Showing posts with label brand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brand. Show all posts
01 March 2010
15 January 2010
The Hidden Costs of Branding British Columbia
No. 2931 - 06 Feb 2008 - 18:00:27Gastown, Vancouver
The count down is upon us and the preparations intensify as the true purpose of our interest in this corporate/public partnership, known as Vancouver 2010, is revealed to be tourism. Images and slogans for Supernatural British Columbia abound from every advertising opportunity. They entice visitors to visit more, again, and often by way of images and video of awesome scenery and wildlife. As a native daughter of the province I have seen much of it over the years and enjoy recalling the beauty of all five of its distinct geographical regions. But stewardship of the land is costly and easily degraded and the public trust and our common interest, in all things natural and supernatural, is being campbellized. The latest province-wide fire sale involves selling the rights to our rivers to corporate concerns friendly with the governments of the day. (Could it also be an effective way to privatize fresh water without going to the trouble of informing the public or obeying the law?)
Memo Foolish humans and other British Columbians . . . once we lose our rights we may never get them back. Enjoy the party but keep an eye on the back door for the inevitable thieves.
08 January 2010
Coast Salish Endowment
No. 4119 - 05 Oct 2007 - 09:06:00Gastown, Vancouver
If it is true that the land is worth more than the improvements placed upon it, why does a Scottish industrialist's name remain steadfastly all over a building that is on land he never owned?
The record shows that the land in question was never relinquished to the Crown by the hereditary title holders, the Coast Salish peoples, who contend that without a treaty, the land is, in effect, stolen.
Contemporaneously, Andrew Carnegie (the man whose moniker lives on in copperplate-gothic) was successfully branding himself by way of steel and education: making money with one and encouraging free enterprise through learning with the other. Funding for library infrastructure was available to any interested city, in the USA or the Commonwealth, willing to put the Carnegie name on a civic building. A municipality had only to come up with suitable land and nothing is more suitably inexpensive than free land.
The corner upon which the building is situated, at Main and Hastings, is a hilltop from which the street descends west through the downtown core to the harbour. Four blocks along the Hastings corridor is the Woodwards District . This multi-use real estate development was once the home of a family-owned department store that lost control of ownership in 1993. After ninety years in business their leaving created an economic and emotional deficit in the neighbourhood. Because the brand lives on under its former name, in the current re-development of the property, much focus is put on sentimentalizing the past in order to sell the future. Unfortunately, the number of social housing units originally planned for the project was significantly curtailed early in the process.
Now that The City of Vancouver has (quietly) pulled the brand name DowntownEastside from its official language there is present an opportunity to recognize the land's hereditary caretakers. The intersection at Main and Hastings is a focal point that dominates the attention of the city's oldest neighbourhoods: Gastown, Chinatown, Strathcona, Victory Square, and Oppenheimer/Japantown. This place deserves an older, better, less contrived name to help heal the shame and reflect the spiritual and moral potential at the centre of our city.
With equality comes success.
If it is true that the land is worth more than the improvements placed upon it, why does a Scottish industrialist's name remain steadfastly all over a building that is on land he never owned?
*rhetorical question alert*
The record shows that the land in question was never relinquished to the Crown by the hereditary title holders, the Coast Salish peoples, who contend that without a treaty, the land is, in effect, stolen.
Contemporaneously, Andrew Carnegie (the man whose moniker lives on in copperplate-gothic) was successfully branding himself by way of steel and education: making money with one and encouraging free enterprise through learning with the other. Funding for library infrastructure was available to any interested city, in the USA or the Commonwealth, willing to put the Carnegie name on a civic building. A municipality had only to come up with suitable land and nothing is more suitably inexpensive than free land.
The corner upon which the building is situated, at Main and Hastings, is a hilltop from which the street descends west through the downtown core to the harbour. Four blocks along the Hastings corridor is the Woodwards District . This multi-use real estate development was once the home of a family-owned department store that lost control of ownership in 1993. After ninety years in business their leaving created an economic and emotional deficit in the neighbourhood. Because the brand lives on under its former name, in the current re-development of the property, much focus is put on sentimentalizing the past in order to sell the future. Unfortunately, the number of social housing units originally planned for the project was significantly curtailed early in the process.
Now that The City of Vancouver has (quietly) pulled the brand name DowntownEastside from its official language there is present an opportunity to recognize the land's hereditary caretakers. The intersection at Main and Hastings is a focal point that dominates the attention of the city's oldest neighbourhoods: Gastown, Chinatown, Strathcona, Victory Square, and Oppenheimer/Japantown. This place deserves an older, better, less contrived name to help heal the shame and reflect the spiritual and moral potential at the centre of our city.
With equality comes success.
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