A no messing around guide to the coolest things to eat, drink and do in Vancouver and beyond. Community. Not clickbait.

How Prohibitive Zoning Laws Made Our Neighbourhoods Less Interesting

Vancouver Would Be Cooler If is a column that advocates for things that exist in other cities that could serve to improve or otherwise celebrate life in our own.

(via) Smart (or grandfathered) zoning can be a silver bullet in creating and sustaining vibrant neighbourhoods that aren’t boxed in by heavily-trafficked commercial high streets. This is why so many European cities (and a handful of notably awesome urban enclaves in North America) are the envy of the world when it comes to true liveability. Not Just Bikes explains in this short video:

“The pockets of retail & restaurants dotted throughout residential neighbourhoods in the Netherlands bring a liveliness and utility to the neighbourhood – and even help solve traffic congestion. Learn how this kind of urban design has been illegal in most of the US and Canada for a century, and why it should be brought back.”

Vancouver Would Be Cooler If It was Included on ‘The Wasted “World” Tour’

Copenhagen-based food waste initiative, Eat Wasted, is currently on the road, working with a bunch of cool chefs to feed folks their up-cycled “Bread Waste Pasta” at pop-ups and food festivals in cities around Europe and North America (but not Vancouver?!)

Vancouver (and the World) Would be Cooler If Our Housing Crisis Was Solved Via Video Games

There is nothing special about Vancouver's lack of affordable housing...but what is special about Dublin, Ireland’s housing crisis, is that it's the catalyst and subject matter of a new 16-bit "anti-landlordist" video game, called Mega Dreoilín.

Vancouver Would Be Cooler If We Had More Safe Indoor Spaces for Skateboarding

Its vaulted ceilings may have once carried the tenors and altos of Catholic choirboys, but nowadays the acoustics of the abandoned St. Liborius Church have been repurposed to carry the screeches and echoes characteristic of a DIY Skatepark. We think Vancouver would be cooler if we had an all-inclusive indoor community skatepark of our own...

Vancouver Would Be Cooler If It Had a Massive Floating Housing Project at the Port

Imagine a colourful, mixed-used, housing complex like Amsterdam's Silodam floating at the foot of Victoria Drive.