vancouver view cones and cities in the natural world

In 1954′s ‘Swamp Angel’ iconic Vancouver writer Ethel Wilson wrote about the main character’s view of the North Shore mountains:

Maggie looked out … over the roofs of  houses to Burrard Inlet far below, to the dark green promontory of Stanley Park, to the elegant curve of the Lions Gate Bridge which springs from the Park to the northern shore which is the base of the mountains; and to the mountains.

The view is the same today.

The mountains seemed…to rear themselves straight up from the shores of Burrard Inlet until they formed an escarpment along the whole length of the northern sky. The escarpment looked solid at times, but certain lights disclosed slope behind slope, hill beyond hill, giving an impression of the mountains which was fluid, not solid.

The downtown core has been developed greatly since Wilson’s time, but there are measures in place to protect the glimpses of expansiveness she described, the outlooks enjoyed daily by any Vancouverite who looks around.

In 1989 the city established 27 official ‘view cones’ to limit any development that may restrict certain views.

Any development occurring within these cones may be further restricted in height beyond what is specified in zoning bylaws. Some architects grumble about having to squish, trim, or twist their buildings in order to be accomodated by the corridors of space.

In Vancouver it is a local convenience to orient oneself according to the mountains, which are ‘north’ – even the most turned-around amoung us can look up, find the mountains, and then (perhaps recalling the helpful mneumonic device of Never Eat Soggy Weiners), set off in the right direction.

I take a poetical approach to the city’s view cone policy. I’m not an architect, or a developer, or someone who thinks success is measured only in growth. My own private ‘view cone’ is of a garage, a trellis of hairy Chinese melons, and my elderly neighbor’s inevitable laundry hanging on the line (pajamas, pajamas, pajamas, tiny socks, dishtowel). So I appreciate even more the landscape beyond my own yard, where I can watch the first snow hit the distant mountains, and recede in the summer. The sky is wide open, decorated but not impeded by the industrial aspect of port cranes, towers, and commercial or residential clusters. The inlet traverses the downtown beside you, pace by pace, appearing in glittering suddenness out from behind a building, or you can view it in it’s brown-and-blue entirety from a park perch miles away – Nature showing its hand in an urban construct of concrete and glass.

Vancouver can be a hard city. It forces many people into its wide margins. But it also seems less rigid of a city because of the spaces we share, the common democratic beauty of water and mountains a key to the identity of Vancouver. Some cities virtually entomb themselves with overdevelopment, blocking out all but the smallest of inroads from the natural world: dandelions growing through the sidewalk might be the most greenery some urban dwellers see in a day.