Indy Dreams and Urban Nightmares : Speed Merchants, Spectacle, and the Struggle over Public Space in the World Class City [1 ed.] 9781442670228, 9780802084989

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INDY DREAMS AND URBAN NIGHTMARES Speed Merchants, Spectacle, and the Struggle over Public Space in the World-Class City

What role do sporting spectacles play in the making of a 'worldclass' city? Indy Dreams and Urban Nightmares examines the conflict that arose between a Vancouver community and the civic boosters who wanted to move the Molson Indy Vancouver motorsport event to their neighbourhood park. Arguing that such events are simply a matter of economic and cultural 'common sense,' the civic boosters promoted the Indy spectacle as a means of gaining 'world-class' status for the city. Against this background, Lowes explores the complex relations between major league sport, urban landscape, and civic identity. He argues that the capacity to articulate a city's 'vision' for itself is an important manifestation of power and ideology, and a notable point of struggle in contemporary urban life. This encompasses much larger issues related to the struggle over urban public space and the legitimacy of a particular narrative of urban growth and civic identity - one that increasingly privileges the consumer over the citizen. Provocative and engaging, this study examines the impact of major sports events on urban centres, and shows how urban public culture is defined and shaped by competition for the right to conceptualize, control, and experience a city's public spaces. MARK DOUGLAS LOWES is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa.

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MARK DOUGLAS LOWES

Indy Dreams and Urban Nightmares Speed Merchants, Spectacle, and the Struggle over Public Space in the World-Class City

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2002 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-3672-4 (cloth) ISBN 0-8020-8498-2 (paper)

@* Printed on acid-free paper

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Lowes, Mark Douglas, 1969Indy dreams and urban nightmares : speed merchants, spectacle, and the struggle over public space in the world-class city Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-3672-4 (bound). ISBN 0-8020-8498-2 (pbk.) 1. City planning - British Columbia - Vancouver - Citizen participation. 2. Public spaces - British Columbia - Vancouver. 3. Automobile racing British Columbia - Vancouver. 4. Sports and tourism - British Columbia Vancouver. 5. Hastings Park (Vancouver, B.C.) 6. Urban economics - Case studies. 7. Community organization - Citizen participation - Case studies. I. Title GV1034.15.M64L69 2002

307.76*0971133

C2001-903730-9

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Maya

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Contents

FOREWORD IX PREFACE Xiii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xix

Introduction 3

1 Spectacular Consumption Spaces 14 2 Competing Visions 38 3 Selling the Spectacle 58 4 Resisting the Spectacle 92 5 Spectacular Space and the Ideology of the 'World-Class' City 112 APPENDIX: A NOTE ON METHOD 123 NOTES 127 REFERENCES 141 INDEX 147

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Foreword

In the early 1970s, a classmate of mine in graduate school wrote an interesting research paper on behaviour in bars in Hamilton, Ontario, during 'Grey Cup Week.' It was a modest little study that he undertook by visiting bar after bar during the week's festivities, observing how people behaved in different kinds of bars. The findings were also modest, but revealing nonetheless. In middleclass hotels and lounges my classmate found lineups, larger-thanusual crowds, and an atmosphere of almost delirious celebration. But in the city's cheap draft beer lounges and taverns, frequented by the unemployed and by low-paid industrial and service workers, far fewer people were celebrating. In these bars, while it was true that many patrons were interested in the upcoming game, there were no crowds, and the atmosphere was one of business as usual. Grey Cup Week, my classmate concluded, meant different things to different people. For the mobile middle classes in the metropolitan areas of Toronto, Hamilton, and beyond, the Grey Cup festivities were an opportunity for a socially sanctioned binge. For civic boosters, restaurants, and hotels, the festivities reinforced local pride and seemingly brought new money into the community. But for people who were struggling to make ends meet - people typically not included in the urban development plans of local elites - the festivities associated with the Grey Cup were not making much of an impression at all. The world has changed a lot since the 1970s. One thing that has remained the same, however, is the existence of ongoing class and

x Foreword community divisions regarding the support and enjoyment of spectacular urban entertainments. The problem is that these divisions are not always easy to see unless one makes a point of looking for them. Local politicians and newspapers typically treat the interests and enthusiasms of developers, downtown property owners, and middle-class consumers as something synonymous with the well-being of 'the city' itself. This tendency to represent sectoral interests as the general interest has a long history in North American urban politics, but it has arguably become even more notable in the past three decades. Many forms of traditional industry in North America have either collapsed or become reorganized, and city politicians and local businesses have competed aggressively for new forms of international investment. The cultural industries associated with design, advertising, media, leisure, and entertainment are now perceived to be vitally important features of the global economy. As this has occurred, the staging of major 'events' in the contemporary city has come to rival the more traditional making of things. At the same time, support for the promotion, financing, and construction of facilities needed to support these events is increasingly portrayed as a matter of civic duty. This is the context for Mark Lowes's fascinating and lucidly written study of one small community's opposition in 1997 to a plan to move the Molson Indy Car race in Vancouver to a new venue - in their district. Faced with the prospect of losing access to their downtown race course, promoters of the Molson Indy Vancouver proposed to move east to Hastings Park, the longtime site of the Pacific National Exhibition. The problem was that local residents had for years lobbied the city of Vancouver Parks Board to reduce commercial activity in the park and restore it to green space. In 1996, a major plan to do this was approved. The plan immediately created a conflict between the race promoters' desires to relocate the Vancouver Indy to the area and the local residents' dreams of non-commercial green space. Lowes provides a critical discussion of the economic pressures faced by major cities in North America that have led to a new obsessiveness about civic image and an insatiable appetite for

Foreword xi so-called hallmark events and world-class facilities. These trends are part and parcel of a parallel trend towards gentrification and the reorganization of urban life around 'lifestyle-biased consumption sites.' Unfortunately, Lowes argues, gentrification has displaced low-income earners and has lent itself to increased concerns about security and to higher levels of state surveillance. Moreover, new patterns of urban investment in spectacular consumer sites and events have not typically been matched by parallel forms of investment in public institutions and in social programs for low-income earners, let alone the homeless. As public institutions, urban parks provide something of an exception to this tendency. Partly this is because they are so popular and partly because major urban parks (such as Central Park in New York or Stanley Park in Vancouver) have become so closely associated with civic image. Lowes offers a brief history of the Hastings Park area, beginning with an analysis of the pressures that led to the early and ongoing commercialization of the park. In contrast to Stanley Park, where powerful upper- and middleclass interests have successfully fought to keep the park 'green,' Hastings Park over the years became the site of a racetrack, an exposition, an amusement park, and a major sports arena. Thus, from the standpoint of Indy race promoters moving to Hastings Park seemed like a natural fit. Local residents, however, opposed the idea bitterly. They did not want the noise and the disruption, and they saw the proposed move as a re-commercialization of land that was supposed to be slated for more passive, environmentally sensitive, public use. The core of Lowes's work lies in his excellent discussion of the strategies used by the groups that allied to sell the proposed new race venue to Vancouverites overall and to Hastings Park area residents in particular. Proponents of the move attacked community opposition through a complex combination of brinkmanship, bribery, and appeals to civic pride and economic 'good sense.' Initially, pro-race forces were also able to count on considerable support from the mainstream media, and they had access to an army of volunteers to spread their promotional message. The pro-race forces not only had substantial human and economic resources,

xii Foreword Lowes argues, but they also appeared to have 'ideology' on their side. Community activists had far fewer economic and symbolic resources at their disposal. Yet these community activists were able to win their struggle and block the relocation of the Molson Indy race to Hastings Park. How and why were they able to accomplish this? I do not want to give away too much of the plot here, except to say that Lowes's explanation is both insightful and compelling. In the end, Vancouver city councillors were able to keep the race in the city by finding a new downtown location on city property and leasing it to the race organizers until 2001 - a lease that the city has recently renewed for several more years. The 'greening' of Hastings Park continues, if slowly (much of the problem stems from the fact that the lease allowing the Pacific National Exhibition to operate in the park has been again extended, despite ongoing claims that the exhibition's days are numbered). Still, local residents are no longer without optimism about the future of their park. At the very least, residents of Hastings Park can take satisfaction in knowing that every summer they will be spared two weeks of congestion, closed streets, and the ear-splitting whine of Indy car engines. By telling the story of their struggle, Mark Lowes has made it possible for many other people to share in this satisfaction. Richard Gruneau School of Communication Simon Fraser University

Preface

A new and most disquieting image of the city has taken shape in recent years: that of the 'world-class' city as a postmodern metropolis so dominated by the landmarks and activities of consumerism that it has been reduced to the equivalent of a gigantic theme park, its residents powerless to do anything but consume. In this book I examine the economic, political, and cultural contexts in which such an image of Vancouver as a world-class city is constructed around one of its most visible and spectacular major league sports events - the annual Molson Indy Vancouver motorsport event. In a world increasingly permeated by promotional culture, the overbearing presence of sports entertainment megaprojects in our everyday lives cannot be ignored. Along these lines the sociologist David Whitson has proposed that major league sport has become one of the 'last great public rituals of late twentieth century culture,' an argument I take up and develop in this book.1 Taken in the broader context of an increasingly global sports entertainment industry and its seamless integration with mass media that reach global audiences, the Molson Indy Vancouver (MIV) has become one of the key features of a promotional strategy by which Vancouver is projected as a world-class city. Major league sports entertainment events such as the MIV have become surrogates for, and mobilizers of, civic identity in Vancouver and many other North American cities. Indeed civic officials

xiv Preface in both Canada and the United States have apparently bought into the idea that major league sports teams, international sporting events, and the 'world-class' facilities associated with them are essential in projecting an image of cultural sophistication and economic dynamism. Consequently, in their desire to attract or retain major league commercial sports franchises, local governments often work hard to accommodate or provide for the revenue needs of the sports industry (especially with new or heavily renovated stadiums possessing plenty of revenue-generating corporate boxes and luxury suites). Many civic officials in major North American cities contend that the construction of a new stadium or event site is essential to retain or acquire at least one professional sports franchise. Cities that have successfully lured major league teams and world-class sports events away from other cities anticipate that the public costs of stadium construction and lobbying for events will be more than recouped by increased economic activity and escalating tax revenues. One key element of these imagined future revenues is supposedly derived from the public visibility afforded the city through its involvement with major league sport. 'Indeed the pursuit of major league [sports] franchises and "world-class" events is now best understood as part of a larger project in which corporate and civic elites struggle to establish and maintain their cities' status in a transnational economic and cultural hierarchy of cities.'2 In effect, professional sports events are seen to function as promotional vehicles for the city. This is precisely the case with the Molson Indy Vancouver (MIV), at least insofar as its various boosters would argue. Of course, major league sporting spectacles often do constitute money-making ventures for organizers, sponsors, and those in the tourism, real estate, and construction industries. However, it is crucial to note that not everyone is in line with this promotional discourse. There is opposition to the development of sports entertainment megaprojects; people do have concern about how their communities are developed - which is precisely the key issue this book explores.

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It is important to underscore the point that market-driven urban development forces do not always win - that discourses opposing spectacular urban entertainment megaproject developments have resonance in today's promotional culture. As I argue in this book's Conclusion, at a time when local communities seem to be under assault from all sides it is important to celebrate occasions when Canadians act as though their communities 'belong to them,' rather than to the developers and other business, political, and cultural elites who typically constitute a city's power bloc. Ultimately, this Molson Indy Vancouver case study shows how community organizations can voice their anger over a loss of local control of the face of development forces. Citizens can take back control of the urban landscape and implement their own local visions of their community's future. Indy Dreams and Urban Nightmares presents the findings of a case study of how a Vancouver community mobilized local anger and opposition to the Molson Indy motorsport event - successfully preventing its relocation to their neighbourhood park. The book examines the difficult struggles facing community activists and other opponents of sports entertainment megaprojects. In this case, activists confronted powerful civic boosters who argued that hosting the annual Molson Indy event is simply a matter of economic and cultural 'common sense' - that such spectacle is a necessary component of broader efforts to gain world-class status for the city. Against this background, the aim of this book is to explore the increasing role that major league sports are playing in the economic and cultural growth strategies of major North American cities. I develop the thesis that events such as the Molson Indy Vancouver can serve as effective organizing points for popular resistance to the ideology of the world-class city. This is an ideology that attempts to replace the citizen with the consumer as the focal point of urban public life. The concepts 'citizenship,' 'ideology,' and 'promotional discourse' underpin my analysis of the Indy relocation conflict. As Vincent Mosco has remarked, it is especially important to invoke citizenship today because much of what we see in the media

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addresses people as consumers or as audiences. In Mosco's view, citizenship 'elevates human activity beyond the commonly accepted view that the best way, indeed, for some, the only way, to define human activity is by its marketplace value, its worth as a consuming or laboring commodity.'3 The research questions framing the scope this study are the following: • What role do sports entertainment megaprojects play in the growth strategies of world-class cities? • Who is positively and negatively affected by the pursuit of world-class status, particularly in the area of developing a sports entertainment spectacle? • Whose interests are best served by the definition of world-class status constructed in the image of flexible accumulation? • Who is 'invited' to move through the spectacular consumption spaces of the world-class city? Who is left out, and why? • What is at stake in the struggle to define what being world-class really means? These are important questions. They need to be addressed because their answers will determine the direction to be taken in future struggles over the city and the use and development of its public spaces. So much for what this book attempts to do. Now, in setting out the parameters of this inquiry I want to say something what this book does not attempt to do. First, this is not a book about other books; I do not go into detailed discussions of existing theories of gentrification, urbanization, citizenship, consumption, and the like. From work in these areas, however, I draw on and apply a number of key concepts and ideas to my case study of the Molson Indy Vancouver relocation conflict. In doing so I have tried to ground my analysis in observation, without reducing theorization to commentary or simple journalism. Accordingly, Indy Dreams and Urban Nightmares constitutes an exploratory study. As defined by Robert Stebbins, social science exploration is 'abroad-ranging, purposive, systematic, prearranged

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xvii

undertaking designed to maximize the discovery of generalizations leading to description and understanding of an area of social or psychological life.'4 This approach emphasizes development of theory from data, in the tradition of grounded theory. In this sense, Stebbins continues, researchers 'explore when they have little or no scientific knowledge about the group, process, activity, or situation they want to examine but nevertheless have reason to believe it contains elements worth discovering.'5 Moreover, because the study of major league motorsport and the role it plays in the promotional strategies of major cities is an uncharted area in the literatures on sport and urban studies, this book is necessarily an exploratory work which emphasizes the empirical findings of the case study at hand. The case study 'is a method that relies on the examination of a single instance of a phenomenon to explore, often in rich detail, the hows and why of a problem.'6 The urban case study is a useful research design for examining how changing political opportunity and framing processes affect the fate of a locally based movement - in this instance, community resistance to the relocation of the Molson Indy Vancouver. With this study I did not set out to assess claims that Vancouver is a 'world-class' city and that the MIV is an indicator of such status. Rather, my interest lies in exploring this notion of 'worldclass' as a rhetorical construct deployed by pro-MIV forces in their attempt to secure widespread public support for the proposed relocation of the event site to Hastings Park, and how community and park activists constructed and deployed their own rhetoric as a counter to this.

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Acknowledgments

This book would never have gotten off the ground were it not for the encouragement of Rick Gruneau, my doctoral supervisor and friend. I am grateful for all the time and effort he has put into this project over the past five years. I also want to thank Virgil Duff, executive editor at the University of Toronto Press, who has supported this project from the time I approached him with the manuscript. I would like to acknowledge the financial support I received during the course of this book's research and writing. In its early stages as a doctoral dissertation, I was awarded a research grant from the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in 1998. Later, in July of 2000, when I took up my position in the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa, I was provided with a much-needed partial release from teaching which afforded me the time to complete final revisions to the manuscript. For this I am grateful to my colleagues Patrick Brunei, David Staines, and Robert Major. Special thanks are reserved for Maya Spitz, who has scrutinized and commented on nearly every sentence in this book. I immensely enjoy our spirited debates and tussles over words and ideas, and look forward to a lifetime of them. In memory of my grandmother, Lily McDermott. And a dear friend, Rycke Pothiers.

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INDY DREAMS AND URBAN NIGHTMARES

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Introduction

At the dawn of 1997, promoters of the Molson Indy motorsport event in Vancouver were confronted with an immediate and lifethreatening crisis - homelessness. Since its inaugural race in 1990, the Molson Indy Vancouver (MIV) has been sited at False Creek on the former Expo 86 grounds, one of Vancouver's most prized pieces of downtown waterfront real estate. However, accelerating residential and commercial development in the area had rendered the site economically unfeasible for the MIV's promoter, Molstar Sports and Entertainment (a division of Molson Breweries). A new phase of construction planned for a development megaproject on the north shore of False Creek (through which the road course runs) threatened to eliminate 'Grandstand 19,' the MIV's largest and most profitable grandstand, a 7,500-seater ideally situated at the track's first hairpin turn. The loss of this land also threatened to compromise race profits by infringing on the MIV's 'hospitality' area. Resembling an upscale tent city, the hospitality area is packed with suites and chalets that are akin to the corporate boxes of major league sports stadiums. Prices for these corporate retreats range from $5,000 to $25,000 for the three-day event weekend. In brief, the problem confronting organizers was spatial. With an impending reduction of available space in the face of new high-density luxury condominiums and upscale retail and office building complexes, where could organizers turn to shoehorn in the numerous grandstands, car paddocks, motorhomes, retail strip,

4 Introduction

Map 1 Molson Indy road course and event site at False Creek, 1997

Introduction 5 and corporate chalets necessary to wring profits from the race? 'This is what we walked into the New Year with. Welcome to 1997,' quipped one Indy staffer.1 Confronted with this crisis of space, MIV management set out in earnest to find a new site. Adding fuel to the fire was the insistence by Indy-car racing's governing body, Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), that a new site be secured by 31 March 1997, or the race would be taken from Vancouver and awarded to another city. Although several potential sites were identified, one was tapped immediately as the front-runner: Hastings Park, a 160-acre tract of land located in the northeast corner of Vancouver, about 16 kilometres from downtown. Hastings Park was one of the few local sites that met key criteria set out by race organizers: financial viability, multiple access points for crowds, public transportation service, at least 130 acres of usable land, a temporary 2.8-kilometre street course with a 'downtown feel,' and twelve weeks of site availability to set up and take down the fencing, grandstands, pits, and other race apparatus. Aside from meeting these crucial specifications, what also made Hastings Park such an attractive site was its several decades of experience hosting sports entertainment and other major commercial events - such as thoroughbred horse racing, an amusement park, professional sports teams (B.C. Lions football, Vancouver Canucks hockey, and Vancouver Whitecaps soccer), trade shows, and countless music concerts. By far the most significant of these, with respect to both size and prestige, is the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE). In recent years the seventeen-day PNE, which has been located at Hastings Park since its inception in 1910, has attracted almost a million people annually. Given this history, Indy officials were optimistic that the MIV could be accommodated with very little adjustment on the part of local residents. After all, they were accustomed to the several weeks of crowds each summer and the noise, traffic congestion, and pollution that inevitably accompany such events. In addition, the PNE was supposed to be vacating Hastings Park after its 1999 fair, leaving the site wide open for the development of a permanent Indy race track in its place.

