Commercial Drive area still gritty despite gentrification
| elly Sinoski |
| Vancouver Sun |
Sunday, April 06, 2008
|
VANCOUVER - House prices in Vancouver's Commercial Drive area have tripled in the past decade, drawing yuppies to the now-million-dollar homes, yet some of the grittier problems in the city's vibrant urban village remain.
Homeless people sleep in alcoves. Crack dealers deal openly on street corners. On the periphery of the area, prostitutes still seek customers.
Nonetheless, people who live on "The Drive" say they love the ambience of the neighbourhood and its cafes, shops and diverse and eclectic art, people and music, according to a recent joint survey by the Grandview-Woodland Community Police Station and Simon Fraser University's Canadian Urban Research Studies.
The study, which surveyed 700 respondents, including musicians, homeless people, businesspeople and residents, found gentrification of The Drive hasn't eliminated specific social problems found in an identical study 10 years ago.
Most of those surveyed say they're still concerned about dirty needles, graffiti, litter and condoms on the street and don't like to be confronted by aggressive panhandlers or sex-trade workers near their homes.
Yet 79 per cent of people say they enjoy living in the area, even though 44 per cent have been victims of property crime.
"The diversity is what people like about it; what they don't like is major public disorder," said SFU professor Patricia Brantingham, who helped conduct the study. "The types of public disorder have the same impact ... people want it to look cleaner, less gritty. They wanted it 10 years ago and they want it now."
Eileen Mosca, president of the Grandview-Woodland Community Policing Station, said dirty needles are a huge concern among the respondents with 70 per cent reporting used needles in the neighbourhood.
Her group plans to recommend that the province consider a 10-cent deposit on used needles, giving street binners - who would be given gloves, tongs and training - the option to collect them.
"It's been an ongoing problem," she said. "[It] warrants doing something drastic that hasn't been tried before."
Mosca, who conducted the interviews for last year's survey, noted despite the social problems, the community is tolerant and compassionate toward passive panhandlers, sex-trade workers and the homeless, who are being shuffled to the area from the Downtown Eastside.
"The core of the community and the way [people] think has stayed the same. I thought people who were buying houses for $800,000 would have possessed a more yuppie viewpoint," she said. "But I think they bought those houses with a viewpoint of what neighbourhood they were moving into. People living here are well aware of the nature of the community and it suits them."
Brantingham said gentrification won't necessarily change the face or underbelly of a community. Nor will some people want it to.
"When people look at areas to move into, they look into an area's character. People who spend more and move into areas like Commercial Drive, they're moving in because they like the certain type of vibrancy that goes on there," she said.
"Gentrification doesn't always mean moving to a more staid or particular lifestyle."
However, the change can bring its own problems. The survey found people are now more worried about safety at the Broadway and Commercial SkyTrain station - cited as one of Western Canada's largest transit hubs with 70,000 people passing through each day- than at Grandview Park, which was the hotspot 10 years ago.
The prevalence of open drug-dealing is also a major concern.
Craig Paterson, a lawyer who has lived or worked on The Drive since the 1970s, blames SkyTrain for boosting crime on Commercial. Earlier this year, he confronted youths who were coming through the underground parking to bunk down in his office building stairwell.
When he tried to chase them out, he was struck in the face by a woman wielding a pencil. It just missed his eye.
"They look menacing with their hoodies and their aggressive behaviour," Paterson said of the drug dealers. "They scare the hell out of people. Drug dealing and drug selling, that's what scares people."
But Vancouver Const. Jana McGuinness said it's wrong to blame SkyTrain, noting that police are still dealing with the "same calls we've dealt with for years and years."
"Nothing has spiked or waned," she said. "It's been pretty consistent."
ksinoski@png.canwest.com