized into contending economic, racial and religious pressure groups lacking in unity and common will, unless we can arrest the disintegration of the family and of community solidarity.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“For the mother who has opted to stay home, the question remains: Having perfected her role as a caretaker, can she abdicate control to less practiced individuals? Having put all her identity eggs in one basket, can she hand over the basket freely? Having put aside her own ambitions, can she resist imposing them on her children? And having set one example, can she teach another?”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)