The City That Could Have Been

When I run past Coal Harbour or drive along its Dunsmuir Viaduct, I experience the results of what’s arguably the most consequential policy choice in Vancouver’s history. In February 1973, the city’s eleven-member council voted overwhelmingly against constructing a freeway through the downtown core. The decision arose from powerful forces beyond municipal institutions: namely, local opposition that impelled the Pierre Trudeau government to withdraw federal support for the project. However, it also signalled a tidal shift within those institutions.

Public antipathy toward the highway proposal had helped fuel the election, in 1972, of a new, more progressive political party, The Electors’ Action Movement, known as TEAM, which routed the long-standing pro-­development, pro-­freeway Non-­Partisan Association. The...