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.

And here’s a picture of the backside from a wayfinding kiosk at another location, if you’re curious what’s on the back…

Wayfinding Kiosk at Commercial and 13th. Photo: Roland Tanglao.

We first mentioned these kiosks last when they first went up just prior to the Games – and remarked on the fact that they were long-overdue in the City. And yes, despite what follows, we’re still glad they’re here.

But upon scrutinizing what’s actually displayed, I found myself grimacing a little. The middle panel with the copious amounts of text under the headline “Mount Pleasant” is a listing of all the businesses in the area, sorted by category (such as “Restaurants”), along with their address and phone number. The aesthetic and presentation of the directory is clearly reminiscent of that used on signs in malls.

I sent and commented on the above photo to Twitter, and received a couple of replies questioning my discontent:

Both valid points, certainly, which encouraged me to revisit why the retail-heavy content felt inappropriate and out of place for me. To expand upon my initial ideas, which I tweeted to Seth from Edmonton, I believe it is because my feeling about neighbourhoods is profoundly different than the one I have for malls.

Whether it’s Main Street or Hunt’s Point in The Bronx, neighbourhoods are, first and foremost, venues of daily life. Their features reflect the sum total of life having unfolded, and continuing to unfold, over time and space. Buildings get old, are vacated, renovated, rejuvenated, modified and, sadly for this and other older districts, burned down; new buildings find their legs in the spaces between older ones. Malls are in many ways the antithesis of this; they are ahistorical in their presentation, focused on birthing the buying moment, unless nostalgia is part of the sell. They reflect the desire to produce a highly controlled and curated environment, which keeps at bay the difficulties associated with weather, multiple modes of traffic, the ravages of time and the challenge of competing interests in limited spaces. They seldom seem to age well, propped up by the building equivalents of Botox.

Wayfinding is undoubtedly an important contribution to the pedestrian experience, for it guides us by helping us form expectations of said experience. We might say a city or neighbourhood is “legible” or” understandable” through the way it is laid out, which helps someone traveling on foot to understand where you are and where you want to go. Malls are laid out and designed with anchor tenants (such as department stores or supermarkets) at the ends of its corridors and certain arrangements to maximize retail frontage values, as well as to expose foot traffic as much as possible to all the stores in between. The mall directory helps you navigate what is typically a non-linear layout. They make sense when you consider that distinguishing landmarks might be restricted to store signage features, or that layout of a mall happens over multiple floors, which can only be accessed by elevators and escalators located in specific spots. Its legibility is certainly challenging to a first-time or infrequent visitor.

Main Street is comparably simpler and easier to understand — it’s a linear corridor in a grid with evenly spaced-out regular intersections. For this reason, the store-directory-as-wayfinding-kiosk almost seems like a bit of overkill. Designed in this fashion, it strikes me that the sign tries hard but ultimately missed the mark; the authors haven’t created a kiosk that gives pride of place to the sort of stuff that would help a visitor discover the essence of the place… just a sector-specific portion of it. Getting to the essence, i think, is the sort of thing that would come with asking a broader question like: what is interesting about this neighbourhood? Not: where can I buy shoes? While retail information has it’s use, a good info post would ideally give you access to details on a range of items: local pointsof interest, bathrooms, community policing, pay phones, maybe a 24 hour eatery… and the sorts of other features that make the neighbourhood different from a trip to Pacific Centre.

Now, to be fair, the kiosk does retain perhaps the most important elements from its use as Olympic wayfinding, such as important transit routes and connections, and it does feature a smaller section on ‘Neighbourhood Destinations’ (out of frame further down on the second picture above). In the Main Street case, it lists landmarks and notable spots like Queen Elizabeth Park and Heritage Hall.

Fundamentally, there is a line to walk between promoting the businesses to make the street and the neighbourhood welcoming and accessible, and providing actual utility to newcomers through the features of the sign. Given that the local Business Improvement Association sponsors the sign, I understand the push. They’re fulfilling their mandate by promoting the shops and businesses along this corridor, supporting the local economy and so forth. All good things. So the issue to me is more about balance in content. Personally, I think show-casing a complete range of community amenities would probably support the local economy more in the long run. (And in the grand scheme of things, this sign is still a step-down in my mind, from the corporate logos gracing the wayfinding signage in the Olympic Village).

No doubt, translating this notion of balance into the design and presentation of the information, while remaining equitable to all businesses, is a formidable challenge. The presence of these information kiosks is good, but the content elements shows signs of needing a bit of a re-think.