6 Introduction Relocating the MIV to Hastings Park would mean that the promoter, Molstar Sports and Entertainment, could keep its Vancouver event and the city of Vancouver could keep an entertainment spectacle which is said to generate some estimated $20 million in economic activity each Labour Day weekend. Vancouver would continue to receive the kind of international television exposure that makes tourism officials drool - earlier Vancouver Indy events had been broadcast into approximately 100 million homes in 108 countries. What the pro-Indy forces did not count on, however, was running headlong into a wall of opposition from the local community at Hastings Park. Hastings Park was created in 1889 when the provincial government granted a 160-acre tract of land to the city of Vancouver. Originally intended 'for the use, recreation and enjoyment of the public,' the park was quickly taken over by commercial interests and developed to serve the amusement and sporting interests of the city's citizens. By 1910 the park had come to resemble an exhibition, amusement, and sports centre more than it did an urban green space - and for several decades thereafter, the primary mode of consumption at the park was intense urban spectacle. In other words, Hastings Park functioned for much of the 1900s as 'a utilitarian, multi-purpose recreational centre.'2 In the late 1970s residents of the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood began urging Vancouver city council and the city's Board of Parks and Recreation to undertake a major revitalization of the park. What they called for was the phasing out of all major commercial activities and infrastructure, demanding that a natural environment be restored at this public park - an environment featuring what can be considered passive rather than active forms of recreation and leisure pursuit. Finally, in the mid-1990s, after years of discussion and intense lobbying efforts, this struggle for the recognition of the site's original park designation seemed won. A major restoration project designed to 'green' Hastings Park was unanimously approved iri the spring of 1996 by the Vancouver city council, the Board of Parks and Recreation, and various groups representing local residents, business interests, environ-

Introduction

7

mentalists, and unionized workers. The objective was clear and unequivocal: to restore Hastings Park to a natural park, thereby creating a major green space for the east side of the city, considered park-deficient by city standards. This was to be a high-profile green space, similar to the famous Stanley Park on Vancouver's western flank. The 'greening' mandate called for a wave of changes designed to reintroduce to the park qualities that were lost to a century of urban development: abundant areas for quiet leisure and contemplation; the 'daylighting' of Hastings Creek, a salmon-bearing stream that had been buried back in 1935; the creation of forests, meadows, and gardens, of playing fields and facilities for amateur sports and recreation; and the creation of better connections between the park and surrounding residential areas. Having presumably secured redevelopment plans for their park, the last thing community activists expected was a proposal to site the Molson Indy Vancouver there. Thus, when the MIV's general manager announced - publicly - in mid-January 1997 that Hastings Park was at the top of his wish list for a new event site, park activists immediately condemned the plan. They made it known loudly and clearly that there was no room in their park for an international motorsport event. Tt would be horrible - the noise,' complained one local resident. Said another, 'All the neighbours are psychologically prepared for a park. They deserve to have a green space.' Parks Board commissioner David Chesman declared the idea 'abhorrent.'3 A director of the Hastings Community Association (HCA) was equally direct in her opinion of the proposed Indy relocation: 'Why don't they plunk it out at UBC [the University of British Columbia] or put it in Point Grey or Shaughnessy [both affluent neighbourhoods]? Why is it okay to put it in the east end?' In the face of this hostility MIV officials kicked their public relations machine into full gear in an effort to win over their opponents. They argued that if they could not relocate to Hastings Park, then the race would be forced to leave Vancouver, taking with it all the spin-offs the race generates for the local and regional economies. They also dangled a number of 'treats' in

8 Introduction front of local residents, including free admission tickets to the event and jobs. These lobbying efforts culminated with a public hearing held by MIV officials to gauge public opinion on their Hastings Park relocation plan. More than 700 people showed up, almost unanimously against Indy. Only a few weeks after this hearing, Indy officials announced they were abandoning Hastings Park as a candidate site for the MIV relocation. The struggle between MIV officials and their allies, and local community groups around Hastings Park is a classic conflict over the appropriation and development of an urban public space. On the one hand you have the Indy promoter and Vancouver civic boosters who argued for a 'rational' use of public space which, from their perspective, meant using that space to site a world-class sports entertainment megaproject. On the other hand, the local community demanded that Vancouver city council honour its commitment to restore Hastings Park to natural green space; from this perspective a world-class green space was the most 'rational' use of the land. These are significant competing visions for the use and development of a major urban public space. This book is an exploration of how urban public culture is defined and shaped by competition over the right to conceptualize, control, and experience public spaces. The look and feel of cities and city spaces reflect decisions about what should be visible in them and what should not; concepts of order and disorder; and uses of power to legitimize the visible. Along these lines the geographer Doreen Massey has argued that such spaces 'do not have unique identities; they are full of internal conflicts.'4 The notion of a struggle to define space and to infuse it with particular meanings is a central theme in my analysis. This book examines questions of urban landscape, communication, and ideology through a case study of the failed attempt to relocate the Molson Indy Vancouver motorsport event to Hastings Park. I argue that the capacity to articulate a city's 'vision' for itself is an important manifestation of power and ideology, and a notable point of struggle in contemporary urban life. It encompasses much larger issues related to the struggle over urban public space

Introduction

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and the legitimacy of a particular narrative of urban growth and civic identity. Often it is the ability to communicate a coherent vision of space that enables a group to claim that space, to say how it should look, and who and what should be in it - what Sharon Zukin calls a 'framing process.'5 This struggle over Hastings Park between MlV-boosters and park activists exemplifies a notable conflict over urban land use and the competing forces involved in this conflict. In the spring of 1997, Hastings Park was quite clearly defined by conflict- a conflict over what its past had been (the nature of its 'heritage'); conflict over its present development and primary use; and conflict over its future. This struggle to control space, and the uses to which it is put, is a central issue confronting urban public culture today. Major league sports venues of different types have assumed a greater visibility and importance in such struggles. As a result there is a growing literature that draws attention to big-time sports and to how many North American cities have sought to enhance their image and bring renewed economic prosperity to their downtown core through spectacular leisure and consumption-biased developments.6 This literature draws attention to the fact that many civic leaders and business interests now view professional sports as an important engine of economic growth. City officials from Montreal to Tampa Bay, Toronto to San Francisco, Vancouver to Los Angeles, have embraced the idea that major league sports teams, events, and their facilities are essential in projecting a world class image. As one American mayor puts it, 'The image of a city is certainly affected by the presence of a professional [sports] franchise ... If you ask people what the great cities of America are, I'll bet 99 out of 100 cite an NFL city.'7 Consequently, in their desire to attract or retain major league commercial sports franchises and events, local governments often work hard to accommodate or provide for the revenue needs of the sports industry, especially in the form of new or heavily renovated stadiums with plenty of revenue-generating corporate boxes and luxury suites. Many officials in major North American cities contend that new stadium or event site construction is essential to retain or acquire at least one professional sports franchise, be it a

10

Introduction

team or event (such as the Molson Indy). Cities that have successfully lured major league teams and world-class sports events away from other cities anticipate that the public costs of stadium construction and event lobbying will be more than recouped by increased economic activity and escalating tax revenues.8 One key element of these imagined future revenues is supposedly derived from the public visibility afforded the city through its involvement with major league sports. In a discussion of Calgary's hosting of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games, sociologist Harry Hiller calls this the 'showcase effect': 'It is argued that the impact of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary goes beyond the new facilities and the events themselves to the "showcase effect" which the Olympics have for Calgary as a city come of age through recent economic development.'9 There is an increasing amount of sustained critical analysis of the substance behind these claims, and the reasons civic leaders feel so compelled to make them. Much of this discussion has been primarily quantitative, concerned with an examination of the direct costs to host communities with respect to the enormous public subsidies that go to franchise owners looking for tax breaks, cheap city land to site their events, and concession and parking revenues. In large measure the academic research challenges the assertions of professional sports boosters who justify significant public subsidies for the construction of stadiums and other facilities on the grounds that major league sport is a significant catalyst for economic growth. For example, Robert Baade and Richard Dye conclude from their studies of the economic impact of stadiums and professional sports on urban development that in the majority of cities analysed, stadiums and teams contributed nothing of statistical significance to the metropolitan economy. They argue that public funding of professional sports, particularly as it relates to stadiums, is not a sound civic economic investment. 'If opportunity costs are included in the cost-benefit calculus, public investments in stadiums will exhibit negative returns.'10 Others also argue that civic funding directed to subsidize major league sports would likely realize a higher return if put to other purposes.11

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11

Sophisticated quantitative studies of the economic impact of major league sports teams and events provide a useful corrective to the exaggerated economic growth claims of sports promoters and civic boosters. Still, it is far less easy to quantify the potential economic effects of increased urban 'visibility,' particularly with respect to long-term growth in tourism, conventions, business, and offshore investment. Indeed, it does seem reasonable to assume that internationally televised world-class events may have some positive cumulative economic benefits to the host community over the long run. This leaves aside the question whether such subsidies might be better spent on other activities. In every community there are groups who believe strongly that cities are better served by investing in other areas of civic life: in public services, community groups, and different kinds of public spaces. To understand these alternative viewpoints, we need qualitative research on community responses to sports-entertainment megaprojects. Most notably there is a dearth of detailed analysis of successful opposition to the promotion of such spectacles. The conspicuous failure of many stadiums, for example, to provide the promised economic expansion has led to increasingly popular resistance to public subsidies for stadiums in cities throughout North America. Yet most of what we seem to hear about are the victories for major league sports promoters - the inevitability of it all. Must it be the case that 'when capital confronts community, it is capital that wins the day'?12 David Harvey suggests that contemporary capital cannot be undone through localized political movements; he sees little, if any, potential to alter the historical course of capital development within such localized opposition. From his perspective, localized resistance is 'relatively empowered to organize in place but disempowered when it comes to organizing over space': Tn clinging, often of necessity, to a place-bound identity, however, such oppositional movements become a part of the very fragmentation which a mobile capitalism and flexible accumulation can feed upon. Regional resistances, the struggle for local autonomy, placebound organization, may be excellent bases for political action, but they cannot bear the burden of radical historical change alone.'

12 Introduction These are challenging observations. However, their pessimism offers little to local residents who occasionally do unite against threats to 'place' - people who struggle against the loss of control over determining the shape of their communities and landscapes at the hands of developers and other growth boosters. While it is undoubtably important to keep global tendencies in capital accumulation in view, it is also of vital importance to undertake case studies of urban conflicts over land use that identify spaces of local resistance. Not only do we need to develop new and dynamic theories of urban space, but we especially need applications of such theory; this is precisely what this study does. At a time when communities are under assault from all sides by development forces, it is important to tell stories about the successes of community activists who oppose the 'common sense' foisted on them by growth boosters of all stripes. The case study which is at the core of this book - about local resistance to an attempt to relocate the Molson Indy Vancouver to Hastings Park - tells such a story. My rendering of this story is based on research undertaken immediately following the period of struggle over Hastings Park (from May through September 1997); this was supplemented by four days of fleldwork at the 1997 Molson Indy Vancouver event during the Labour Day holiday. Over the course of the research I reviewed official and unofficial documents, media accounts, and historical sources. In addition, I conducted in-depth interviews with various Molson Indy Vancouver officials and administrative personnel; media relations staff with the Pace Group, a private communications firm contracted to handle the MIV's media and public relations; members of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation; members of a variety of Hastings Park community volunteer associations; and members of the Race Event Volunteers of Vancouver association, which is the official volunteer association of the MIV. Additional information outlining methods are discussed in the Appendix. My analysis begins in Chapter 1 with some introductory comments about 'spectacular consumption places' in contemporary North American cities. The MIV and the struggle over land use at

Introduction

13

Hastings Park is situated in the context of broad transnational political, economic, and cultural dynamics. Other scholars have sought to analyse and understand the implications of these dynamics for the meanings of public space in the contemporary metropolis, and I offer my assessment of the challenges and issues they raise. Chapter 2 provides, first, a historical overview of the development and use of Hastings Park since its establishment, in the late 1880s, and then a more detailed discussion of the recent efforts of community activists to secure a commitment from the city of Vancouver to restore the park to green space. Against this, Chapters 3 and 4 examine the crisis sparked in early 1997 by the proposal to relocate the Molson Indy Vancouver car race to Hastings Park. In Chapter 3 the focus is on the concerted efforts undertaken by MIV officials and boosters to 'sell' the relocation plan to local residents and park activists, while Chapter 4 examines the successful opposition to the plan. In the concluding chapter I use the findings of the case study to develop the argument that major league sports events such as the Molson Indy Vancouver can serve as effective organizing points for popular resistance to the market ideology of the 'world-class city.' As noted earlier, this is an ideology that privileges the consumer over the citizen in urban public life.

1 Spectacular Consumption Spaces

In media coverage of the Molson Indy Vancouver, a recurrent theme is that the race puts Vancouver on 'the world stage' - a sensibility frequently captured by reference to the argument that hosting this spectacular international event could make Vancouver 'the Monaco of North America, Canada's Monte Carlo.' This allusion draws on all the glitz and glamour of Monaco: the high-flying royal family and its Hollywood connections through the late Grace Kelly, its palaces and mansions, posh hotels and casinos, breathtaking Mediterranean landscape, a playground for globetrotting financial power players, and not least - Monaco's annual Formula One race, the Monaco Grand Prix, one of the most prestigious and anticipated stops on the F-l circuit. Like its Monte Carlo referent, the Molson Indy Vancouver event and its spectacular False Creek site are saturated with meaning, with connotations of greatness, of European chic. Promoters argue that the Molson Indy brings all that to Vancouver - the international lifestyle of elite motorsport racing, its flashy drivers from all over the world, including Brazil, Argentina, and Spain. 'The Molson Indy Vancouver has gotten to the point where it's more than just a race. It has become a world-class event,' declared the chair of Tourism Vancouver at the 1995 event. The MIV brings all this to Vancouver every year. In this sense, to civic boosters the Molson Indy is a signifier of Vancouver's arrival as a world-class city. Tt is Canada's Monte Carlo, pure and simple, a stunning setting where the Coast Range meets the Pacific Ocean.'1

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 15 Vancouver's distant claim to 'Monte Carlo-ness' arises from its international pretensions as an emerging player on the world stage, its celebration of affluent lifestyle pursuits: the large concentration of art galleries, trendy clothing and accessory boutiques, hair salons, New Age bookstores, and many branches of Starbucks that saturate the False Creek area. Moreover, the Molson Indy gives the city international exposure through its coverage by the media, the media hordes spending up to four and five days in the city, covering not only the actual race but also various general interest stories about Vancouver and its surrounding region. In such coverage the city is typically represented as a world-class place. 'It puts Vancouver on the map, both as a major destination and a city that knows how to throw a party.'2 I asked a city engineer responsible for the Molson Indy file to explain what is in it for the city, hosting the Indy race. He answered unequivocally that the primary motivation for the city's support of the event is 'global exposure.' He explains: 'The city itself doesn't really make any money off the Molson Indy, [not directly]. Coverage of the race, it puts the city out to the world. It's exposure.' This international exposure, the argument runs, translates into economic windfall primarily through increased tourism. This is the apparent payoff for Vancouver and its business community. The city engineer I spoke to continues, explaining: 'You see how it works: you give away the television rights, if you want to pick it up in Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Australia - then go ahead and do it. You put it on the tube over there and - Hey, there's Vancouver. Look at those mountains, wouldn't that be a nice place to visit, do some skiing. You see? ... It's great for promoting Whistler-Blackcomb. The Molson Indy Vancouver has, several times, been reported as the Monaco of North America, alluding to the Formula One racing event held there each year, a major and really glamorous event that is known around the world.' Jerry Krull, a long-time motor sport enthusiast and promoter, elaborates this notion of Vancouver as Monaco: 'Monaco is a Formula One race. There's always the naysayers that show up in the local media there. If they took that race out of there, not only would the mystique be gone, so would that influx of cash that event

16 Indy Dreams generates once a year. But it's also a part of their culture, a key element of Monaco's identity as a glamorous international city. And that's what I'd like to see happen in Vancouver with the Molson Indy. There's a lot of public support for the race. It adds something significant, a big celebrity event, to the local area each year.' Along these same lines, the MIV's media relations director explains in so many words that the Indy is a key promotional signifier of Vancouver's world-class standing. He acknowledges that 'from a technical point of view we are a nuisance. We close roads, we close bridges, the cars are very noisy.' Nonetheless, he argues that 'overall, the community supports the race because its good for the city, its good profile, it's a lot of fun ... the race fills up the entire city. It's hard to find a hotel room for that long weekend in September. It brings a billion [television] viewers to Vancouver - and how do you put a number on that, in terms of promoting tourism or whatever? It just reinforces Vancouver's standing as an international city (my emphasis). Crucial to this imaging function of the Molson Indy is that organizers must site the race in a place that has 'a downtown, international feel... You can't stick the event just anywhere.' This is why, notes one MFV staffer, False Creek is such a perfect location: 'Down there, the race site is right beside the water. You've got the posh condo residences and office towers there, people in their yachts and whatnot, moored in the east False Creek basin. I mean, it's a very pretty sight, a very picturesque sight, which is another reason why the Indy group was pushing so hard to keep the race in Vancouver ... Burnaby and Surrey, they just aren't the same as False Creek, as downtown Vancouver. You know, Vancouver is a world-class city and that means a lot when you're hosting an event like this. For example, the Detroit Grand Prix - not to take anything away from their event, but its held at Detroit's old airport. It's not a pretty race they have there; it doesn't have any, uh, luster.' False Creek delivers this spectacular visual and physical landscape. As we shall see in the following chapters, so does Hastings Park, which is why it was the site organizers wanted to move to when they lost False Creek.

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 17 I M A G I N G THE ' W O R L D - C L A S S ' C I T Y

This express concern for image and the crucial role it plays in civic boosterism and urban growth strategies is not entirely a new phenomenon. Richard Gruneau and David Whitson make the point that image has always been important in the making of modern industrial cities. 'Boosterism,' they write, 'combines a promoter's professional optimism with a competitiveness that is presented simply as an instinct for survival.' At the beginning of the twentieth century the wide-open, entrepreneurial atmosphere of Canadian capitalism, for instance, found local boosters typically working hard to distinguish their nascent community from countless others like it. Western Canada, in particular, attracted 'dreamers and promoters' and those 'dreams (and investments) could quickly turn to dust if not enough people could be persuaded to share in them by settling in your community rather than somewhere else ... The presence of more settlers in a locale might make a trader set up a store or a doctor establish a medical practice. In turn, the presence of businesses and services that attracted farmers to do their business at one crossroads rather than another served to attract other businesses and more settlers to the area.'3 In this sense, the Canadian urban landscape was a highly contested promotional terrain. Whether an area would develop as an important urban centre or 'turn to dust' depended very much on the ability of its civic leaders to attract industry, jobs, and attractive urban recreations for its citizens. In this context, it was necessary to cultivate and disseminate an image of prosperity, of the area's entrepreneurial drive and boldness of vision. The presence of 'community life' was very important to constructing this image of a prosperous area, and for distinguishing it from other areas competing for the same investment capital and settlers. Gruneau and Whitson argue that a positive image of community life was significant not only because it made a difference to the happiness of settler or labourer families, but also because it 'reinforced the image of a vital (and hence probably growing) community.'4 It became common practice for business

18 Indy Dreams people and others who had an interest in promoting their communities to throw their support behind a variety of community associations and organizations. Sports teams in particular emerged as extremely popular promotional vehicles for spreading a town's reputation - especially the ones that beat their neighbours' teams at fairs and regional competitions.5 The organized sports that emerged in Canada during the last two decades of the 1800s and into the early twentieth century became very powerful vehicles for expressing community aspirations, spirit, pride, and prosperity. Throughout this period, the representative character of spectacular sports entertainment provided a new way of speaking metaphorically about the relationships between civic identities, status, and power in Canadian social life. When local athletes or teams began to represent their communities, the significance of winning or losing increased dramatically. Initially, when athletes came from or resided in their home communities, Gruneau and Whitson argue, it could be credibly claimed that the quality of a team's performance actually said something about the community that produced it - 'not only about the skill levels of its players, but also about the character of its people.'6 This representational dynamic was a constitutive element in the early urbanization and industrialization of Canada. It emerged at a time when the first brush strokes mapping the country we recognize today were drawn: a map featuring well-established centres of population and commerce, and substantial road, rail, and telecommunications networks to service them. In this context, sports and fairs, and the spectacular architecture often associated with them, joined together in a celebration of industrial modernity: discourses of technology, progress, and prosperity were articulated through a community or region's agricultural fairs, exhibitions, sports teams - and their venues. The driving motivation behind this was to make a bold statement about a city, to attract attention and business into its fold. Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition (PNE), for instance, was inaugurated at Hastings Park early in the twentieth century as a major agricultural fair, featuring the latest developments in

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 19 farming and industrial machinery, as well as facilities for thoroughbred horse racing and other amusements. For the city's business and political leaders, the broader objectives behind establishing the annual exhibition were to distinguish Vancouver from its regional neighbours as an industrial city with a strong entrepreneurial drive and spirit - precisely the sort of civic image that confers an advantage in competitions for industrial investment capital and population growth.7 Civic image continued to play a vital role in the growth strategies of major North American cities over the course of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, over the past three decades things have changed somewhat from the processes of urbanization and settlement just described. There is a considerable agreement in the social sciences that the period since the early 1970s represents a transition of sorts from one distinct phase of capitalist development to a new one - known variously by host of terms, such as 'post-industrialism,' 'post-Fordism,' and 'flexible accumulation.' In this transition there has been a shift from a centralized manufacturing base, featuring mass production, government regulation, and mass markets, towards more technologically versatile and 'flexible' modes of organizing production. Accompanying this, the argument runs, in the face of the widespread deregulation of industry and markets, and given new communications technologies, there has also been widespread fragmentation of mass markets into more specialized niches. It is easy to over-draw these changes. They do appear, however, to have had a significant impact on older industrial cities, resulting in massive economic and social restructuring and, in some cases, collapse and decay.8 We are now in a time of 'bewildering transformation and change' in the structure and organization of modern Western economy and society.9 Capitalism is 'at a crossroads' ... in its historical development signaling the emergence of forces - technological, market, social and institutional - that will be very different from those which dominated the economy after the Second World War.' There is a pervasive sense that these are times of 'epoch-making transformation' in the very forces that drive, stabilize, and reproduce the capitalist world.

