Environmental Nuisances and Political Contestation in Canadian Cities: Research on the Regulation of Urban Growth’s Unwanted Outcomes

Temby, Owen

doi:10.7202/1037232ar

“…To quote Owen Temby, "They are both a result of and hindrance to local economic activity." 6 The case of Vancouver and its drinking water demonstrates, however, that there can be significant exceptions to this paradox. The city's boosters perceived of their urban centre as a veritable "growth machine," but the nuisances that they sought to tackle in relation to their water supply were unique.…”

Section: Résumé De L'articlementioning

confidence: 99%

“An Eden that is practically uninhabited by humans”: Manipulating Wilderness in Managing Vancouver’s Drinking Water, 1880–1930

Kuhlberg¹

2017

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Vancouver is known internationally as one of the world’s most livable and beautiful cities, and its “natural” attributes are seen as being integral to what makes it so special. Nestled on a small plateau between the alluring beaches and dramatic shoreline of the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Mountain Range, the city has trumpeted its aesthetically stunning environment for over one century. Central to this message has been the fact that Vancouver’s drinking water supply is so clean that it has historically required no chemical or other treatment—besides a basic filtering—before it is fit for human consumption. Those who were initially responsible for administering the city’s water supply demonstrated most curious behaviour in carrying out their duties. To be sure, they exalted their water for its purity and broadcast this message to the world, believing as they did that such a precious resource could originate only in pristine wilderness that was as pleasing to the eye as it was free from human intrusions. As a result, they went to enormous lengths to guard the basins from which this water came from anthropogenic activity. Paradoxically, they were completely comfortable with undertaking a series of measures to re-engineer and manage the watersheds upon which they depended, an approach that included dumping tons of a deadly toxin on the local trees. All these steps were simply part of their efforts to enhance the bounty with which Providence had gifted them, and to them it remained pure and unsullied as a result. The early history of managing Vancouver’s drinking water thus represents an extraordinary instance in which civic boosters viewed their actions through a prism that blurred the line between the human and non-human worlds, and their story highlights how often our attempts to manage “nature” is prone to creating issues that are potentially more dangerous than the ones we are trying to solve.

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“An Eden that is practically uninhabited by humans”: Manipulating Wilderness in Managing Vancouver’s Drinking Water, 1880–1930

Kuhlberg¹

2016

Urban History Review

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Vancouver is known internationally as one of the world’s most livable and beautiful cities, and its “natural” attributes are seen as being integral to what makes it so special. Nestled on a small plateau between the alluring beaches and dramatic shoreline of the Pacific Ocean and the Coast Mountain Range, the city has trumpeted its aesthetically stunning environment for over one century. Central to this message has been the fact that Vancouver’s drinking water supply is so clean that it has historically required no chemical or other treatment—besides a basic filtering—before it is fit for human consumption. Those who were initially responsible for administering the city’s water supply demonstrated most curious behaviour in carrying out their duties. To be sure, they exalted their water for its purity and broadcast this message to the world, believing as they did that such a precious resource could originate only in pristine wilderness that was as pleasing to the eye as it was free from human intrusions. As a result, they went to enormous lengths to guard the basins from which this water came from anthropogenic activity. Paradoxically, they were completely comfortable with undertaking a series of measures to re-engineer and manage the watersheds upon which they depended, an approach that included dumping tons of a deadly toxin on the local trees. All these steps were simply part of their efforts to enhance the bounty with which Providence had gifted them, and to them it remained pure and unsullied as a result. The early history of managing Vancouver’s drinking water thus represents an extraordinary instance in which civic boosters viewed their actions through a prism that blurred the line between the human and non-human worlds, and their story highlights how often our attempts to manage “nature” is prone to creating issues that are potentially more dangerous than the ones we are trying to solve. Vancouver est considérée internationalement comme une des villes les plus belles et des plus agréables à vivre, en raison particulièrement de l’intégration de son environnement naturel. Nichée sur un petit plateau entre de séduisantes plages, les côtes dramatiques du Pacifique et la chaîne Côtière, la ville clame hautement son environnement fortement esthétique depuis plus d’un siècle. La qualité de son eau a fait partie intégrante de ce message du fait que ses sources d’eau potable sont d’une qualité telle qu’à travers son histoire, la ville n’a jamais eu besoin de la traiter chimiquement ou d’autre façon, hors un simple filtrage.

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Urban Elites, Energy, and Smoke Policy in Montreal during the Interwar Period

MacFadyen¹

2016

Urban History Review

3

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During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Montreal’s air was blackened by smoke from coal-burning homes, factories, and the locomotives and lake freighters connecting its growing economy to the rest of Canada. Lacking regulatory tools suited to the task of abating this nuisance, the municipal government passed the country’s first modern smoke bylaw, consisting of an objective emissions standard, a smoke control bureau, and requirements for the installation and utilization of technology to lessen emissions. In providing an account of the process through which Montreal’s smoke nuisance was addressed, this article describes the role of the city’s most influential local growth coalition, the Montreal Board of Trade, in introducing the issue on the city’s policy agenda, participating in the formulation of a policy response, and monitoring the implementation of the resulting bylaw. The Board of Trade sought a resolution to the problem because it damaged the city’s reputation and business climate. Consistent with other documented examples of smoke abatement in large urban areas, the response promoted by this elite growth coalition consisted largely of technology-based measures that managed the problem while eschewing recourse to measures that would dampen economic activity.

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Environmental Nuisances and Political Contestation in Canadian Cities: Research on the Regulation of Urban Growth’s Unwanted Outcomes

Cited by 5 publications

References 18 publications

“An Eden that is practically uninhabited by humans”: Manipulating Wilderness in Managing Vancouver’s Drinking Water, 1880–1930

“An Eden that is practically uninhabited by humans”: Manipulating Wilderness in Managing Vancouver’s Drinking Water, 1880–1930

“An Eden that is practically uninhabited by humans”: Manipulating Wilderness in Managing Vancouver’s Drinking Water, 1880–1930

Urban Elites, Energy, and Smoke Policy in Montreal during the Interwar Period

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