by Sean Orr | The knife has two sides: A Letter To The Editors: Restaurants Aren’t The Problem. As silly as I think the protests are, obsequious editorials like this are much, much worse. Statements like “people like you and me who are just trying to make it in this world” are especially laughable whenever the author is a paid employee of a developer (in this case, Steven Lippman). While I agree that “restaurants aren’t the problem”, people like this are. If Cuchillo were to go bankrupt as a result of such protests, the developer would stand to double the rent of the space since he would now have a fully functioning restaurant on his hands (as opposed to a dilapidated, long vacant former Japanese bathhouse).

It goes all the way back to the creation of Vancouver when the CPR was given everything west of Granville while landowners scrambled to make Strathcona the centre of town. These same landowners – a Victoria-based “syndicate of gentlemen” – also owned the BC Electric tram system. When that tram system was uprooted in the 50’s to accommodate suburban “white flight”, the result was the creation of an inner city and the east-west divide that is still visible today (see Vancouver’s million-dollar real estate divide). Fast forward 60 years and we find some well-intentioned restaurant folks trying to venture back into the neighbourhood only to be greeted with deeply entrenched ghettoism (yeah, I made that word up).

Fuzzy feeling: Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside plans include social-housing development. Yup, a plan so cunning that it has already managed to make nobody happy.

Vancouver kills (not personal decisions): Calgary columnist blames Vancouver for helping Cory Monteith overdose on heroin. Let’s completely ignore the possibility that he wanted to die. Oh, but how could he want to die? He had it all! He was so good looking, rich, and famous. No, it must have been Insite.

Vancouver’s Pursuit of Happiness. Remember, it’s just a pursuit. There’s no guarantee that you will ever actually be happy. Speaking personally, I have this really bad habit of reading the news, so I’m super sad all the time.

What does make me happy? Watching The Province trying to figure out a piece of public art: Is it art? There’s more to this pile of rubble downtown than meets the eye. What a brilliant statement on the transience of Vancouver — never finished, constant renewal, and disdain for heritage.

Related: Does the City of Vancouver pick and choose which cultural spaces to support?