20 Indy Dreams In contrast to the unprecedented economic expansion of the immediate postwar period, the 1960s and 1970s saw a series of changes in the relative wealth, power, and status of cities and regions across North America - notably, shifts of wealth and people away from once-powerful industrial centres into other kinds of economic activity and other locales.10 In addition, widespread deficit reduction strategies by national and regional governments put increased pressure on the budgets of municipal governments through such strategies as the "offloading" of the debts of higher levels of government onto municpal governments. In this context, both growing and declining cities have found themselves in a ruthless competition for new forms of investment, for specific capital investments, as well as for relative position in relation to other cities. This has fomented intense inter-urban competition on a global scale, far exceeding in scope the state of affairs in the early part of the twentieth century. On this point, Gruneau and Whitson remark: 'As civic governments have competed for new kinds of investment beyond older industrial investments, they've become more self-consciously "entrepreneurial." These "entrepreneurial cities" now compete to be financial centres, administrative centres, and ... cultural and entertainment centres.'11 In response to this new phase of capital accumulation and its dramatic impacts on industrial centres, civic elites have sought to revitalize the city through growth strategies primarily centred on investment and construction aimed at remodelling or rebuilding a portion of the urban environment to accommodate more profitable activities, and expanded opportunities for consumption, particularly in the form of high-density condominium housing and upscale shopping and office boutiques for an upper middle class. In other words, areas of the city are upgraded for 'higher' social and economic uses - those activities that generate the greatest profits based on location.12 Urban revitalization projects have always changed both the physical form and the image of the city, the ways in which it is perceived and experienced, and the emotional relationships between people (both local residents and visitors) and urban settings. However, the issue of civic image has taken on a special prominence in

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 21 major cities over the past three decades. The goal has become to upgrade the image of the city - to replace perceptions of the city as a place of disinvestment, deterioration, crime, and poverty. If civic boosters in western nations have long promoted images of progress, growth, vitality, and prosperity, such promotions now seem to have taken on a pressing urgency. In this context, the 'image of the vigorous, renascent city is carefully nurtured as the seed of the future material city.'13 More precisely, it is a 'world-class' image of the city that civic elites now strive self-consciously to construct. Researchers have argued that the primary force driving this is inter-urban competition for the major public and private investments that contribute to economic growth.14 For example, David Harvey argues that cities now take much more care to create a positive and high quality image of place, and they seek an architecture and forms of urban design that respond directly to such need. 'That they should be so pressed ... is understandable, given the grim history of deindustrialization and restructuring that left most major cities in the advanced capitalist world with few options except to compete with each other, mainly as financial, consumption, and entertainment centres.'15 For civic boosters, it seems that now, more than ever before, image is everything. In a climate of relentless inter-urban competition, spending on image-making and public relations is often perceived to be as important as spending on urban infrastructure and other tangible upgrades. The more that a city such as Vancouver can appear 'on the same stage' or 'in the same league' with New York, Tokyo, and Los Angeles, the stronger its civic leaders believe their chances will be of growing and prospering, rather than remaining simply as a regional or provincial centre on the margins of world business, political, and cultural affairs. Spectacular consumption spaces are vital signifiers conveying this image of the world-class city. Shopping megamalls, gentrified downtowns, waterfront retail districts with hotel and convention centres, high-density condominium and office complexes, upscale clothing boutiques, sports stadiums - these are the spectacular 'consumption palaces' through which the city is now imaged. It is

22 Indy Dreams around these spaces that promotional discourses concerning the city's identity and future development trajectory are constructed and disseminated. Imaging a city through the organization of spectacular consumption-biased spaces has become a dominant means for attracting capital and people (of the desired affluence) in this period of intensified inter-urban competition and urban entrepreneurialism. Not only are these the city's premier consumption sites, but most significantly these places function as the city's key symbolic places; it is through these places that the city is imaged and marketed as a world-class place. What is more, it is not just the built and physical environment that is crucial to imaging the city: the lifestyles that can be pur in these spaces through recreation and leisure activities are also vital to a city's image. For it is in these spectacular consumptionbiased spaces that people circulate and, through their various consumption activities, form personal and collective identities in what amounts to a widespread desire to invest personal resources (time, money, and effort) in the pursuit of lifestyle. Indeed, a serious engagement with contemporary urban living must appreciate that lifestyles and consumption activities constitute the emergence of new personal and collective identities. In these terms, cultural consumption must be treated as an active and committed production of both self and public culture. Consumption activities of this nature necessarily include the social patterns of leisure and new expectations for the control and use of time and space in personally meaningful ways. A major theme in the literature suggests that the way consumption spaces are organized in today's cities has become at least as important in people's lives as the organization of production spaces (factories, warehouses, and dock- and railyards).16 This basic assertion leads me to emphasize the importance of the leisure and entertainment industries - the so-called culture industries - in urban political economy. With a continued displacement of manufacturing and increasing development of the service, financial, and non-profit sectors of the urban economy, cultural production and consumption is now so much of what major cities are all about. 'Culture' in this sense is both a commodity and a

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 23 public good, a base of economic growth and a means of framing the city and its public life.17 If we want to understand what is happening to urban public culture today, then we have to look at what is happening to the city's most prominent spaces for public consumption. C O N S U M P T I O N SITES AS L E I S U R E SPACES

At the level of individual behaviour and group sociation, changes in the built environment are accompanied by a stress on various forms of Jlanerie (loitering, aimless strolling) and leisure.18 This is not a question of the built environment encouraging a new form of social behaviour in a deterministic way - it is, instead, a matter of buildings being renovated to accommodate and host the new combination of leisure and consumption activities characteristic of intensive urban redevelopment. Whether the anticipated and planned-for behaviour actually occurs then becomes a matter of how people use the site. In other words, it is a question of how users appropriate the site and its spatial and built environment as a place for particular consumption activities. This is what is so fascinating and instructive about the contemporary city's primary consumption sites: how, in their totality, these places constitute a unique spatial form, one which is a synthesis of consumption sites and leisure activities that are integral to more general notions of lifestyle consumption. I find this synthesis between consumption and leisure to be particularly relevant. The contemporary shopping mall is a perfect example of this synthesis. According to Rob Shields, in the massive megamalls of today's large urban centres a new spatial and cultural form results from a combination of two sets of spatial practices: (1) practices that characterize the spatial performance typical of leisure spaces, and (2) spatial practices that characterize the performance of commercial sites.19 From the standpoint of consumption, the mall is not simply a place to buy things; rather, it is a consumption site which is put to all kinds of leisure uses. As Sharon Zukin observes, Tn malls, those who "resist" - yet also participate in - the public culture of mass consumption may be browsers, elderly joggers

24 Indy Dreams looking for a safe place to exercise, or teenagers who hang out in malls because they are suburbia's only public spaces. While we cannot tell what they are thinking just by looking at them, we know the space is important to them, to framing their social identities.'20 The public space of shopping connects people who move through this space to society at large. This joining of consumption sites with leisure activities is not a recent phenomenon. Its roots stretch back to the early spaces of commercial culture, especially the late-nineteenth-century European arcades and the department stores of North American cities - what amount to the first great consumption sites of modernity. These department stores and arcades were a visible element in the transformation of metropolitan centres, offering new opportunities to anonymous customers to 'ransack the goods of the world.'21 In the impersonal anonymity of Utopian display, shoppers were generally free to wander as and how they wished and to use the endless facilities to seek out personal tastes and construct personal itineraries (although most department store users used to be affluent or middle class). Department stores took on the character of 'leisure centres,' and drastically changed the character of buying and selling. As Rudi Laermans explains, up to the middle of the nineteenth century buying was synonymous with going to the neighbourhood shop or market.22 This provided the opportunity to socialize with friends, but also these were social pleasures that had no intrinsic link with the act of buying itself. However, everything changed with the arrival of large department stores. 'People could now come and go, to look and to dream, perchance to buy, and shopping became a new bourgeois leisure activity - a way of pleasantly passing the time, like going to a play or visiting a museum. >2^ ^ This new combination of traditional consumption activities, long thought to be rational and rather ordinary, with leisure activities marked a new phase in the history of urban centres and consumerism. One might call this the 'leisurization' of shopping, and it is against this background that what Rob Shields has called 'lifestyle shopping' became not only possible, but pervasive in

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 25 urban life. Everyday shopping activities are now foregrounded, 'as if on a theater stage, to be observed by passers-by who may vicariously participate in the bustle and lively activity of consumption without necessarily spending any money.'24 These 'lifestyle-biased consumption sites' are, in fact, important as theatres of everyday life. In shopping malls, sports stadia, and restaurants, among other sites, consumption has come to share its spaces with leisure activities. In these sites attention wavers from the rational economic activities which provided the raison d'etre of the old consumption sites and the first stores. These sites now host 'a scene in which at least some of the people may take the opportunity to elaborate more complex social behaviours, to engage in more roles, even to contest the economic rationale and rationalized norms of the site.'25 In effect, they provide modernity's most active terrain of cultural change, of social experimentation. More to the point, merchandise has been transformed into a permanent spectacle, into a showlike theatre of commodities. 'The department store was more than a site for consumption, it was a sight of consumption ... Shopping became a perceptual adventure.'26 In this regard, the arrival of the department store symbolized one of the most profound changes in recent history: the shift from a production-oriented society to one centred on consumption. The department stores, along with advertising and marketing, changed mere merchandise into spectacular 'commodity-signs' or 'symbolic goods.' One key aspect of the development of consumer culture can thus be characterized by its increasing stylization - to the extent that the production, exchange, and use of consumer goods is increasingly structured by their expressive or 'symbolic' aspects, rather than their functional or instrumental uses.27 In this sense lifestyle has increasingly become the definitive mode of consumption. Through the enactment of a lifestyle, consumers are seen to bring a more stylized awareness or sensitivity to the process of consumption. As a mode of consumption, or attitude to consuming, the term 'lifestyle' refers to the ways in which people seek to display their individuality and their sense of style through the choice of a particular range of commodities - including material

26 Indy Dreams goods, services, and experiences - and their subsequent customizing or personalizing of these goods. This activity is seen to be 'a central life project for the individual,' to the extent that as a member of a particular lifestyle grouping, the individual actively uses consumer goods (clothes, the home, furnishings, interior decor, car, holidays, and food and drink, as well as cultural goods such as music, film, and art) in ways that indicate that grouping's taste or sense of style.28 The notable point here is that the character and pattern of the consumption of commodities is directly related to their use as 'positional goods.' The patterns of use of consumer goods, and the satisfaction that people derive from their use, depend on and are shaped by the consumption choices of other people. In this formulation, consumption is a distinctively social activity, not an exclusively private affair. Commodities function primarily as symbols, as communicators of personal identity, and satisfiers of needs and wants. In these terms 'commodities are actively used as markers of social position and cultural style by consumers who seek to define their position vis-d-vis other consumers.'29 In summary, there appears to be considerable weight to the argument that it is to spectacular specialized consumption sites that many people in large cities turn in their search for meaning. The megamall, gentrified downtown, waterfront shopping district, specialized boutiques, Starbuck's coffeeshops - these are the aspiring world-class city's key public places, the spaces where people construct personal and communal identities through their leisure activities. Although each of these specialized consumption sites is significant in its own right, they take on even greater significance when mobilized into an ensemble- forming what Sharon Zukin calls a 'consumption-biased spatial complex.'30 Still, one problem with much of the work that focuses on the production of 'meaning' in and through such complexes, is the neglect of the relationships of these complexes to the reproduction of larger patterns of inequality and domination in urban social life. By focusing too greatly on the apparent plurality of meanings - a 'hermeneutics' or interpretive perspective on analysis - theorists sometimes lose sight of political economy. The

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 27 process of gentrification presents a useful example of the importance of the political economy's dynamics and, for that reason, is worth discussing in greater detail in the context of understanding the processes behind the production and consumption of commodified leisure spaces in the contemporary metropolis. GENTRIFICATION AND THE CREATION OF SPECTACULAR C O N S U M P T I O N SPACES

The gentrification phenomenon has been identified in a large number of cities in North America, Europe, and Australia over the past twenty years. While there is consensus among urban geographers and social critics that gentrification represents one of the leading edges of urban restructuring since the 1970s, there is widespread disagreement as to just what exactly is gentrification. In very general terms, there have been two main competing sets of explanations advanced to account for gentrification: (1) the rent gap, and (2) the production of gentrifiers. The first can be characterized as a 'supply-side' argument, and it stresses the production of urban space, the operation of the housing and land market, the role of capital and collective social actors such as developers and mortgage finance institutions on the supply of gentrifiable property. The concepts of 'disinvestment' and 'reinvestment' are crucial to this understanding of gentrification. Neil Smith develops his understanding of gentrification along these lines, arguing that cyclical patterns of disinvestment and reinvestment in the built environment determine the supply of gentrifiable housing in the inner city.31 As David Harvey explains in Social Justice and the City, an overaccumulation of capital in the 'primary circuit' of the production process prompted a switch to the 'secondary circuit' of the built environment, providing the engine of change behind the suburbanization process. As capital switches to suburban development, there is diminished opportunity for capital investment in the inner city; consequently, buildings fall into disrepair from lack of maintenance and are eventually abandoned.32 This gives rise to what Smith calls the 'rent gap' in the city centre - the difference between the capitalized ground

28 Indy Dreams rent under present land use and the potential ground rent under a more profitable function. 'It is the rent gap that creates the economic opportunity for revalorisation of investment in search of surplus value or profit, and consequently leads to gentrification.'33 In other words, actors in the land and housing market looking for locations of profitable investment will turn to the 'abandoned' inner city properties, 'once the rent gap is wide enough.'34 A process of reinvestment follows, as actors capitalize on the surplus profit to be made in central neighbourhoods. Gentrification thus results from 'the private and public investment of capital in certain land uses, its devaluation through use and disinvestment, and the resulting opportunity for profitable reinvestment that is thereby created.'35 The second set of explanations - the 'consumption-side' argument - focuses on the production of gentriflers and their associated cultural, consumption, and reproductive orientations.36 Consumption-side explanations isolate a number of factors including lifestyle changes, preference patterns, and simple descriptions of demographic change. The implicit assumption behind these explanations is that of 'consumer sovereignty' in the land and housing markets; and changing urban patterns are the expression of changed consumption choices among certain sections of the upper middle class and affluent groups. From this perspective consumption retains a certain primacy, while fitting gentrification within a broader framework of social, demographic, and cultural change. Emphasis rests on developing an explanation for gentrification which begins with an account of how people who see gentrification as a part of their lifestyle come to exist as a predominant social group in the city centre. More to the point, the landscapes associated with gentrification are the highly visible expression of changing patterns of consumption in cities. This is to suggest that gentrification's new urban upper-middle-classes construct their identities through distinctive patterns of'conspicuous consumption.' These, inevitably, involve a symbolic dimension using indicators in the urban landscape to signify their existence, arrival, and dominance. These people use

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 29 the strategy of gentrification to be distinctive within their own cultural context, and to demarcate themselves from others. As Beauregard puts the case: 'In order to explain why these professionals and managers ... remain within the city and also engage in gentrification we must move away from the sphere of production and focus upon their reproduction and consumption activities.'37 From this view, gentrification cannot be explained solely in terms of capital flows, disinvestment, and reinvestment. Although the gentrification process does involve capital flows, it also involves people and the decisions they make. This leads us to ask, what is it about an urban residence, in addition to proximity to work, which is especially compatible with the reproduction and consumption activities of this fraction of labour? In short: gentrification, from this consumption-side perspective, looks to those people involved in the actual process of gentrification, especially their economic, demographic, and cultural preferences. An understanding of the production of 'gentrifiers' and their social and cultural characteristics is of crucial importance for a complete understanding of gentrification and its impact on both the physical landscape and public culture of the city. To do this we need a working conception of gentrification. A useful definition is provided by Chris Hamnett, who argues that gentrification is: Simultaneously a physical, economic, social and cultural phenomenon. Gentrification commonly involves the invasion by middle-class or higher-income groups of previously working-class neighborhoods or multi-occupies 'twilight areas' and the replacement or displacement of many of the original occupants. It involves the physical renovation or rehabilitation of what was frequently a highly deteriorated housing stock and its upgrading to meet the requirements of its new owners. In the process, housing in the areas affected, both renovated and unrenovated, undergoes a significant price appreciation. Such a process of neighbourhood transition commonly involves a degree of tenure transformation from renting to owning.38

For Neil Smith, the crucial point to be made about gentrification

30 Indy Dreams is that 'it involves not only a social change but also, at the neighbourhood scale, a physical change in the housing stock and an economic change in the land and housing market.'39 As Smith sees it, it is precisely this combination of social, physical, and economic change that distinguishes gentrification as an identifiable process. What these two renderings of the concept make clear is that gentrification involves both a change in the social composition of an area and its residents, and a change in the nature of the housing stock (tenure, price, condition). As useful as these insights are, they become ever more significant when they are integrated into a broader perspective on spatial changes and the range of meanings associated with these changes. An adequate analysis of gentrification has to cover not only the housing and residents aspect of the process, but also the profound reorganization of space that accompanies gentrification, particularly in the city's downtown core, and to cultural interpretations that people have of such changes. In developing a more expansive concept of gentrification in the broader context of lifestyles and organization of consumption in cities, it seems necessary to acknowledge the cultural dynamics of spatial reorganization that accompany gentrification processes. Accentuating the cultural side of these changes, David Ley argues that gentrification is a hallmark of the 'post-industrial city.'40 Drawing on Daniel Bell's 'post-industrial society' thesis, Ley explains that manufacturing no longer dominates allocation of land use in the industrial city.41 With the decline of industrial production and employment, and the rapid growth of the service sector it is consumption factors, taste, and a certain visual aesthetic that now dominate the urban landscape. Cultural consumption and the pursuit of lifestyle have replaced production as the primary mode of spatial appropriation in many large contemporary cities. On this point, Ley writes of the downtown as having 'become more of a symbolic focus in the metropolis, with heavy public interventions in the marketplace in imagesetting civic and cultural development and with private investment in hotels and office towers. A result is that in a number of

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 31 cities the downtown core is evolving away from an image of industrial workhouse and striving toward an image of postindustrial radical e/m:.'42 This argument only achieves its full force when it is grounded in an understanding of political-economic changes. The problem with arguments based on the idea of 'postindustrialism' is that they generally pay insufficient attention to the specific analysis of capitalism as a mode of production. In this sense, insights such as Ley's are usefully juxtaposed to more self-consciously politicaleconomic arguments such as those of Neil Smith or David Harvey. The issue here is not simply that these changes are 'postindustrial,' but that they correspond to broad changes in the social organization of capitalism itself. Gentrification is associated with changes in the labour process and in growth in the capitalist appropriation of 'culture' into the realm of exchange. This involves converting buildings and factories of earlier industrial-based commercial activities into sites of cultural production and consumption. Gentrification must be examined as a range of sociocultural and political-economic processes and experiences. Gentrification is a set of practices that reorganize space in terms of consumption activities, practices that become manifest on explicit ties between culture and economy. Gentrification is thus best understood as a visible spatial component of profound social transformation in urban life in an age of 'flexible accumulation.' Under gentrification, patterns of consumption are reconfigured, as are the attendant social relations of people both inhabiting and visiting these areas. These changes in the urban landscape are driven by global economic, social, and political forces that are responsible for a wider reshaping of capitalist societies over the past three decades. Nick Witheford and Richard Gruneau summarize many of these changes in a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of theories of 'post-Fordism': Taking advantage of the vistas of managerial control opened by new information technologies of communication, computerization, and robotics, many firms are not only automating more intensely, but are moving towards decentralized organization of the labour process ...

