The Dunbar Chronicles is a great new walking tour quite unlike others… Brief anecdotes were collected from residents of the neighbourhood, and these anecdotes were then re-imagined into short fictional stories by local writers. The stories are located in public places (and a few other places) throughout the community as a literary walking tour.

The tour starts at the Dunbar Community Centre (4747 Dunbar St), where one can find maps of the tour. Maps are also available at the library a block away, or can be downloaded from the website (below). If walkers are really keen, it might take about 1.5 hours in total to visit all of the locations, but it works just as well by visiting just a few locations if folks don’t have time to complete the entire circuit. Also, the tour starts and finishes in Dunbar village where coffee, beer and food are available to start or end one’s trip! A surprising number of small patios await…

The Dunbar Chronicles is also part of the Salmonberry Days festival that occurs throughout the month of May.

There’s no tour leader, no start time, it’s a self-guided walk that can be taken anytime between now and the end of the month. However, some of the artists and writers will be on hand on a few dates to discuss the project – for more details go to the project website: https://workingholidayproject.wordpress.com/portfolio/the-dunbar-chronicles/.

The Dunbar Chronicles is part of the Working Holiday Project – a partnership of 3 community artists (Elisa Yon, Leah Weinstein and Jaspal Marwah) who are sharing a year-long arts residency at the Dunbar Community Centre.

We’ve all done at least one of these over the past year: take a walk by the seawall, pass through Robson Square or have a coffee on Granville Island. But what are these locations to us? What is their contribution to our sense of belonging to the city? We all associate our city life with at least one public space or the other. But could there more to a public space than just the scenery, the shops and the coffee?

Being a newcomer to Vancouver and having moved around the world a few times, I often think what makes us feel belong to somewhere. This certainly is a complex and multilayered question; factors such as language, finance, social and family ties, culture etc. all play a role in our sense of belonging. However, looking at the big picture, I came to a single prominent answer to my question: memories, well let’s say pleasant memories. I look back and think about the previous cities that I have lived in and all that comes to my mind about why I miss them or what I miss about them are the memories I have made there.

I lived in Montreal for some years and my strongest sense of belonging to the city is to its Quartier des spectacles, where public festivals took place back to back. For a one-day visitor, Quartier des spectacles is a beautiful and welcoming public space in the heart of downtown and the city’s art and shopping district. But for a Montrealer, it’s much more than that. Quartier des spectacles, as its name implies, is where the fun festivals take place: the International Jazz Festival, the Francofolies, the Just for Laughs and many more. It’s where people go to enjoy their time with their friends and family, watch a show, have a hotdog and take selfies. It’s where new friendships are made and old ones are strengthened. It’s a location that has created memories in the minds of almost all its residents, a place that brings a smile by reminding you of all the memories that you share with your friends or even people you have never met. I’m sure I share this feeling with Montrealers that are now living in Vancouver.

A couple of weeks ago my family and I went to the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival’s Kite Dance. The event was held at Vanier Park, a location that I had walked or biked through many times. Not that I did not enjoy my previous commutes through Vanier park, but now this location gives me a different feeling. When I walk around that area, I always remember the flying kites that resembled cherry blossom petals in the air and the pleasant time that I had there with my family in early Vancouver spring. I now have a lasting and personal connection with the park, the city and cherry blossoms.

Public spaces are the perfect spots for creating lasting memories. Public festivals and public events can be the catalyst that persuade people to get out of their home, visit the public space, enjoy the scenery and have a pleasant time, be it as large as the Sun Run, or as relatively small as the cherry blossom kite dance. Importantly, these events create a sense of belonging, especially in newcomers. That could be one way to help give up the unpleasant title of Canada’s unhappiest city.

On Wednesday, October 29, Vancouver City Council will review Phase I of ‘A Healthy City For All’, which could become a new municipal plan for supporting Vancouverites to be physically, mentally and socially healthy. The strategy backs up much of the work the City has already done, for example with the Greenest City and Transportation 2040 strategies, but brings it all together under one health-focused umbrella.

The strategy has 13 goals and lays out targets and indicators for each, many of which are connected to the importance of public space. For example, one goal is “Active Living and Getting Outside”; the target is to support Vancouverites to be “engaged in active living and have incomparable access to nature” with green space being less than a 5 minute walk away for all Vancouverites.

While it’s easy to see the direct link between health and public space when talking about parks and green space, many of the goals of the Health City Strategy could be met through a dedication to quality, accessible public spaces. Take, for example, the target of having Vancouverites be “connected and engaged in the places and spaces that matter to us.” Animated public spaces where we have opportunities to meet each other, and which encourage us to spend time interacting, even passively, with others, can bring us closer together.

Another important element of the report is the desire to make Vancouver a healthy city for all people. This focus on equity has the potential to support public spaces that work for everybody, regardless of age, ethnicity, gender or class, and to develop spaces equitably across the city. Designing public spaces that work for those who are already vulnerable, and those who experience mental and physical health challenges, can provide healthy opportunities for those who need them most.

Though the report provides a picture of what life in Vancouver could be, it doesn’t do is tell us how we’re going to get there. While there has already been extensive public consultation on this topic, a more detailed plan won’t be released until 2015. Then we’ll see what Vancouver is planning to do to support this vision, and how much public space feeds into that work.

For our part, the VPSN has shared our thoughts with Healthy City strategists. We asked them to ensure that the final Strategy includes language that specifically references the importance of a variety of safe, well-designed, and equitably-distributed public spaces throughout the city, as well as a few specific ideas about how to improve health through quality public spaces. A few of our ideas include:

• Support unstructured play areas and naturalized playgrounds
• Provide appropriate street furniture and washrooms to promote active and public transportation by people of all ages and abilities
• Encourage participatory arts and culture activities like public chalk boards and informal markets
• Promote land-use and zoning changes that would re-enable small-scale local food retailers
• Diffuse the club-scene energy on Granville street through promoting neighbourhood centres
• Support community-led placemenaking, particularly at night, as a means to foster connections and feelings of safety

Got your own ideas? Share them here or write your Councillors.