32 Indy Dreams [this includes] ... 'just-in-time' and 'small batch' production and the hiving-off and contracting out of many functions previously performed 'in-house.' Reliance on standardized product is replaced by an emphasis on market segmentation, customizing and packaging. The deregulation and privatization of the welfare state opens up new fields of commodification and eliminates restrictions on the new-found corporate flexibility. Capital becomes increasingly mobile and nomadic, taking advantage of geographical differentials in market opportunity and labour cost on an international scale. Also, there is a drastic recomposidon of the labour force as the industrial proletariat is supplanted by various types of 'knowledge worker.'43 In this context, gentrified zones in large cities play a role in attracting new information or cultural workers. The gentrification of older industrial waterfronts and manufacturing districts also provides a site for new forms of cultural production and specialized retailing, often including the commodification and marketing of 'heritage.' Vancouver's Yaletown district provides a good illustration of these tendencies. Yaletown sits nestled between the former Expo 86 lands at False Creek and Vancouver's downtown south, spreading out over eight city blocks. Yaletown developed as one of Vancouver's main rail yard and warehouse districts more than a century ago, after the Canadian Pacific Railway moved its western maintenance centre to Vancouver from the Fraser Canyon town of Yale in 1887. By 1918 the area was completely developed, a rough working-class neighbourhood of frame houses and brick industrial buildings.44 The character remained largely unchanged for several decades; until the late 1980s there had not been a new building constructed in Yaletown since 1949, nor had there been any real change in land usage, or significant shift from industrial to residential.45 As one writer described the area, Yaletown was for years 'a forgotten heritage area, uninhabited, a ghost town with warehouses that needed seismic upgrading and a lot more.'46 All of this changed in the early 1980s with the purchase and development of the north shore of False Creek by Concord Pacific, a company owned by the Hong Kong real estate magnate Li

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 33 Ka-shing. Much of this megaproject consists of the construction of high-density luxury condominiums and upscale retail and office complexes. The magnitude of the Concord Pacific Place project served to draw other developers into this previously highly undervalued area, recognizing its vast economic potential. 'Every few years there's an area that sort of sticks out,' remarked one developer whose company had sunk about $12 million into the area. 'In 1986, '87, we were coming off some residential projects on the west side and we were looking at alternatives. Yaletown was inexpensive land at that time so we saw an opening. With all the development going on around here, we felt we could not miss. We took a gamble and it has paid off.'48 In the redesign of Yaletown - which is regarded as a 'character area' in the city's planning guidelines and has a loosely enforced heritage designation - developers focused on preserving and reusing original buildings through renovation and restoration. Architecturally, 'heritage' is the style characterizing redevelopment activity, even as Yale town's ninety-year-old warehouse district is converted into swanky 'New York-style' lofts, trendy clothing boutiques, custom-designed and imported furniture stores, hair salons, and specialty stores. All of this caters to well-heeled Vancouver residents and tourists, those who venture into the district for shopping excursions, fine dining, and to enjoy the nightlife in the area's brew pubs and coffeehouses. An article in the journal Canadian Architect nods approvingly at all this activity - at the successful transformation of the former industrial district into a self-contained, ultra-hip neighbourhood.48 The article gleefully associates Yaletown to 'SoHo,' New York City's loft-living, art-dealing, and upscale shopping district of converted nineteenth-century factories and warehouses.49 'A community of sorts is in the making, and there is no doubting the vitality of downtown Vancouver compared to most Canadian cities, let alone points south. With its craftsmen and fashion designers, artist studios, pool sharks and restaurateurs, Yaletown comes closest in Vancouver to the dynamic potential of a district such as Manhattan's SoHo.' A planner with the city of Vancouver concurs: 'You know, Yaletown gives you some hope for Vancouver.'50

34 Indy Dreams Like its New York referent, Yaletown's gentrification clearly demonstrates how shopping and other consumption-biased lifestyle pursuits join with architectural restoration to create coherent spaces of consumption. This production of gentrified space is not completely innocent, however. Indeed, as Zukin points out: 'The more coherent the ensemble, the more gentrification assumes a significant political thrust' - one which legitimizes the appropriation of the downtown by an increasingly upper-middleclass of users.51 So many of the gentrifiers' cultural practices relate to a new organization of consumption, one that excludes the active participation of lower-income, long-term residents of gentrification's developing spaces. Indeed, one of gentrification's most prominent features is the inevitable displacement of lower-income residents from newly desirable centre-city and waterfront locations, for the simple reason that they can no longer afford to live there. The goods and services that cater to gentrifiers' consumption needs and wants displace existing, lower-income residents as surely as skyrocketing rents and decreasing vacancies do. When asked how 'marble kitchens and strip bars mix' as upscale meets downscale, a sales representative for a major Vancouver developer assures potential condominium buyers that they need not worry, that the former working-class neighbourhood is changing even as they speak. 'Just the tax base alone is forcing a lot of older businesses to close and look for other areas to pick up again,' she soothes.53 THE YALETOWN /

FALSE CREEK ENSEMBLE

As a process of profound spatial and social restructuring, we can understand gentrification as an effort to appropriate the city's downtown centrality by and for new information workers and 'upmarket' consumers. For that constellation of interests which constitute the category 'gentrifiers' - developers, civic boosters, political and business elites, affluential young and middle-age professionals - the downtown core is a brave new world. As Neil Smith describes it, the downtown is a frontier whose landscape must first be cleared not only of 'obsolete' uses like

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 35 industrial manufacturing, but also of its existing lower-class populations, affordable housing, and locally owned-and-operated businesses. Both public and private enterprise claim they are 'reclaiming' inner areas from decline and perceived impoverishment. Here, one finds it difficult to resist the image of these 'place entrepreneurs' cutting a swathe across an urban frontier so laden with economic potential; as with images of the conquering of the Old West, gentrifiers ride into the downtown and clear out the old manufacturing sector and flush out the 'natives.' In the language of gentrification, 'the appeal to frontier imagery is exact: urban pioneers, urban homesteaders and urban cowboys are the new folk heroes of the urban frontier.'53 The urban redevelopment shaped by gentrification represents an expansion of the downtown's physical area, often at the expense of the inner city and its built environment and social fabric. 'Regardless of topography, building stock, and even existing populations, gentrification persists as a collective effort to appropriate the center for elements of a new urban middle class.'54 More subtly, gentrification suggests an outward diffusion of the downtown's cultural power from the geographic centre. In fact, the result of expansion of the city centre is a carefully crafted landscape - a landscape that represents the downtown's social transformation in terms of an upscale international market culture. Vancouver's False Creek has just such a carefully cultivated international flavour. It illustrates how various spectacular public spaces can be mobilized to form a coherent 'consumption-biased spatial complex.' False Creek - and especially its Granville Island, Science World, Concord Pacific Place and City Gate condominium complexes, and General Motors Place and B.C. Place arenas - is just such a spatial complex with an international flavour. As an ensemble of spectacular places, the esthetic character of False Creek is paramount: a sensuous landscape has been constructed, maximizing views of water, the yacht harbour, the downtown skyline, and the enveloping mountain rim. The Molson Indy Vancouver, with its international reach and glamorous image, is a vital part of this ensemble. From a design perspective, False Creek provides a

36 Indy Dreams visual landscape that is 'too good to be true,' one that 'has some of the character of a film set.'55 Moreover, development around False Creek has, since the late 1980s, created what Alan Fotheringham calls Vancouver's 'culture zone.'56 As Fotheringham sees it, whereas Calgary and Toronto were once the cities of building cranes, today it is Vancouver. 'In its march away from the bank towers and the lifeless Granville Mall [in the downtown], the city core seeks out the water, always the city's most distinguishing feature. As the high-scale shops move north toward the harbour, the cranes have moved east toward the inland water that is False Creek. Only several decades ago the site of grubby sawmills and steel foundries, it is now condo country, the most trendy spot in the city to live.' The domed B.C. Place and General Motors stadiums sit on its north shore alongside the multibillion dollar Concord Pacific Place development megaproject; Science World lies on its eastern shore adjacent to the Citygate and International Village condominium developments; and Granville Island, with its theatres, restaurants, and giant market barns rests on its south shore, tucked in with the Fairview slopes residential development. Ringing the False Creek waterfront are marinas stuffed with million-dollar yachts and sailboats. The entire skyline is dominated by the north shore mountain range.57 Taken as a coherent ensemble, this is landscape for a particular lifestyle — the lifestyle of the international city and its affluent residents and tourists. It is around this spectacular landscape in the culture zone that promotional discourses are constructed and Vancouver is imaged as a world-class city. As an element in the Yaletown/False Creek ensemble, the Molson Indy Vancouver was an important part of this image of the entrepreneurial city. The threatened removal of the Indy from the ensemble created a crisis for both promoters and boosters. This crisis led to a new vision of a more eastern urban ensemble at Hastings Park. The kind of spectacular consumption-biased spatial complex that Indy creates at False Creek - which is essential to its continued survival - would have been imposed on Hastings Park. This gives you a sense, with the Hastings Park 'relocation

Spectacular Consumption Spaces 37 crisis,' of what the local residents were in opposition to - the threat to their park and its intended use as passive green space, free of major commercial activities for the first time in a century. Had Molstar been successful in its Hastings Park relocation bid, this would have completely undermined the restoration plans for the park - it would have carried the Indy's model of spatial appropriation to the newly restored Hastings Park, thereby creating a space that is nothing at all like the public green space that is planned under the terms of the restoration plan. This would have drastic implications for Hastings Park. If the MIV forces had been successful in their attempts to relocate the event to the park, then essentially, the 'new' Hastings Park would have been much like the old one - a built environment featuring intense commercial entertainment spectacle.

2 Competing Visions

Let us step back from issues of general theoretical concern and begin concentrating now on the specific case of the Molson Indy Vancouver and the crisis that ensued in the spring of 1997 from its proposed relocation to historic Hastings Park. This chapter is a necessarily descriptive account of the developmental history of the park over the past century. My goal is to map the changing mode of consumption at Hastings Park - the dramatic shift from the domination of the park landscape and its programming activities by intense entertainment spectacle to more passive consumption opportunities. This emphasizes a spectacular natural landscape featuring opportunities for the consumption of more passive forms of recreation and leisure activities. I demonstrate how all this was brought about through a determined and highly committed grassroots movement by members of the local community and park activists - by what is best characterized as a bottom-up, citizendriven initiative. COMMERCIALIZING

HASTINGS PARK

The late 1800s and early 1900s were dynamic years in the development of Canadian industrial capitalism. Despite a number of recessions, the combined effects of population growth and industrial expansion raised disposable incomes and created new demands for consumption and entertainment opportunities among a growing urban workforce. This push for greater access to enter-

Competing Visions 39 tainment was linked to workers' struggles to gain more free time, time away from the sixty-hour work weeks on the factory floor. This leisure time could be invested in family and community activities as well as in commercial recreations. As Gruneau and Whitson put it, the 'establishment of regular weekends away from work in the late nineteenth century helped create the audiences that made these entertainments profitable.'2 On this last point, sport historian Alan Metcalfe argues that in the years leading up to Confederation, urban space was readily available for any sporting and leisure activity on the plots of spare ground that could be found in any town or city; there was no real pressing need for specialized facilities to facilitate these pursuits.3 For instance, it was the urban elite who first erected athletic facilities for their own private use, and these quickly became the playgrounds of the socially and financially affluent. This remained the case until the 1870s when, as Metcalfe points out, 'the rapid expansion of the city placed increased pressure on space and [athletic] clubs faced rising costs, increased taxes, and soaring land costs.'4 These exigencies forced some clubs to abandon their grounds to developers while others responded by looking to commercialization for ways to generate revenue to meet rising costs. In other words, the latter group recognized the enormous profit potential in providing facilities for participation in leisure and recreation.5 The effect of this was to create even greater exclusion of working people from urban leisure and recreation facilities. They responded to this by putting increased pressure on civic leaders to provide public facilities and spaces that could bring recreation within the reach of the majority of urban residents. Those who could not afford memberships in the exclusive leisure clubs and facilities of the urban elite demanded increased access on the grounds that they too had a right to enjoy the benefits of 'the great project of industrial modernity.' Accessibility to recreation and leisure activities was considered desirable because working people could lead fuller lives, and a sense of community would foster around common participation in local sporting and leisure activities.6

40 Indy Dreams Urban parks played a vital role in this, particularly in the context of the public parks movement that was sweeping through Britain, the United States, and Canada during the last half of the nineteenth century. Briefly, this movement was being driven by a very particular set of ideas about the ideal purpose and design of urban parks - that green space be set aside for public use to alleviate urban congestion. According to Robert McDonald, the public parks movement was a project driven primarily by middleclass reformers who sought to provide islands of 'nature' in the midst of industrial urban development. The parks movement was given full expression in the mid-1800s with the construction of London's Victoria Park (1845), Liverpool's Birkenhead Park (1847), and New York's Central Park (1858).7 Underlying this was the central premise that urban parks should serve as 'breathing spaces where citizens might stroll, drive or sit to enjoy the open air' and beautiful scenery.8 Urban parks were to be used for passive rather than active recreation and leisure pursuits; as spaces for a healthy retreat from the dirt, noise, brick, and concrete of city life. It is against this background that Hastings Park was created in 1889, when the province of British Columbia granted to the city of Vancouver, by way of trust, a 160-acre parcel of land on the city's east side for use as a public recreation space. Under terms of the trust, the land was to be 'maintained and preserved' by the city 'for the use, recreation and enjoyment of the public.' From the outset Hastings Park was intended to be 'a constant resort for all lovers of romantic woodland scenery and lovely groves,' as thenmayor David Oppenheimer put it.9 But by the 1960s the park had lost nearly all of its initial green character. The natural environment had given way to a sprawling built environment dominated by large buildings, ferris wheels, and parking lots. How did this happen? How is that almost from its inception Hastings Park took on the character of a spectacular amusement complex, despite explicit provisions in its trust calling for it to function as a green space featuring passive leisure activities? In answering these questions it is important to keep in mind that the first decades of the twentieth century, when this commercializa-

Competing Visions 41 tion of Hastings Park began, were critical years in the struggle over urban space and how it would be developed. There was considerable disagreement at this time between the city's industrial forces, preservationists, and workers' organizations - each of whom had definite and often conflicting visions of the most 'rational' ways to use and enjoy urban parks as recreational spaces. This is made especially clear by Robert McDonald in his study of the development of Vancouver's major green space, Stanley Park.10 Established two years prior to Hastings Park, Stanley Park was granted to Vancouver by the Dominion government in 1887 for use as a public recreation area of some 960 acres. Covered almost entirely by primeval forest, limited alterations made Stanley Park accessible while still preserving its wilderness character. However, as McDonald explains, public attitudes towards parks and recreation were changing; and as pressure on existing recreational facilities increased, many Vancouver residents demanded a park that 'more accurately served their increasingly varied recreational needs.'11 Conflicting views on how best to utilize this major recreational space began to emerge in 1910, and crystallized into a four-year debate about the park's future. Several new ideas clashed with traditional assumptions about the character and role of urban parks. McDonald identifies three distinct social groups in this particular conflict. At one extreme was an elite group advocating the purest form of traditional park, based on romantic principles of a pristine natural environment. At the other extreme were organized workers urging an 'entirely utilitarian and practical play space.' In the centre was the Vancouver Park Board representing the several strands of middle-class thought on parks: 'respect for traditional principles, interest in beautification, and a desire to incorporate some of the latest reform notions about the value of athletic activity for adults and of structured play for children.'12 Attitudinal differences between these groups, McDonald stresses, were rooted in divergent cultural backgrounds, economic conditions, and the social needs of the contending groups. At one level, Stanley Park was to serve as a 'social unifier,' drawing disparate socioeconomic groups into a single leisure-time

42 Indy Dreams community; it attracted large numbers of residents from all levels of society. But as this pre-World War 1 controversy clearly reveals, 'beneath the surface consensus lay a persistent pattern of class differences.' At another level of analysis, the park had been created based on imported Victorian middle-class esthetic and recreational values - and in these terms a small group of upper-class Vancouverites, distinguished by their social prominence and long association with Stanley Park, continued to maintain a rigid commitment to romantic park principles. These were the elite defenders of the wilderness forest at the park, and they were sharply opposed to making any alterations to its natural state, especially with respect to such incompatible elements as smoking industries, commercial recreational attractions, and noisy sports stadiums. For them, Stanley Park was to be left in its natural state. Somewhat in accord with this perspective was that of the middle-class reformers. A strong influence on the middle-class reformers and their thinking about public green space was the City Beautiful movement, popular in the early twentieth century throughout North America. Basically, this movement focused on the need to improve the city's esthetic qualities by, for example, removing unsightly elements such as billboards and industrial smoke, by introducing expansive gardens and greenery, and by the addition of impressive architectural features. The objective was to enhance civic pride and add visual variety to the urban landscape by reshaping somewhat the look of a city's landscape. By emphasizing the 'improvement' and 'adornment' of public green space, McDonald observes, 'City Beautiful thought affected popular perceptions of recreation grounds by challenging the conceptual integrity and naturalness of [strictly] romantic parks.'13 In contrast to the upper- and middle-class reformers' positions, working people held their own views of how Vancouver's recreational space should be managed, often quite contrary to those of the other two groups. McDonald points to the parks and recreational philosophy advanced by workers and how it reflected their limited material resources, circumscribed leisure time, and distinctive cultural heritage. Long hours of work and limited financial resources necessitated a desire for recreational space that was

Competing Visions 43 local and accessible. On these grounds, labour demanded that Stanley Park be valued for its utility rather than its beauty - that it host more entertainment features and more practical recreational space. In this context, labour argued for urban parks that were free, readily accessible, and suitable for active play and for the consumption of entertainment spectacle. For example, working people criticized the Brockton Point Athletic Association's monopoly of Stanley Park's only sports grounds at Brockton Point. The fees charged by this exclusive organization made the grounds unavailable to the general wage-laboured population. On these same grounds of access, labour demanded that a tramway be built into the park. 'Vancouver's social classes may have mingled at the park gates, but they did not share equal access to the entire forest interior.'14 Disparate levels of family disposable incomes combined with the Park Board's policy of allowing only privately owned automobiles and horse-drawn vehicles into Stanley Park - but not inexpensive public transportation - produced sharply different patterns of park use. Consequently, only those wealthy enough to hire suitable vehicles enjoyed access to the park's furthest reaches, while white- and blue-collar workers arriving by tram with families seldom ventured far beyond the Stanley Park's main points of entry. To resolve the conflict, the Vancouver Park Board adopted a middle course for developing Stanley Park. Unlike the oncescenic Hastings Park on the city's east side, which after the turn of the century rapidly evolved into a major commercial entertainment centre, the pristine Stanley Park was 'too fixed in the public imagination and too important to the local tourist economy to be altered fundamentally into a utilitarian, multi-purpose recreational centre' such as the labour vision would have produced.15 But the Park Board had also come to accept labour's view that making and maintaining beautiful parks was no longer sufficient in itself. The result in 1913 was the approval for a set of Park Board policies for the development of Stanley Park calling for the addition of a range of modest recreational facilities, such as tennis courts, bowling greens, children's play apparatus, and play facilities.

44 Indy Dreams Still, under the board's policies, commercial enterprises, whether amusement spectacles or electric tramways, remained forbidden in the park. As McDonald concludes, the product of these alterations was a compromise consistent with middle-class attitudes, and by the 1920s 'a modified Stanley Park combined "within itself something of the majesty and magic of the primeval forest" as well as modern recreative advantages.'16 In one sense, what appeared to be lost at Stanley Park for working people was won at Hastings Park. If the desire of labour for a 'Coney Island-style' amusement park did not pan out in the conflict over the early development of Stanley Park, it quickly became the state of affairs at Hastings Park. Here, working people got their commercial entertainment in the form of a 'people's park,' which provided accessible commercial recreations. But these recreations, and the park itself, also played a role in the selling of industrial capitalism and its consumer culture through large agricultural fairs, conventions, and amusement and sporting events. In its fully commercialized state, the development of Hastings Park provided a dynamic contrast to the development of Stanley Park. The commercialization of Hastings Park began with the appearance of thoroughbred horse racing in 1892, when Vancouver city council leased fifteen acres of land for the building of a race track (called, appropriately enough, the Racetrack). Then, in 1907, the city leased the site to the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) and its predecessor organization, the Vancouver Exhibition Association. The PNE has since administered and operated the site for the purpose of providing a venue for the annual PNE fair and many other major commercial entertainment events - foremost among them thoroughbred horse racing, professional sports, music concerts, an amusement park, trade shows, and other public conventions. In 1908 city council leased sixty acres of land in the northwest corner of the park, which encompassed the Racetrack, to the Vancouver Exhibition Association (VEA); two years later the lease was expanded to include the whole of Hastings Park. With the granting of this lease amendment, Vancouver's first agricultural/industrial exhibition was held in 1910. The Vancouver Exhibition was opened

Competing Visions 45 on 16 August by Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, and over the course of its six-day run attendance reached some 68,000.17 A newspaper advertisement from the time announces that the exhibition will feature horse, dog, and pony shows along with various industrial and agricultural exhibits, as well as free Vaudeville shows and band concerts, wrestling competitions, and snake charming.18 Over the next five decades a flurry of construction and other development activity ensued at Hastings Park. It is notable that the first major building erected at Hastings Park in 1910 for the exhibition was named Industrial Hall (later renamed the Women's Building). Soon after came a new grandstand for the horse racing track and a roller coaster for the fair grounds. Following this the amusement park, initially called Happyland, became a permanent fixture. Through the 1930s a spate of new buildings sprang up, many of which are still in use today, more than sixty years later (including Rollerland, the Livestock Building, the Forum, the Pure Foods Building, and the Garden Auditorium). On a more infamous note, the annual Vancouver Exhibition was interrupted from 1942 to 1946 while Hastings Park was used by the Canadian military to site an 'Evacuation Centre' where Japanese-Canadians were interned before being sent to the British Columbia interior and points further east.19 After 1946 there was a further explosion of growth at Hastings Park. This took place in a much broader political, economic, and cultural context of the consolidation of postwar capitalism and economic expansion in the making of a new industrial order. Land was added to the fairgrounds through the leasing of Callister Park (then an outdoor stadium) to the Vancouver Exhibition Association (VEA) by the city of Vancouver. Following this the city and the VEA acquired an additional twenty-seven-acres of land at the park's southeast corner and, in 1946, the VEA was renamed the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE). The Racetrack was expanded in 1948. Not long after, in the early 1950s, the B.C. Pavilion opened (the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame would later become one of its main attractions). Not only did the PNE enjoy rapid expansion of its commercial entertainment complex at this time, but the city of Vancouver was

46 Indy Dreams also reaping benefits. In this atmosphere of near-unbridled growth, Vancouver began to distinguish itself as a growing and vibrant entrepreneurial city in western Canada, positioning itself as one of the country's premier resource-based industrial centres. In a major coup for the city's image-building project at the time, civic leaders secured the rights to host the 1954 Empire Games (now the Commonwealth Games), and Empire Stadium was constructed to house many of the events. Development of megastructures continued apace at Hastings Park into the 1960s with the construction of the Agrodome (1963) and the Coliseum (1968). The Coliseum was home to the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League for almost thirty years, from 1970 till 1995 when the club moved into General Motors Place, a new stadium built at False Creek in downtown Vancouver. In the early 1970s, it looked as though Hastings Park would be the site of another sports megastructure, when the PNE proposed to build the Multiplex, a major sports and convention facility with a 60,000-seat stadium as its centrepiece. These plans were abandoned when the provincial government decided, instead, to build a sports stadium, B.C. Place (1983), and a convention centre, Canada Place (1986) in downtown Vancouver, at False Creek, to coincide with the 1986 World Exposition. Back at Hastings Park, the 1960s also saw the opening of the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in the B.C. Pavilion; and once again the horse racing track, a mainstay of Hastings Park over its entire history, was expanded and upgraded. It is not surprising, with all this development activity over the years, that the natural environment of Hastings Park would deteriorate. To make way for the parking lots, people, and pavilions, trees were cleared and streams were filled. Going back to 1935, the earliest major environmental degradation occurred when Hastings Creek, a 1.3-kilometre stream and salmon habitat, was plowed over. Further back, as late as 1915, the eastern portion of the park was covered with forest, but there is scant evidence of this today.20 By 1996 there were approximately 4,500 parking spaces in Hastings Park and adjacent areas, covering more than 20 per cent of the land.21

Competing Visions 47 In the mid-1960s all this began to hit home, and residents of the Hastings-Sunrise community began to vocalize concerns about the loss of the 'green character' of Hastings Park and the direction its development was heading. Public outcry was raised in 1964 when Vancouver city council approved a thirty-year lease extension for the PNE. One councillor complained in a newspaper column, 'How can a lease be worded to be definite for 19 years beyond 1975 to suit the race horse interests, yet be cancelable if and when it suits Council to do so, and still satisfy those who feel that the PNE should remove the horses, racing and everything that goes with it, so that the areas could be restored for public park use?'22 This call for the restoration of the site for public park use was picked up again in 1978, when a local resident, Guy Faint, started a campaign to restore Hastings Park to parkland. Specifically, he challenged the provincial government for allowing development on the site, which was inconsistent with the intent of the original land grant in 1889, that is, 'for the use, recreation and enjoyment of the public.' In 1982 the province's attorney-general agreed, relying on a legal opinion which concluded that the development activity at Hastings Park was, in fact, contrary to the terms of the trust by which the property was conveyed by the province to the city of Vancouver. This was a pivotal moment as it set in motion the forces that mobilized community activists. Just three years later, in 1985, a new Hastings-Sunrise Local Area Plan was approved by city council. It recommended that activities at Hastings Park should 'shift away from trade shows/conventions, mass entertainment/gatherings, professional sports and agricultural-oriented pursuits,' and move, instead, towards 'local/district/city/regional park and recreation functions, special purpose regional activities and possibly more conventional land uses as an extension of the community setting.' Throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, residents near the park continued to mobilize and insist that the site be restored to parkland and that most of its commercial activities be phased out. In 1987, for example, the Hastings Park Restoration Society incorporated its mandate to lobby for the restoration of .

48 Indy Dreams recreational and park uses in Hastings Park. In 1992 the Friends of Hastings Park was formed as a coalition of community groups and citizens to lobby for the greening of the park. Among the coalition membership are the Hastings Park Restoration Society, the Hastings Community Centre Association, and the GrandviewWoodland Area Council. While this local grass roots political activity was gaining momentum, political pressures were applied to Vancouver city council. In 1990 council took action by informing the provincial government of its intention to green Hastings Park once the city's lease with the PNE expired in 1994 - the intention being that 'the site will be restored to dominant park use with abundant green space and trees, instead of asphalt and buildings.'23 Four years later, in May 1994. the province agreed after protracted negotiations that the city did indeed own Hastings Park and was free to move ahead with its restoration agenda.24 In 1995 both the Vancouver Parks Board (6 March) and city council (16 March) passed resolutions that called for a formal planning process for the park redesign to be approved, and that city council approve $350,000 for the implementation of this planning process, with the money to be drawn from the Hastings Park reserve fund. A NEW V I S I O N FOR H A S T I N G S PARK

Vancouver city council resolved in 1994 to commence a planning process for the creation of a greener Hastings Park. The effort was to be planned and coordinated by the Vancouver Parks and Recreation Board (Parks Board), working in conjunction with the local Hastings-Sunrise community.25 Diverse community interests were to be represented by the Hastings Park Working Committee (HPWC), created by city council on 16 March 1995, to assist the Parks Board with the development of a restoration program plan. One of the most striking things about this process was the high level of active public participation in the park's redesign. From the early 1980s, when local residents and various community groups first began to mobilize and insist that the site be restored to parkland and its commercial activities be phased out, there was intense public consultation and involvement. This pub-

Competing Visions 49 lie participation continued through the entire planning process. Significantly, provisions for continued involvement of the community in the implementation phase of the plan over the next two decades have been made by city council and the Parks Board. This continued public involvement in the park's restoration process has been secured by a recommendation for the creation of a 'joint governance mechanism,' with Parks Board and community representatives in order to ensure continued, formal community involvement in the revitalized park's programming and maintenance. The Hastings Park Working Committee set out to broker a consensus among various interests as to the 'vision' they had for a restored Hastings Park and what action must be taken to achieve it. To build this consensus the HPWC met regularly, a total of eighteen times between May 1995 and February 1996. The HPWC itself was comprised mainly of twelve active members representing six sub-committees, called Forums, each of which represented a major interest group with a stake in the park redesign and restoration process. These six forums are the Hastings Residents Forum, the Racetrack Forum, the Environment Forum, the Arts and Culture Forum, the Sports Forum, and the Vancouver Residents Forum.26 Each of these forums made written submissions to the HPWC, expressing their own vision for Hastings Park and how they saw this vision translating into potential park spaces and activities. For instance, the Racetrack Forum submission, which represents the interests of the principle component organizations in the thoroughbred horse racing industry in British Columbia,27 has as its principle objective in the Hastings Park planning process a 'full integration' of its activities with the broader goals and expectations of the other stakeholder groups. Not content to be regarded as a 'necessary evil' or 'merely as an adjunct to the Park,' the Racetrack Forum envisions thoroughbred horse racing, which has been a major attraction here since the early 1920s, as an integral 'part of the whole' - part of an 'overall theme' for Hastings Park. In this submission, 'integration' and 'co-operation' are foregrounded as the fundamental principles of the thoroughbred horse racing industry in the Hastings Park planning process. A second submission, this one by the Vancouver Residents Fo-

50 Indy Dreams rum, describes its vision of Hastings Park as a 'new environment that is sustainable and rich in its environmental diversity and complexity.' Its submission also calls for the redesigned park to be well connected to the broader social fabric of the city, a place that offers a variety of 'joyful, diverse, and intense experiences' for all citizens of Vancouver - for in describing a vision for Hastings Park, 'we are also describing a vision of who and what we are as a community.' To this end the park must have a sense of its 'civic purpose'; not only is it to be a place of forest, fields, and streams, but also a place 'where all the citizens of Vancouver come together to celebrate one another.' Public consultation has been the driving force behind the entire park redesign and restoration planning process. Besides public involvement through the six forums, a number of well-attended public hearings and workshops were organized by the Hastings Park Working Committee. In May 1995 the first of two community conferences was held. Called 'A New Start,' it launched the park planning process and attracted about 125 local residents. The second of these conferences was held the following October, a two-day event called 'Dreams and Ambitions.'28 With 150 people in attendance the conference featured presentations by four prominent park designers who worked with attendees in developing preliminary concepts and a general framework for the redesign of Hastings Park. This conference also initiated an ongoing consensus-building process among various interest groups as to what this new park space will include, and how best to achieve these goals.29 Hastings-Sunrise area youth were also brought into the process, through a design workshop held in October 1995 attended by some 100 high school students.30 In addition to these two community conferences, two newsletters were distributed to 9,000 area residents, inviting their participation. This vigorous consultative process continued into the spring of 1996, with numerous public meetings and forums bringing together a wide range of groups - all working under the guidance of the Hastings Park Working Committee towards building a consensus-based vision for a 'new' Hastings Park. In mid-February this was achieved with the completion of the Restoration Program, a

Competing Visions 51 plan outlining the program of activities that would underpin the park redevelopment. The Restoration Program was submitted by the HPWC to the Parks Board, where it received unanimous approval as 'the basis for the development of a conceptual design plan,' for the restoration of Hastings Park. Vancouver city council followed suit, and on 29 February 1996 it unanimously approved a resolution stating that the Restoration Program 'be approved in principle as the basis for the development of a conceptual design plan and that funding will be subject to Council approval of the staged or final overall park development.' In effect, the Restoration Program provides principal guidelines for the development that will occur at the park over the next four decades. It serves as the basis for the formal redesigning of Hastings Park in conjunction with detailed plans being designed by a park design consultant. Following its adoption of the Restoration Program, city council initiated its own in-depth public consultation process, undertaken between November 1996 and February 1997. Here the objective was to create a 'Restoration Plan,' a more concrete outline and project plan for the Hastings Park development project based on the principles laid out in the Restoration Program. Again, extensive public involvement in framing each stage of the park design remained paramount. On 22 June 1996 a workshop was organized for participants of the forums (the Residents Forum, Racetrack Forum, Environment Forum, Arts and Culture Forum, Sports Forum) involved in the Hastings Park planning to give preliminary feedback on key design issues raised by the landscape architect. Subsequently, an information display was set up at the 1996 PNE fair, in the B.C. Pavilion, which explained the objectives of the restoration initiative and highlighted the kinds of features and activities programming that will be found in the new park. A newsletter mail out/distribution campaign was another important strategy employed by the Parks Board to create public awareness of the park design process. In November 1996 more than 7,500 newsletters were mailed out to residents and property owners in the Hastings-Sunrise district. The newsletter described the three park design options being considered by the Parks

52 Indy Dreams Board and the Hastings Park Working Committee, as well as advertising forthcoming community conferences and open houses. Newsletters were likewise distributed to a number of high-traffic public places, including Vancouver City Hall, Parks Board offices, community centres, and libraries throughout the city. Along these lines advertising through local newspapers and the city's Internet website was employed to both facilitate and enhance public involvement. As was the case with the consultation process behind the design of the Restoration Program in 1995-6, a community conference was held on 23 November 1996. An estimated 150 people attended this all-day conference, held in the B.C. Pavilion at the park, where there was a slide presentation by the landscape architect in order to explain the common features and the differences between the three park design options under consideration. On the heels of that community conference, a number of open houses were organized at a variety of locations across the city, each attended by a Parks Board staff member; and, as with the community conference, presentation boards were displayed, and newsletters and questionnaires were handed out to the estimated 700 people who attended. HASTINGS PARK RESTORATION OBJECTIVES

The greening of Hastings Park is expected to take nearly two decades. Upon completion, the refurbished park will become Vancouver's second largest park. Hastings Park's conceptual design calls for the creation of a major park in the northeast area of Vancouver, to rival the internationally renowned Stanley Park located downtown on the city's west side. The Restoration Plan calls for the creation of about 92 acres of green park space on the 162-acre site. The remaining 70 acres will comprise the horse racing track (51 acres), parking (12 acres), and buildings (7 acres). As envisioned in the early planning phase, the new Hastings Park 'will be the City's major new park of the 21st century ... an urban sanctuary with abundant natural spaces, inviting peaceful informal activities, relaxation and a sense of wonder for local residences, visitors and the wider community of Vancouver.'31

Competing Visions 53 One of the most celebrated elements of the greening of Hastings Park is the rehabilitation of Hastings Creek. The creek, which used to run south-north through the heart of the exhibition grounds, was buried in 1935 to make space for rapidly expanding parking and amusement facilities. Community activists and Parks Board members alike seized on this historic stream as symbolizing the rebirth of Hastings Park: 'Restoration of Hastings Creek is central to the restoration of the park - the stream will become the heart of the new sanctuary,' reads the Restoration Program.32 The plan is to spend upwards of $5.5 million 'daylighting' the 1.3-kilometre stream and repairing its creek bed, revitalizing it to the point where it will once again provide a viable salmon habitat, one that will succeed in drawing salmon from Burrard Inlet into the park.33 The stream will be fed not from the city's water supply system, but rather by stormwater from the residential district of south Hastings-Sunrise and purified of chemical and biological contaminants through a process of biofiltration. This system will employ several ponds, a freshwater marsh, and a 'sequence of pools and riffles' to keep the stream's water clean enough to eventually support spawning Coho salmon. The return of salmon to Hastings Park is eagerly awaited, as their arrival will be seen to 'symbolize the healing of the park.'34 In tandem with the rehabilitation of Hastings Creek, the park design calls for creation of the 'Sanctuary.' A ten-acre plot of land on the park's southern half, the sanctuary will tie together diverse areas of the park — its forests, meadows, marshes, and gardens creating a natural urban sanctuary from the pressures and stresses of living in a rapidly growing metropolis. 'As urban density increases,' the Restoration Program reads, 'Hastings Park will bring pleasure not only to local residents, but all Vancouverites, as an 'escape' from the city in the city.' The Sanctuary is designed to do just that, to provide an expansive natural environment for quiet contemplation, birdwatching, and other 'quiet leisure' pursuits. Envisioned in the planning process as a natural serene setting with water, trees, and walking trails as its key features, the sanctuary will draw together Hastings Creek, several ponds, wetlands, forests, woodlands, open meadows, and gardens to create an area

54 Indy Dreams for 'quiet leisure, a place to get away from everything.'35 This sanctuary was overwhelmingly supported in the public consultation process as a key feature of the design and is widely regarded as 'the heart and soul of the new park' - there was a strong desire expressed by park advocates to ensure that the stream be capable of bearing salmon, that the forested areas become nesting grounds for many species of birds, that wildlife make Hastings Park their home, and that the Sanctuary become a thriving ecosystem in this growing urban community. To maximize the size of the Sanctuary, five major buildings were slated for demolition beginning in late autumn 1997: the B.C. Pavilion, the Food and Showmart buildings, the Poultry Building, and the Display Barn.36 About $8 million is earmarked for this crucial first phase of the overall Hastings Park restoration project, which was scheduled for completion by summer 1999. (The Sanctuary was officially opened to the public on 9 August 1999.) 'Green Links' are another key feature of the Restoration Plan, designed to expand the green space offered by a revitalized Hastings Park by connecting it to adjacent parks (Hastings Community Park, New Brighton Park, and Callister Park). This is part of a broader city initiative called the Greenways Plan - which calls for the creation of city-wide greenways that will link major parks with pedestrian walkways and bike paths (to be found along Vancouver's extensive waterfront), its many park pathways, and along specially designated streets. This expansive network of greenways will connect Hastings Park with other parts of the city to encourage and facilitate pedestrian and cyclist access to the park. Furthermore, the planned construction of a land bridge between Hastings Park and New Brighton Park (which lies between Hastings Park and the ocean-fed Burrard Inlet), will create a northsouth pedestrian corridor that finally links Hastings Park to Burrard Inlet.37 As envisioned in a 1991 report on design objectives for the site, the new Hastings Park will be distinguished by its visual and physical contrasts - 'the contrast of open green space with the adjacent working port, and the contrast of formal landscapes with naturalized, wilder space ... To picnic in a meadow and view

Competing Visions 55 thoroughbred horses; to have a close look at a freighter from an adjacent natural shoreline; and to move easily from formal water elements and gardens to naturalized creeks, meadows, and woods; all these will be experiences of the redeveloped [park].'38 A key to achieving this will be the construction of a major viewing area in the heart of the new park, called Windermere Hill. It will be constructed on the park's south side adjacent to the Sanctuary, located where the soon-to-be-demolished Play Land amusement park now stands on the high-point of the site. When completed it will afford 'dramatic vistas' of North Shore mountains and Burrard Inlet, assuring that 'the power of their presence is felt in the park.' As well, Windermere Hill will provide views into the venerable horse racing track - providing park visitors with what planners have called a spectacular 'landscape experience' for visual consumption by local residents and tourists alike. Amid all the creative destruction that the park rehabilitation calls for, with a number of buildings (some of them heritage buildings) being torn down to make way for the salmon stream, the nature sanctuary, the viewing hill, the numerous marshes and ponds, woodland meadows, and gardens - one venerable institution will remain a key feature of the new Hastings Park well into the twenty-first century: thoroughbred horse racing. The restoration plan calls for the careful integration of the Racetrack within Hastings Park, 'ensuring that its facilities blend in well with the program to green the park.' Current edges of the racetrack are 'solid' and offer few opportunities for people to view the activities associated with training and maintaining thoroughbred race horses. Under the Restoration Plan, the edges of the racetrack will be 'punctured,' making them permeable and thus improving views into the racetrack; this will have the effect of removing the racetrack from its isolated position in the park. Although the Restoration Plan requires the relocation of stables for 1,200 thoroughbreds, the Pacific Racing Association (PRA), which operates the Racetrack, supports the plan. The new plan will make the park more attractive, providing the public with distant views of the Racetrack and close views of the areas where horses are trained and groomed. In effect, this will make the

56 Indy Dreams Racetrack an integral part of the new park, weaving it into its very fabric. As the chair of the PRA said in support of the plan, 'We want to be a part of the park, not separate from it.'39 While horse racing has a secure future in the restored Hastings Park, the same cannot be said for the site's other long-time resident, the Pacific National Exhibition. The departure of the PNE is one of the crucial features of the Hastings Park Restoration Plan. Originally supposed to vacate the park after its 1997 fair, the PNE was granted a lease extension by city council in July 1997, an extension through its 1998 and 1999 exhibitions. Council did so to provide the PNE some breathing space while it seeks out a new site to relocate. However, this lease extension is contingent on the PNE 'having a firm agreement' for a new site secured by 31 December 1997. Should the PNE executive fail to meet this deadline, the extension will only be valid for 1998. This is the vision set out for a revitalized Hastings Park - a vision forged through a consensus-driven process bringing together local residents, environmentalists, and local businesspeople, and members of Vancouver's Board of Parks and Recreation. In short, 1996 was a landmark year for Hastings Park. The Restoration Plan embodies the many dreams and aspirations of neighbourhood residents, racetrack officials, sports groups, arts organizations, and environment advocates. It is a blueprint for the largest park in the northeast area of the city - a park that promises to be rewarding for those seeking a quiet nature walk as well as those seeking active recreation, a park that opens up and integrates the horse racetrack instead of turning its back to it, a park that reaches out to link with its neighbouring parks and communities. I want to conclude this chapter by underscoring the significant change in the primary mode of consumption at Hastings Park. That is, the shift from major commercial entertainment to more passive consumption activities. This came about as a result of committed grass roots political organization and activism. Now, this is not to suggest that no sports are going to be held at the new Hastings Park. On the contrary, sports and recreation will be key features of activity programming - but not on a grand commercial

Competing Visions 57 scale, and only within the framework of more passive, communityfocused use. A number of Indy proponents argued that car racing was being unfairly targeted for exclusion from the site, while commercial thoroughbred horse racing remained. But horse racing is a much different form of sports entertainment from the Molson Indy. There are fewer crowds, and less traffic congestion, noise, and waste, that is inescapably attendant with an Indy event. Furthermore - and this is significant - the Pacific Racing Association pays $1.5 million in rent annually to the city as part of its lease agreement for maintaining operations at the venerable Exhibition Park Racetrack; this money is earmarked to go towards the park restoration project. More notably, horse racing has been a working part of the park's history and could easily fit into the park Restoration Plan. The track itself is amenable to greening and promises to blend well with other activities slated for the park. As the chair of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation explains it, 'Active recreation is [still] a priority for park use in Vancouver, as is passive recreation.' Now unacceptable for programming activities at the restored Hastings Park, however, are the other kinds of commercial recreations that have dominated this public space for a century. With full financial and political commitment from Vancouver city council, and with the Parks Board and the blessing of community activists, the park's landscape and its activities programming will no longer be dominated by highly commericalized recreations. So, with commitments secured and the restoration program firmly in place by the end of 1996, the last thing park activists expected was the news that the Molson Indy would be looking to relocate in Hastings Park.

3 Selling the Spectacle

Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen woke early the morning of 17 January 1997 to find that a load of manure had been dumped on the sidewalk and driveway of his home. Claiming responsibility was a group called CRAP and their message to city politicians was clear - the Molson Indy would not be welcomed at Hastings Park in 1998. These anti-Indy activists dumped the manure while Owen and his family slept in their Shaughnessy home, an upscale area in Vancouver's west side, and then later called a local radio station to protest the noise and disruption caused by the Indy every Labour Day weekend.1 This came despite the fact that Owen had stated publicly that he thought moving the race to Hastings Park was a 'non-starter' because the park was destined to become 'a green, passive, quiet park for the community and the region.' Nonetheless, as urban planning consultant and writer Noel Hulsman put it, rather than welcoming Indy-car racing to their community CRAP was making a statement of defiance: 'Jacques Villeneuve isn't a salmon, and that race isn't a restoration stream.'2 The manure incident came only one day after Molstar Sports and Entertainment announced publicly its interest in relocating the Indy race to Hastings Park. The decision by Molson Indy promoters to move the race to Hastings Park was not simply a spur-of-the-moment decision. The moment it became clear that the Indy was going to lose 'its largest set of grandstands,' a site was sought that could meet the stringent criteria set out by Indy-car's governing body. Although more than eighteen sites were looked

Selling the Spectacle 59 at, Hastings Park quickly emerged as the best option. As race general manager Phil Heard explained, 'We looked everywhere for a site that would work for us. We looked from Squamish to the north of Vancouver, to Abbotsford to the east. We looked at every tract of land that was available and that looked like it might fit our criteria for accessibility, financial viability, and twelve weeks of site availability to accommodate our facilities set-up.' For instance, the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus fit the bill nicely. Heard noted, for example, that 'they had actually approached us once about the possibility of taking the race out there. It just so happens that Labour Day weekend [when the event is held] is their lowest occupancy level at the campus; summer school is out, fall term hasn't started, so it's the absolute lowest occupancy of the UBC campus and it would of course have been perfect for us.' University officials were quite interested in the idea of siting the race at UBC, or at least talking seriously about their potential fit. But at the same time they were in the midst of working with regional authorities on a major plan for the future development of their land as well as various land use policies. The best they could do was inform Heard that the Indy might be welcomed there in several years, but various campus construction projects and future development plans would have to be completed first, before any serious consideration could be given to hosting the event. For the moment the UBC site was a non-starter. Another potential site that initially held great interest for Indy officials was the Vancouver International airport property. It is located in Richmond, a city on an island bordering Vancouver's southwest side. The site is attractive because the land is very flat here, which would be ideal for the track. Most significantly, the land is for the most part undeveloped, relative to the rest of the lower B.C. mainland, nor is it expected to be developed for the next twenty years or so, thereby providing a potential long-term site for the MIV. Heard elaborates: 'We felt the Vancouver International airport has a brilliant site that isn't going to be in play out there in terms of residential development for the next couple of decades, so we felt we would be the highest and best-use for that

60 Indy Dreams land for the next couple decades. Once they really started to develop the land with residential and office buildings then we would move on; but that isn't going to be the case for a long time.' Nonetheless, airport officials were concerned about traffic issues. Access to the island on which the airport is located is limited to only two thoroughfares. At the best of times traffic is thick and during the Indy weekend, with more than 160,000 people descending on the area, congestion and outright gridlock would be serious issues. As one Indy official explained, 'There's only a couple of ways onto that island, and on race day especially, if even one person missed a plane because they were caught in traffic that was going to our race, there would be a huge outcry against us and the airport people.' Consequently Indy's proposal to relocate to the airport was rejected. By contrast, Hastings Park seemed to be the most workable option for relocating the Indy. As Heard explains it: 'We looked at airports, three of them: Boundary Bay, Vancouver International and Abbotsford. We looked at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, at the University of British Columbia; we looked at the land on the other side of False Creek where our present site is ... we looked at everything. And the consensus was that Hastings Park would make an excellent racetrack for us. It could be semi-permanent and all kinds of other good things that we needed and we could integrate the track with their park redevelopment.' Of all the sites Indy officials considered Hastings Park was the only one that met the criteria of accessibility and size, and that could be used for twelve weeks every summer to set up and take down the miles of fencing, grandstands, pits, and other race apparatus. According to Norman Stowe, director of media relations for the MIV, ' [from] a technical viewpoint ... from just a pure racing technical question of "Can you accommodate fans, can you make the course meet standards?" Hastings Park was a very, very good location.' O P P O S I T I O N TO THE I N D Y R E L O C A T I O N PLAN

Park advocates took a different view. Their reaction to the Hastings

Selling the Spectacle 61 Park relocation proposal was swift and vociferous. 'The whole idea is ridiculous,' complained one local resident. 'If there's an Indy, there won't be a park, it's as simple as that.'3 A director of the Hastings Community Association was even more blunt: 'I think it's ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous to think that they would want to foist this on a residential community.'4 Having worked for more than two decades to finally reclaim the PNE site at Hastings Park for conversion to green space, park activists were not about to have their plans compromised for an international motorsport event. By the time the Indy relocation plan was made public in midJanuary 1997, the Hastings Park Working Committee Restoration Plan was already in place. This was coupled with a great deal of forward momentum generated by the firm commitment of the Parks Board and city hall. So, even though most of the parkland destined for restoration still lay under ferris wheels, roller coasters, and pavement, there was reason for optimism. With the departure of the PNE and the restoration of parkland, the historic disparity in green space between Vancouver's east and west sides would soon be narrowed. For this dream to become reality all that remained was to get the first round of building demolition started, making way for Phase One of the stream restoration project and the creation of the natural sanctuary. Given this, locating a new major commercial megaproject at the revitalized park was a scandalous prospect for park advocates. 'We went through a lengthy public process and ended up with a consensus [on the park design plan],' explained Parks Board commissioner David Chesman. 'They want to undo all that. They've got a very large mountain to climb ... the idea is so ridiculous it makes me want to laugh, or get angry.'5 Gerry Underbill, an architect and member of the Hastings Park Working Committee, captured the mood: 'As volunteers we have to spend countless hours with few resources fighting these well-funded organizations that come up with ideas that are totally incompatible with a park.'6 In Underbill's view, the MW was completely incompatible with the land use plans designated for the revitalized Hastings Park - the integrity of the new park would be completely compromised by the incorporation of a permanent Indy site in it.

62 Indy Dreams Instead of restoring the park's natural environment, planning would have to be adjusted to accommodate a car race course. While the new vision for the park was to provide visitors with a 'wide variety of landscape experiences,' it is not difficult to see why local residents thought that a car race ought not to be one of these landscape experiences. The park's Restoration Program called instead for a 'greener' perspective: 'Hastings Park planning participants set about translating timeless community values such as appreciation for nature, recreation, celebration, entertainment and education into more contemporary programming that promises to offer great diversity of experience in a greener, public park setting.'7 On these grounds there could be no clean fit between the new park and a Molson Indy site. Marion Olivieri, a director of the Hastings Community Association, stated the case: 'What they do is treat this space like an automatic site for the development of these big entertainment events like Indy. Anybody who wants to do something in a big way ... [views] these PNE grounds as some big open area where major events can be put into buildings or that land can be used for whatever they want, because it is such a large piece of land and there's lots of room for parking and other facilities ... That's all they see [when they look] at that park.' This is precisely what Indy officials saw. Their relocation proposal called for the integration of the racetrack and other permanent and semi-permanent race facilities into the new park. Indy officials came to the Parks Board with a plan and several site designs. The problem was that the uneven topography of Hastings Park would require extensive landscaping and paving to bring the site to meet the technical standards required for the racetrack. Moreover, the proposed site designs would use parts of Hastings and Renfrew streets, as well as requiring sections of Hastings Park itself to be paved — including the planned sanctuary area through which the restored Hastings Creek salmon stream is supposed to run. Basically, almost all of Hastings Park's forty square blocks would have been affected in some way by the race. As Phil Heard explained, 'We have six designs for the track, and all of them go through the park. Some will utilize city streets but you couldn't

Selling the Spectacle 63 just run around [the park's] perimeter.'8 What this meant was extensive filling and leveling of land - land supposedly destined for trees, grass, and meadows - to accommodate the needs of the Molson Indy. That park activists would not accommodate the MIV in this manner is illustrated by one MIV staffer, who asked with some exasperation why Hastings Park just could not be developed with an Indy track in mind, basically incorporating the MIV site into the development plans for the park itself? 'We went out there [to Hastings Park] with 6 different track designs for that community to take a look at. Which they didn't do - they were not interested whatsoever in talking about this at all.' She concluded with a measure of resignation that, 'despite the fact we had 6 different track designs, they wouldn't even listen to us. One would not have closed down any city streets - the city would have loved that one. The residents wouldn't like that because it would have involved too much paving of what was going to be their green space. So then [we presented] variations of that basic proposal. But they didn't even want to look.' When the MIV relocation plans were first made public, event officials often spoke of integrating the race into the park. Although they recognized that extensive cutting and filling would be needed to level the land's sloping topography, they proposed that the end result apparently would be a site suitable for all 'stakeholders' in the park planning process. This, however, was working on the assumption that a park and an international motorsport event involved similar planning. However, repeated assurances from Indy officials that the new Hastings Park would not suffer - that siting the event there would not compromise the integrity of the park - did little to alleviate neighbourhood concerns. For example, I asked one local resident why the community was so opposed to hosting the MIV, given that the actual event is only three days long: 'But you have to remember that this community has had the PNE here for so many years, decades. And we know from first-hand experience with any major event that takes place over at that exhibition ground, it's never, never just a "few days" of inconvenience. Ever. They're going to

64 Indy Dreams come in and it's going to take them a month to set up the course, they're going to rip things up and put cement barriers all over the place. That has a real impact on our community here. It would have been impossible for my child to walk from my house to the community centre because they would have their race there blocking access, not to mention all those people and the noise and pollution that go with the Indy.' Following this same line of inquiry, when I asked one member of the Hastings Park Working Committee to comment on the environmental impact of siting Indy at Hastings Park, the problem, she complained, was 'putting an activity on parkland when there is no way the two could coexist; there's no way the park could be developed as we have it planned with this race in there ... Why can't they put it out at Point Grey or some place like that? The views are spectacular out there, too. But they seem to think the east end is a good place for anything that's going to make a lot of noise.' The Relocation Plan also drew a negative response from thoroughbred horse owners at Hastings Park. As far as they were concerned, 'The proposal is offensive in the extreme ... Horses and Indy cars just don't mix.'9 At issue here is not the drop in attendance the MIV would inflict on attendance at the Racetrack, but rather concern for the safety of the more than 1,000 horses stabled at the site, adjacent to where the proposed Indy course would be laid out. From the perspective of the horse-racing interests, the demolition derby held annually at the PNE is bad enough - an event on the scale of Indy would be intolerable, given that race cars are far louder and create a more sustained noise for three days rather than a couple of hours. 'I'd say it will drive [the horses] mad,' said a representative of the horse owners. T can't see the PRA [Pacific Racing Association] being wildly enthusiastic about this.'10 Indeed, according to the chairman of the PRA, the group responsible for conducting thoroughbred racing at the park, 'The horse-racing people [who were not consulted about the proposed Indy relocation proposal] would not be in accord with this proposal and, in fact, would be protesting vigorously against it. It shows complete ignorance about the horses them-

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selves to suggest an Indy race could be held that close to 1,000 horses. It's got nothing to do with the impact it might have on our attendance.'11 Reaction from Vancouver City Hall and the Parks Board to the Indy relocation proposal was likewise seemingly negative. While Mayor Phillip Owen said he favoured the park restoration, he also said he would love to see the race stay in town. Parks Board Commissioner David Chesman made his opposition to the plan more clear: 'I'm a sports guy. I like the Indy and the Grizzlies. But if they try to put this [relocation plan] through, I am prepared to lead any charge against it. Ask yourself, if you lived near Queen Elizabeth Park, would you want this car race in your park and in your neighbourhood?'12 Parks Board Chair Duncan Wilson echoed Chesman's view, confirming that the board will not support any plans that involve racing on the site. 'If they want to run it through green space and community recreation space, forget it,' he said. 'The board wasn't enthusiastic about the proposal to begin with when they originally talked about going around the whole park, not in it [as they are proposing now].'13 According to City Councillor Don Bellamy, who supported the Molson Indy's presence in Vancouver for the economic benefits it brings to the area, siting the event at Hastings Park was a 'crazy' idea. He stated that 'there's no way the neighbours are going to accept that kind of idea. Molson could announce they're going to paint all the buildings green, but it doesn't change a thing. No one will accept it there.'14 Even then-Premier Glen Clark, a fan of the event, entered the fray when he called the proposal to site the race at Hastings Park 'a really dumb idea.'15 Phil Heard countered these concerns by making the case that Indy's presence would not compromise the integrity of the new park - that passive and active recreation opportunities can comfortably coexist at Hastings Park. In fact, he argued, there are precedents for moving Indy races off city streets and into urban parks - pointing to some U.S.-based courses that are 'passive' for most of the year, hosting Indy-car races for only concentrated amounts of time once a year.16 In Detroit, for example, the Indy event was moved from the

66 Indy Dreams downtown core because of congestion primarily caused by land development, much the same as the Vancouver situation at False Creek. The race was moved from the city's downtown to Belle Isle, an island park in the Detroit River, which Heard notes is 'a passive park for 51 weeks of the year.' In Miami, an Indy-car race event was held on city streets in a temporary downtown location until it was moved in 1996 to a permanent structure built on agricultural land in Homestead, a Miami suburb. One MIV staffer, following Phil Heard's line of argument, pointed to Montreal's Grand Prix race (of the Formula One racing circuit) as a prime example of how an international motorsport event could be comfortably integrated with a major urban public park: 'Take a look at the Montreal Grand Prix, where do you think it's held? It's sited on old Olympic land, and it's a park. That's turned into a race course for the F-l race; the rest of the time it's a park. Sure, they've got a casino and stuff like that on that land, but it is still parkland. And look at Detroit, they race on Belle Isle and that's a park, other than when they have the race. So the point is, parks and the Indy can coexist quite nicely.' ' S E L L I N G ' THE I N D Y TO O P P O N E N T S MIV proponents were startled at the opposition to their proposal to move the Indy to Hastings Park. In reaction they launched a major public relations campaign in an attempt to overcome resistance to their plans. The campaign featured a combination of strategies ranging from brinkmanship, financial inducements, and arguments that explained the symbolic benefits of siting the event at Hastings Park. In mounting this campaign, MIV proponents were also able to draw on an extensive network of racing fans and volunteers. Brinkmanship That the Indy was neither wanted nor compatible with surrounding land uses seemed to be a small matter to Molstar Sports and Entertainment, the Indy's official promoter. 'Knowing a nice patch

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of grass when he sees one,' writes Noel Hulsman, Tndy [general manager] Phil Heard announced that it was Hastings Park or sayanara.'17 Indeed, it did not take long before Indy officials, in an effort to make civic elites and race fans pay attention, began chanting what has become, in the 1990s, a now all-too-common corporate mantra: Give us what we want or we will pack up and leave town. The fact that a major and unprecedented park restoration was in the works for Hastings Park was inconsequential. Molstar needed a racetrack, and if Vancouver politicians and park activists could not appreciate the value of big-time motorsport to their city's economy and image - then Houston, Buffalo, and Savannah, as well as other U.S. cities waiting in the wings for an Indy-car event certainly could.18 MIV general manager Phil Heard reminded Vancouver city council and local businesses that if the race were forced to leave town, with it goes the $19 million in economic spin-offs the event generates (according to Tourism Vancouver and Indy officials), not to mention the $500,000 that Indy reportedly contributes directly into the city's tax base. Race promoters also reminded Vancouverites of the promotional value of having Vancouver's scenery whip by in the background on the television sets in an estimated 100 million homes every Labour Day weekend. Moreover, this is a popular event - no other show in town even dreams about an audience that size for such a concentrated period of time, not the Grizzlies, not the Canucks, and certainly not the B.C. Lions of the Canadian Football League. Each year an estimated 160,000 people flood the stands during the Indy Labour Day weekend, including 70,000 for the final day. All this and 1,000-plus temporary jobs the event creates, and the $2.4 million it gives to thirty-five local contractors, makes the MIV an entertainment spectacle that few civic elites want to lose. Such things also make the MIV an event equally attractive to other 'entrepreneurial' cities who now compete aggressively, as noted earlier, to become financial, consumption, and entertainment centres.19 Today, cities such as Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto, following the lead of New York, Boston, and Chicago, 'not only compete for

68 Indy Dreams position with regional rivals but also compete to establish themselves as [premier] North American and indeed, world cities.'^ Hosting international-calibre major league sports events is crucial to these efforts. In some instances, inter-urban competition for such events can even occur between a city and its developing suburban regions. In the case at hand, for example, the neighbouring city of Surrey made a determined effort to have the MIV relocated to its downtown core. Surrey's bid for the Molson Indy provides a useful example of how entertainment event promoters try to extract major subsidies and financial concessions of all sorts from civic governments. The governments want both the immediate business and the apparent longer-term benefits that are believed to flow from the high visibility and international scope of spectacular entertainment events. When it became certain that the Molson Indy Vancouver would be forced out of its downtown site at False Creek, Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum wrote to Indy officials inviting the event to his municipality.21 The case he made was that Surrey was the ideal site to relocate the event, with its huge land base, wide streets, and sharp turns providing the 'urban feel' that was one of the crucial criteria guiding the site selection process. As MIV spokesperson Norman Stowe put it to reporters at the time, 'We've created a race with a real downtown feel and that's why we feel that it is successful.'22 This is precisely what the Surrey mayor set city engineers to work on, and they quickly developed three potential courses in the city centre for Indy officials to consider: 'Because of our immense land base downtown, we were able to develop three good sites that we felt could be used, that would make the Indy people happy. So [Phil Heard] came out and had a look at them; we spent quite a bit of time with our engineers looking at the three sites and then we shortlisted one site which was in our city centre which fitted most of the technical parts of the track, the technical requirements that they need to run the race. We then concentrated on that particular site with Phil and his technical people who measured the track and went over all the technical requirements to make sure the track met all their specifications.' Not only was Surrey offering what city officials felt was an ideal

Selling the Spectacle 69 downtown location ('they'd have a hard time finding a better site,' one city staffer commented), but Mayor McCallum argued that support for major league sports is widespread in the municipality. Alluding to the difficulties Indy officials were then going through with the community at Hastings Park, he explained that 'the whole community was on board ... We didn't have any group that was opposed to our bid for the Indy. In fact, the vast majority of phone calls we had were of the sort, you know, "Go for it, let's get the Indy."' As McCallum tells it: I think people, at least in Surrey, want to see it [the Molson Indy] here. We certainly will bet the odd one - and I can't think of more than, uh, counting them on one hand - people that have phoned in concern, not necessarily against the race itself but against the noise. But there's been no opposition in terms of organized groups [like they've had] at Hastings Park in Vancouver. In fact, it's been the opposite experience here. The Surrey Chamber of Commerce, which represents a lot of businesses, has been all for it and was promoting it. We have most of the businesses there, even though they would lose two or three days of business, were promoting it, wanting it. And they, in fact, sent letters to the Indy people saying they support it - even if it means losing those couple of days of business.

In addition to this purported groundswell of popular support for the Indy bid, McCallum highlighted Surrey's 'huge' volunteer base and its experience hosting the Greater Vancouver Open (GVO), one of the Professional Golf Association's (PGA) major tournaments, as selling points for luring the Molson Indy into town. Surrey is already a big-event city, Mayor McCallum argued, it knows what it takes 'to put on a big show': We have an added benefit which any major sports event needs - and that is lots of enthusiastic volunteers. Most of our population base, because we're a relatively new city and a growing city, is young people and young families. They have a tendency to volunteer a lot more, so we have a huge, huge base of volunteers and we're putting on lots of provincial sports events this summer because we have this big volunteer

70 Indy Dreams base that organizers can draw on for the volunteers these events need. That's one of the reasons the GVO came to us, because of this huge volunteer base which the PGA needs for all of its tournaments. There's crowd marshals, help with tents, hospitality tents, and the like, as well as guides that show people around the tournament; there's just a host of volunteers that are very integral to us putting on that event each year. The whole organization basically runs on volunteers; they have a committee alone of a hundred that's all volunteers. And that's the sort of commitment we could bring to an Indy event in Surrey. Indeed, why go after the Molson Indy in the first place? What is the attraction of hosting this event, what with the noise and garbage and traffic and all the other hassles that come with it - all of which are magnified given that the city hosts the Greater Vancouver Open golf tournament only one week before? Economics and civic image-building are the motivation, and they fit hand-inglove when it comes to international sports events. Quite simply, Mayor McCallum was fully convinced by race promoters' arguments that the Indy generates some $19 million in economic activity for Vancouver's economy, not to mention the intangibles attendant with television broadcasting into almost 100 million homes worldwide. 'I think the number one ingredient it brings in is economic activity and tourist dollars,' he explained. 'There's a huge economic spin-off of hosting a major sports event like Indy. It would be most beneficial to our community and our business to get them to come to Surrey.' In fact, hosting both the GVO and the Molson Indy would make for a 'powerful one-two punch,' argued McCallum, making it clear that the possibility of hosting two international sports events in the city, within a week of each other, was tantalizing and created an extra incentive for Surrey's civic officials to go after the Indy. Surrey's enthusiasm for the Indy was strengthened by the city's experience with the Greater Vancouver Open. The GVO has an attendance of more than 150,000 spectators over its week-long run in late August; these people rent hotel rooms and cars, they eat in restaurants, and they buy souvenirs and clothing in local stores. Adding the MIV into the Surrey's major league sports fold would certainly increase this sort of economic activity exponentially.

Selling the Spectacle 71 Not only are the economic spin-offs appealing to civic officials, but so is the image-building potential that such international sports events offer. Take the GVO, for example. As is any big-ticket event, 'this is a huge benefit for us,' the mayor explained. 'Something about the GVO you have to remember is that this is a worldclass event, it's one of the PGA tour stops that many of the bigname golfers make. And they bring with them their major corporate sponsors, their legions of fans; really, it means a lot of international attention focused on Surrey for that weekend.' With a strong civic image, promoted through international sports events, the argument goes, a city gets increased tourist dollars and investment capital. In support of this line of thinking, Mayor McCallum pointed to the symbolic benefits the city and its businesses reap from hosting the GVO: 'The GVO puts Surrey on the map in golfing, because it gets broadcast all over North America and also gets satellite coverage to other countries - it puts Surrey on the map internationally. Golfing is a major aspect of tourism today; it's a huge draw if your community has a well-known course, and if you have a PGA event to go with that, it only boosts your image.' Extending this argument to Surrey's bid for the Molson Indy, the MIV's director of media relations lauded Surrey's attempt to get the event relocated to its downtown core: 'As for Surrey, I think the mayor deserves a lot of credit. He and his community saw an opportunity and went after it. They recognized that not just the financial benefits but also the profile benefits that go with hosting an Indy-car race. When your community is seen in 160plus cities around the world, the benefits are enormous as you can well imagine ... The Molson Indy is an international event, a truly international event with race teams coming from around the world ... The Surrey people saw the race for what it was - [a superior promotional vehicle], and were quite keen to have it because they recognized what it could do for their community.' Surrey's mayor concurred with this view: 'Major sports events like the Indy are highly effective promotional vehicles, very much so. The return to the city for hosting an event like this - because of all the publicity and news coverage of the event - is primarily in economic spin-offs like hotels, motels, restaurants, resorts, retail business, that sort thing.'

72 Indy Dreams Against this background, Surrey's mayor argued that aggressively pursuing entertainment spectacles such as the Molson Indy simply makes good business sense: 'What the Indy does for a city is, it puts some pride into the city, it puts some image into the city.' He went on to argue that there was strong community support for the race (although there was no formal public consultation on the matter) from the population and the business community - because Surrey's citizens ostensibly recognized the value of visitors to the region. From a business perspective: 'If you can get that many people coming to the area, boy that's a huge benefit because you get them once, you provide them with some kind of goods or service, you're gonna get those people coming back. So it's a huge benefit to have major sports events because of the people they attract. If you get 200,000 people attending the Indy race over the long weekend, that's 200,000 probably new people coming into the area to spend some money - but, most important, they will also come back to spend some money, and that's the key.' Therefore, as far as costs associated with putting on the Indy are concerned, it's simply good business sense and they are incurred for the potential return on investment that Indy represents. Asked to talk about the kind of costs that are involved with relocating the event to Surrey (infrastructure costs to bring the site up to specification, for example, or building a hairpin turn into a downtown street currently under construction23) and whether they are a deterrent from the city's perspective, Mayor McCallum brushes them aside. Investing public money in the race was simply the cost of doing business: 'Well, it's an investment that's far overshadowed by the amount of economic return that's generated. In fact, the Indy pays for some of the infrastructure costs ... that's part of the negotiation to hold the race, that's where the specifics are negotiated. But the benefits that Indy would bring to Surrey far outweigh any kind of money we'd have to spend in that area.' The Surrey mayor's comments provide a graphic example of the extent to which 'world-class' events such as the Molson Indy are considered by civic political and business elites to be highly effective promotional vehicles. These are necessary for achieving

Selling the Spectacle 73 economic growth in an era of intense competition for the tourist and entertainment dollars that nowadays help drive local economies and urban growth. As the Surrey case demonstrates, in most instances civic elites want these urban spectacles badly and will go to great lengths to get them. On this point, David Whitson and Donald Macintosh argue that 'the enthusiasm of local and regional governments for such [sports megaprojects] needs to be seen in the context of competition among cities for public and private investments that contribute to economic growth.'24 In this respect, Whitson and Macintosh continue, public subsidies for major league sports events are enthusiastically promoted by the regional business elites who typically see the most material benefits. That being said, 'it is also common to find widespread popular support for subsidies that will attract or keep a big league franchise, or for large expenditures on games or Expo facilities. Such support includes avid sports fans ... it also encompasses many others who share less actively in the excitement that news media generate around teams and events, or who are persuaded that the issue is one of civic pride, of showing others what the city can do.' This was precisely the case advanced by both Vancouver and Surrey growth boosters in their efforts to site the Molson Indy in their communities. In this line of reasoning, because everyone shares in the benefits of hosting sports entertainment megaprojects, it is something akin to obligation for civic elites to go after them, and a civic duty on the part of the local citizenry to support these efforts. With Surrey, a public statement issued by the mayor illustrated this point: 'The citizens of Surrey have been extremely supportive of our bid for the Indy. I think we delivered the message loud and clear that Surrey is open for business, and city council and staff are ready to do what they can to create local jobs and economic growth.'25 Despite concerted efforts on the part of the mayor and city staffers, Surrey failed to secure the Molson Indy. There are several reasons for this, chief among them a track configuration that Indy officials concluded was 'unworkable.'26 'Esthetics had nothing to do with it,' said MIV general manager Phil Heard. 'The Gateway

74 Indy Dreams Park area provided a beautiful visual backdrop. But technically it didn't measure up.'27 The proposed site would have captured too many businesses and residential homes, making the site virtually unmanageable not only for the race weekend but also the several days leading up to it. 'In our case,' explains Mayor McCallum, 'we had, I think, thirty or thirty-five major retail stores with all kinds of businesses caught in the middle of our track, and we had to work on some way of opening the track, of getting access to those stores.' As Heard tells it, The course they designed and tried to get us to do, had something like 170 businesses inside the track and probably 70 homes. Now, with our current site at False Creek one of the strong advantages is that when you start to put out cement barriers and fencing, you can bring in a work crew and they can do a long run, no interruptions for gates and what have you. Then on the Thursday before the race weekend, when we close down the streets, all we have to do is 'button' everything up, you know, all we have to do is close up the gaps for the streets that are down there at the site, just like buttoning the fly of your pants. This is what we call 'site lockdown' ... On the other hand, with the Surrey site our longest [fencing and barrier] run would have been, in many places, something like 20 feet because of all the gaps you would have had to leave open, for parking lots, people's access to their homes and all that sort of thing - it would have been unbelievable. We would have had to close the streets probably the previous Sunday night, four days earlier than normal, in order to start buttoning up the racetrack.

This matter of accessibility made the Surrey site 'completely uneconomical,' given the enormous amount of compensation that Molstar would have had to provide affected businesses and home owners. Not to mention that local traffic in the affected area would have posed tremendous prerace problems during the 'lockdown' phase, forcing the constant opening and closing of spectator fencing. 'We just couldn't make it work out there, despite all the strong selling points they brought to us,' concluded the MIV's director of media relations. 'The problem with Surrey as a site was a combination of transportation access to the down-

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town, and of having to shut down all kinds of businesses which just made [the proposed site] unfeasible. But certainly the mayor of Surrey made a huge effort.' Certainly, Mayor McCallum remained undaunted. In an interview a few months after the failed efforts to bring the Molson Indy to town, he made it clear that Surrey officials would use the next few years productively, aiming for 2001 in their preparations to make another bid for the Molson Indy event. The Indy is a major event and we really want it out here. So, yeah, we'll be going after it when it comes up again; they only have the new False Creek site for a few years and then they'll be looking for a new, more permanent site. And also with our growth as a city, we've got a huge spectator base in the city that means they're going to get more spectators than they ever got down in Vancouver. So we've got all the benefits that they'll need in the future, so I will predict that we will get it and that probably it will be in the 2002 or 2003 period ... This is definitely something we will be keeping a close eye on and be preparing for. We'll be keeping in touch with the Indy people, reminding them that we have the best site for them.

To sum up, the not-so-subtle message from the Molson Indy Vancouver's publicity machine, as a Vancouver Sun editorial suggests, was this: 'It's our raceway or the roadway.'28 Alternately threatening and cajoling, MIV officials talked forcefully about all the economic benefits of hosting Indy, and how these would all be lost if Hastings people did not agree to the race; given that a host of North American cities were lined up and drooling for an Indy franchise - particularly Surrey, Vancouver's next-door neighbour. As the MIV's media relations director put it, 'If the Hastings Park issue did anything, it really crystallized the problem: Folks, if we don't have a Vancouver race then someone is going to take it away from us.' For their part, Molstar Sports and Entertainment was generally unwilling to admit engaging in brinkmanship. In their view, they simply presented Vancouverites with cold hard facts in their efforts to win support. As the MIV's communications director tells

76 Indy Dreams it: 'But it didn't happen and it's not going to happen. And I think that the issue of feeling the pressure of "do it our way or we're gone" that certainly wasn't the intention of the race promoters. If anything it was just the reverse: there are so many cities on the waiting list for a race site, places like Houston, Texas, and Savannah, Georgia - you could feel their breath on the back of your neck. You knew that they were waiting for the Molson Indy Vancouver to fail in securing a home; it was their opportunity to secure those franchise rights. So that's what we were trying to let people know.' Brent Scrimshaw, the president of Molstar, echoes this: 'We won't make a threat, at any time in the process, to leave Vancouver. We've conducted our business openly and honestly and very much in the public eye. After exhausting all avenues, if we're unsuccessful [with the Hastings Park relocation bid], then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But threats are not in the game. ^ Nonetheless, Molstar's efforts in this regard were perceived by many in the community as outright brinkmanship, as unmitigated threat, and they reacted accordingly. 'One of the things that got the local community quite angry was the brinkmanship,' explained a member of the Hastings Park Working Committee, referring to the 'Hastings Park-or-gone' rhetoric that permeated the air. 'A lot of people I talked to said they felt they were being blackmailed. I don't want to kill the Indy. I [just] think there are other locations it can work in.'30 Community activist Alan Scales was likewise unmoved by race promoters' rhetorical strategy, dismissing it with a curt, 'They're threatening to take the race away with all this talk about Vancouver being a world-class city. I think whether a city is world-class or not depends on parks, not car races.'31 ,9Q

Financial Inducements When it became clear that brinkmanship alone was not going to bring park advocates and community activists on side, Molstar shifted gears and tried instead to win over the community with various financial inducements or 'treats,' as one indignant resident put it. In effect, they were appealing to the hearts, minds,

Selling the Spectacle 77 and wallets of the community. 'We hope that the first reaction [of hostility towards the idea of Indy's presence in the new Hastings Park] was an emotional one. This proposal may put a different spin on it.'32 As the Indy general manager explained in an interview: 'Our point was: Look, it's going to take a long, long time and a lot of money to build the park they want; it's at least a twentyyear project and is going to run up to $40 million before it's finished. And we thought we could probably cut all that in half for them because we were proposing to pay for a whole lot of things in return for siting our event there. So that was our basic approach.' To this end Molstar announced it would provide a number of perks to Hastings-Sunrise area residents in return for their support for the Hastings Park relocation proposal. This began with a promise of 3,000 discounted tickets and a free one-day pass. Also put on the table was first 'consideration' for the 1,300 part-time jobs the MIV generates, mostly labouring work for set-up and takedown of the race apparatus such as the grandstands, seating, concrete barriers, and some 24,000 feet of spectator fencing that rings the track. By far the most significant financial inducement Molstar offered was money for a park restoration fund, to be generated through a special ticket surcharge (a deal similar to the one thoroughbred horse racing interests struck with the city as part of their site lease, whereby they would turn over a portion of the season's total wagers to the city). The additional revenue could certainly be used, because, in addition to the cost of 'greening' the park, operating and administrative costs are likely to be high. The operating costs for the restored Hastings Park are difficult to calculate precisely at this stage. However, Queen Elizabeth Park, which has about 20 per cent more green space than Hastings Park, offers a benchmark for the Parks Board. The annual cost of maintaining the green space (excluding the Bloedel Conservatory and Seasons Restaurant) is about $900,000, suggesting an operating budget of about $700,000 for green space at Hastings Park. In addition, there would be the operating costs associated with the remaining buildings, which are estimated to be $500,000 for the three renovated buildings and $250,000 for the Agrodome.33

78 Indy Dreams The speed at which the park can be restored will be dictated primarily by the money available for the project. I asked a member of the Hastings Park Working to explain where all this money will come from: Hastings Park racetrack is on the area and is included in the development plans. Every year we get a portion of their revenues, a form of rent, and that's about $1.5 million a year we get from them that will certainly help. As well there's $5 million that's been allocated on a referendum on this. Of course, it will be taxpayer's who will pay for this, as they do for every park that is developed ... There are also lots of foundations that are willing to provide support, that we hope to latch on to that will help us through this. Trees Canada, for example, and also a fishing group that we hope will contribute to a salmon enhancement program since there will be a stream running through the park. We think we can accomplish what we want to do over the next 20 years.

According to the park Restoration Plan, the capital cost for the project is about $45 million (in 1997 dollars). Funding for this will come from two main sources: (1) $4.5 million allocated in the city's 1994—6 capital plan; and (2) the rent collected from the thoroughbred horse racetrack, estimated at about $1.5 million per year, but which will fluctuate from year to year, depending on the total wager. Over the remaining twenty-two years until the end of the lease, this amounts to about almost $40 million (in 1997 dollars). Additional funding sources are being explored, especially government programs such as the Federal/Provincial Infrastructure Program, the Urban Salmon Habitat Fund, and private foundations and corporations.34 Molson Indy general manager Phil Heard seized upon the daunting costs of the park Restoration Project as a bargaining chip. Specifically, Molstar offered to levy a $5 surcharge on all admission tickets, money which would be funneled into the park restoration fund (an arrangement similar to that struck between the PRA and the city as part of their lease agreement for thoroughbred horse racing at Hastings Park). Molstar also offered a one-

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year trial agreement with the community receiving a rental fee similar to the deal the PRA has for its thoroughbred racing facility. The rationale behind this strategy is explained by one MIV staffer, who applauds the local community for their efforts to get the park, yet intimates that they must be 'realistic' when considering the prohibitive costs of the restoration project: 'You see, I understand where these people are coming from in HastingsSunrise. They've fought long and hard with the city to have that land designated for parkland. And if I were part of that fight in my community, I wouldn't be so quick to give it up either. But on the other hand, we're talking about a twenty-year plan for developing this parkland, we're hearing nothing from the city but that there's no money - where's the money going to come from?' The subtext here is that the best thing for park advocates would be to work with the Molson Indy officials, not against them. As this MIV staffer sees it, the exchange of perks for community support of the MIV relocation is a form of good business sense - reminiscent of arguments made by civic elites when justifying their pursuit of major league sports events, often at great financial and social costs to the local economy. She goes on to argue that 'when it comes down to it, what they need to do is sit down and listen to what we have to say and see if there's a deal they can work with Indy. So that they get what they want faster and live with our race for three days of the year.' Norman Stowe, media relations director for the MIV, elaborated this last point, arguing that an ostensible shortage of public funds for such a major park restoration project could be shored up through what amounts to a partnership between the Molson Indy interests and the city and park advocates: 'The fact that the race promoters were fully prepared to make a significant contribution to the park development project to help rebuild Hastings Park because we know that tax dollars are scarce. So the race could have made a significant multi-million dollar contribution to speed up development of the park, faster than tax dollars would allow. We could have put a significant amount of money into it early on to get the thing started faster.' Phil Heard claimed that these various inducements were not

80 Indy Dreams meant to be interpreted as a crass attempt to 'buy people off,' but should rather be interpreted as an act of responsible corporate citizenship - a public demonstration that Molstar was willing to give back to the community in return for their support. 'We want to show we can be flexible,' he told reporters, 'show we can listen to the community and address their concerns.'35 Still, many local residents greeted with scorn and derision what they regarded as a blatant 'selling job' by Molstar. Indeed, the sense of resentment towards Molstar's strategy is palpable in many of the comments made in reaction to it. 'It's a dirty trick,' complained a member of the Hastings Park Work Committee. 'They're trying to strong-arm some people to their [way of] thinking' with their perks.36 'This community can't get intoxicated by Molson's,' said one local resident of the promoter's promise of free tickets, jobs, and money for the park's restoration.37 Said another, 'They couldn't appeal to people's hearts and minds, so they're trying for their wallets. They're trying to buy people off.'38 However, Molstar's offer of financial assistance for community development programs and the park Restoration Project was rebuffed as being too insignificant to warrant community support for the MIV relocation proposal. Put more directly, park activists argued that the money was not worth the trouble. 'That $200,000 [the Molson Indy would provide] is laughable, really,' said one park activist. 'That money is a drop in the bucket... It costs a lot of money to develop a park, $40 million for this park plan we have in place, which is about a 20-year development project. This includes the costs of building a bridge to New Brighton Park which is the waterfront park, and all of the infrastructure, as well as a passageway through the racetrack area so that as you pass from one park to the waterfront park you'll be able to watch the horses being worked out. It's really quite beautiful and quite breathtaking ... This will be the second largest park in Vancouver. So to think that a car racing track would come in and want to have any part of this just doesn't fit at all.' On Molstar's promise of jobs, one resident complained: 'They started off with a big leaflet campaign in the neighbourhood. They were promising, in a broader way - not to us, the local

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community — think of all the money for your community the Indy will bring in. They were claiming that the city would benefit from the money generated by this event. Yes, the city, not the local community. They talked about all the jobs the Indy would generate. But they don't say what kind of jobs; they just say jobs "employment opportunities" they call it. Employment opportunity for youth, they said in this little pamphlet they sent out.' I asked another local resident for her opinion about the jobs issue, and she raised a good point concerning the limited, lowpaying, and unskilled nature of the work a temporary event like the Molson Indy requires. 'Well, if you consider people that spend the weekend selling backyard parking 'job creation," then I suppose it does. But I really don't see what kind of long-term positive impact this race has in terms of creating real jobs. [All I see it generating] is lots of service-type jobs, or temporary work setting up and cleaning, that sort of thing. But don't tell me it's creating real jobs.' Yet another activist challenged Molstar's claim that the MIV would provide temporary work for the Hastings-Sunrise community. She pointed to the army of volunteers that provide the promoter with thousands of hours of free labour, doing exactly the kind of unskilled work promised to local residents. But really ... they incensed the people because they kept saying that, you know, they kept saying it would bring in jobs, they would be sure to hire people in the community to help set up for this thing - and its so ludicrous because we know that the people who help set up the race site at False Creek are mostly volunteers who are fans of racing! People want to work as a volunteer for the race and, of course, the race starts and they get to see all the cars and all that, you know, they get to be part of the big show. And it was just ridiculous for them to try and sell the race to us like that... So really this race wasn't going to generate any real jobs, nothing significant. To think that we would not be smart enough to figure that out is just ridiculous and insulting on their part.

At the end of it all, the general mood of resentment towards Molstar's financial inducements and treats is captured by Hastings

82 Indy Dreams Community Association director Marion Olivieri, who said with some exasperation: 'We just felt they were trying to buy us, and I know many of the people said, Listen, we aren 't stupid.You know, these Indy people seemed to have it in their minds that this was such a wonderful gift for our area that we wouldn't care, and didn't have enough brains to figure out that it was doing nothing for the health of our community. I think that was one thing that many residents resented quite deeply.' Symbolic Benefits It has become a commonplace of civic wisdom that sports megaprojects such as the Molson Indy play key roles in the framing of a city as a world-class place. The mayor of Indianapolis captured this idea nicely when, commenting on the relocation of the Baltimore Colts of the National Football League to his city, he said: 'Yes sir, we're going all the way now. It's a wonderful thing for our community. It's a boost to the city's image nationally and to local morale as a symbol of major league status ... We want people to sit up and say, "By God, that city has a lot going for it."'39 It is along these lines that promoters suggested that the Molson Indy functions as a promotional vehicle for the production and dissemination of meanings concerning Vancouver's identity and its development trajectory. It is a popular idea and one likely to get a sympathetic hearing by local business elites. To reiterate a point made earlier, business and political leaders in 'entrepreneurial cities' across North America increasingly see the need to attract sporting spectacles simply as a matter of economic and cultural 'common sense.' It is good for the city, it puts us on the world map, the argument runs. Major league sports are good for business, job creation, tourism - everybody wins. On this last point, Kimberley Schimmel makes the case that such image-making campaigns and boosterism strategies - constructed around major league sports teams and events - are designed to legitimate the actions of urban growth coalitions by expressing them as being necessary for the betterment of the 'community-as-a-whole.' In this context the concept boosterism

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refers to a calculated activity, 'a campaign that not only seeks to promote the interests of the dominant class but also seeks to legitimize political solutions to urban "problems" by symbolically constructing consensus (i.e., by blurring conflict in the redevelopment process).' This enables civic leaders of all stripes (business, politics, culture) to propagandize their own particular visions of a 'good business climate' and 'quality of life.' This is precisely the kind of consensus Molson Indy boosters sought in their attempts to garner public support for their park relocation plans. Such boosterism, Schimmel writes, therefore, 'not only symbolically constructs consensus behind the banner of pro-growth, it also markets the local state's business climate to private capital, thereby encouraging future capital investment.' To this end, Growth and image-making campaigns proceed hand-in-hand. If successful, they are mutually reinforcing and self-perpetuating; i.e., to stimulate development (growth) the local state (public entrepreneurs) provides incentives (e.g., land, tax abatements, grants, revenue bonds, among others) which ease the financial burden and minimize the financial risk to private capital. By absorbing some of the costs of investment, the local state either increases private capital accumulation (profit) or reduces private capital loss ... When capital investment occurs, especially if it is relocated capital, it fuels boosterism campaigns by suggesting to the public that the local state's actions are, in fact, working. It also captures the attention of other investors who may be contemplating disinvestment [or] reinvestment decisions.40

Employing this boosterism strategy, the MIV general manager highlighted the symbolic benefits for both the city and the Hastings-Sunrise community of hosting the MIV, stating that the race would act as a promotional vehicle, putting the park on the world map. What this amounts to is an imaging exercise, much the same as that made to sell the event to the city at its current downtown site. Indy as a tool for promoting Vancouver as a world-class place through various discourses constructed around the spectacular event. Indy would ostensibly help the park through an 'imaging'

84 Indy Dreams exercise much the same as that made for promoting the city as world class. If area residents and park activists were to lend support to the Indy relocation proposal, Heard argued that the park's profile would be dramatically boosted: 'Some parks need decades to build a community profile. By hosting the Molson Indy Vancouver, Hastings Park will receive instant recognition, both here at home and around the world.'41 Just think of all the gleaming television coverage promoting Hastings Park itself, the argument ran. Through the Indy broadcast to 100 million homes in 108 countries around the world, the 'new park' in east Vancouver could be promoted - its long history, what it will look like when redevelopment is completed, not to mention how tourism and thoroughbred horse racing could be promoted on a global scale through the media coverage of the MIV. Not having the event would be to lose not only an immediate economic stimulus, but a vital promotional vehicle as well. As one local resident declared in support of the Indy relocation: 'This is a world-class event - we are talking about a lot of money to the community and that community includes my neighbourhood. If we lose this [relocation bid] and we give it up in the east end [at False Creek], I'm telling you right now we would not have [an Indy race anywhere] in this city.'42 LINKING VOLUNTEERS TO THE PROMOTIONAL D I S C O U R S E

The Race Event Volunteers of Vancouver (REW) is the 'official volunteer organization' of the Molson Indy Vancouver. REW is a non-profit association which, according to its mission statement, 'exists to recruit, train and organize volunteers as well as promote volunteer services and represent volunteer rights. Its primary objective is to support the production of the Molson Indy Vancouver at [False Creek].'43 Formed in 1990, following the MIV's inaugural event, REW now boasts a membership base of around 600 volunteers. To join the association, recruits pay a non-refundable annual membership fee of $15 and they must make a minimum work commitment of thirty hours prior to, during, or after

Selling the Spectacle 85 the race. Moreover, all volunteers are required to attend an orientation meeting prior to race weekend as part of their job assignments, and they must make themselves available to work all three days (Friday to Sunday) of the race weekend.44 REW volunteers provide a range of vital services not only during the Molson Indy weekend, but also in the weeks leading up to and following the event. They are responsible for crowd control, assisting at the media centre, servicing the VIP suites, staffing the grandstands and information booths, and providing back-up assistance to the event's various corporate sponsors. Volunteers also assist with 'track services,' assuring that the race course and auxiliary facilities are fully functional prior to and during the race weekend; responsibilities here include fencing and screening maintenance and site preparation (sweeping, weeding, rock and debris removal), placement of direction signage, equipment and vehicle control, painting, and various light duty maintenance. Another key area looked after by REW is 'transportation,' which involves the transporting of people (technical staff, race officials, journalists) and materials required to produce the MIV. All this volunteer activity translates into a huge financial saving for Molstar, the event promoter, who reaps the benefit of thousands of hours of unpaid labour. I asked the general manager to comment on this: 'Oh Christ, they save us a tonne of money! Absolutely they're important to the event. We don't have this kind of volunteerism in Toronto [for the Molson Indy event there]. We've priced it out and even though the REW organization costs us about $130,000 to keep it running (which includes their shirts, their food on race weekend, their social events, keeping a fulltime coordinator on staff, all those kinds of operation costs), but in Toronto the same services that REW provide for us would cost in the $180,000 to $200,000 range, because of the ushers and pass control - the whole staffing of the event.' In this sense, he concludes, 'You can't really quantify everything they do for us. I mean, through all the promotions and special events they help organize and put on, I could never afford to pay for that manpower.' Another Indy staffer concurs, saying, 'We couldn't pull this off without them.'

86 Indy Dreams REW's contributions to the MIV are not confined to the race weekend. The association also provides crucial 'out of season' support throughout the year, its members acting as fanatic boosters or proselytizers who are out in the community 'spreading the word' about the Molson Indy - what a great event it is, how much fun it is to attend such a spectacular event, how important it is to Vancouver's economy and its public culture. This idea is expressed quite nicely by the director of volunteers for the MIV, who says, 'It's hard not to want to buy a ticket or become a volunteer when you listen to the excitement and enthusiasm that bubbles from them as they tell you about their race experiences.' As the MIV's general manager puts it, 'They love to brag about being a part of REW and the Molson Indy Vancouver, they love doing that.' This translates into good publicity for the Molson Indy. Asked to comment on this last point, the event's communications director explains that REW members are 'like walking billboards for the race. And the work that they do outside of Molson Indy is very important for the community relations of the race, too. Because they're tied-in to the race no matter what event they're actually working, that's what they're associated with, the MIV Something else to consider along this line: REW gets involved in a number of Vancouver's major sporting and cultural events as part of its crucial year-round support of the MIV. The coordinator of volunteers for the Molson Indy Vancouver, Christine Henderson, explains that since its inception REW has become a volunteer group 'second to none' and is accessed by various special event organizations throughout the year for this reason. 'REW is an organization we [MIV officials] are very proud of, not only do they do a terrific job race weekend, but they also promote the race at various promotional displays [and special events] we have around the city throughout the year.'45 I asked her to explain in more detail how all this works, how REW first decides to get involved with an organization, and then what kind of support they will lend: We have a standing committee that's called 'Festival Events.' The

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Festival Events committee looks after organizing and deploying volunteers to events outside of MIV. Take the Vancouver Sun Run for example. Sun Run organizers want our assistance, they call up and say, we heard you guys have got great volunteers, and we'd like to get a bunch of them to help us out. So what I do is send them a volunteer assistance form and they fill it out, complete with information like how many volunteers they need, what kind of hours and jobs duties will be expected of the volunteers, whether they'll be fed, provided with t-shirts or hats or whatever. REW has a set of general rules of conduct, and they have to tell us whether that's going to be a problem for them. We also want to know who their sponsors are. So all this information goes to the executive committee. And we consider if this is an event we want REW to be affiliated with, and so on. And we make a decision as an executive. And then that gets handed over to Festival Events. They have all the information they need about what this event requires from us, and then they go to work as a committee to start making arrangements, calling volunteers, finding out where people need to be and when, what their jobs are going to be. And then we deploy our members accordingly.

Aside from the Vancouver Sun Run, which is an annual marathon held to raise money for charity, REW members have lent their support to such events as the Benson and Hedges Symphony of Fire international fireworks competition, and the Variety Club telethon where they work the phones. 'Then this year [1997] we did the Rick Hansen "Man In Motion" ten-year anniversary; as well as the Vancouver Sun Run and the Vancouver International Marathon. They're [also] going up to Squamish to work on "Thunder in the Streets," which is a car rally race.' These are very high-profile events, and REW's presence provides good publicity because the events garner a great deal of media coverage. Because of their direct affiliation with the Molson Indy Vancouver, this has an important cumulative effect of promoting the MIV. 'At any major undertaking in the city of Vancouver, you can find REW and for that the Molson Indy has a lot to be proud of. They represent themselves well and are excellent ambassadors for our race.'

88 Indy Dreams In this fashion, the argument runs, not only are REW members 'excellent ambassadors' for the MFV, but for the city of Vancouver at large. 'I really think we're ambassadors for the city of Vancouver,' enthuses one volunteer.46 That their efforts enhance Vancouver's 'community spirit' is the general contention, and this only enhances the public profile of the MIV as a good corporate citizen.47 Asked to expand on this line of thought, the event's communications director explained: 'Another point that's important here is that the race is named after Molson [Brewery], and Molson is very conscious of its community relations, it's image. Molson is very clear, when they talk to the Vancouver promoters of the race, that they believe it's important to be a part of the community; you can't just come and go. That's why the race people are here all year round, that's why we get involved with charities, why we have 600 volunteers who are part of the race, and who stay part of REW throughout the year. REW volunteers don't just volunteer for the Molson Indy, they volunteer for Canada Day events, and for other special events. They are a real core of professional volunteers.' This large network of committed and enthusiastic volunteers that constitutes REW quickly became part of Molstar's campaign to relocate their event to Hastings Park. Implementing the first phase of this grassroots lobby campaign, members of REW set about compiling a list of names of everyone who had previously bought tickets for the MIV and who lived in Vancouver's east end. These people were then contacted and encouraged to join the 'Friends of Indy' lobby group through which they could take part in the public debate by supporting the MIV relocation.48 From the perspective of public relations and the effective promotion of a particular set of interests, the Friends of Indy served its purpose well. They got out into the community and quickly established a local presence, one that sought to put the Indy in a positive light. Through intensive door-to-door canvassing, leafletting, and telephone soliciting (not to mention simple but effective 'word of mouth' promotion among friends and acquaintances who might otherwise be fairly neutral or ambivalent on the issue), they were able to 'spread the gospel' about the MIV and what it could do for the community.

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On this point, the benefits of having local people involved in such a public relations campaign cannot be discounted. (Notably, this strategy of grass roots mobilization in the community is exactly the same as that employed by park advocates in their efforts to have Hastings Park returned to passive green space, devoid of major commercial activities like the Molson Indy.) The Friends of Indy boosters got out into the community and talked to their friends and neighbours, trying to recruit them and get them excited about the prospect of such a high-profile, international motorsport spectacle like the Indy being sited in their community. This is why it was such a useful strategy to have locals involved in the campaign; the strategy makes the campaign appear to be a more legitimate exercise because of its grassroots feel. A more tangible contribution of the Friends of Indy, besides the general proselytizing for the MIV, was their collection of a reported 5,000 signatures in support of the event's Hastings Park relocation bid. This petition was presented to MIV officials in the days leading up to their public meeting with the Hastings-Sunrise community. Along these lines, MIV officials articulated in another way the important role their volunteers had played in the early stages of the Hastings Park lobbying: the volunteers seemingly gave voice to the pro-Indy 'silent majority' that MIV officials felt was in the community. For example, MIV proponents claimed that polling results showed 'overwhelming support' for the relocation plan. However, these results were not made public despite the tremendous support they leant to Molstar's case. I asked the MIV's communications director about this. The polling results were never released; we never, ever released the polling results. In fact, there was a point in the debate over Hastings Park where we thought about releasing the polling results but the fact was, there was so much opposition to our Hastings Park proposal - there was no point adding fuel to the fire.' This was, he continued, primarily a situation where prominent public officials were on record as not supporting the Hastings Park relocation bid. In remarking on this, he argued that this had the effect of lending weight to the interests of a minority that opposed the relocation bid. According

90 Indy Dreams to MIV officials, the majority of residents in the area were in support, yet their views were not getting a public airing: The premier, the mayor and the Parks Board had all made up their mind. We had wished they hadn't made up their minds so early on ... But unfortunately when you have senior public officials out very early on not saying something neutral, like 'We'll wait and see before we reach a final decision,' instead coming out very clearly and saying, 'No, it's not going to happen' - we're certainly not going to butt our heads up against the wall ... This sort of action certainly gave those people opposed to the race some validity. But the fact was, we know through our polling that the greater community at Hastings Park, if asked, would have supported Hastings Park as a course.' From the perspective of the MIV, its local boosters and the 'silent majority' were muzzled and steamrolled by a hostile and vocal minority of park and community activists, who effectively silenced Indy relocation supporters. 'We went out there with six different track designs for that community to take a look at,' explained an MIV staffer. 'Which they didn't do - they were not interested whatsoever in talking about this at all. Now, that's the vocal [minority] in that community I'm talking about; there are a lot of people out there in that community that are in support of the Indy being located there. But because the public meeting we had was so intimidating [for Indy supporters], they just shut up.' The point to underscore here is that REW and the Friends of Indy were important promotional vehicles in the public relations campaign to 'save the race.' The MIV's massive volunteer corps was instrumental in the drive to garner public support in the community; they established a 'local presence' in the area, worked as proselytizers at the local level, to 'give voice' to the 'silent majority' who MIV officials felt were in support of the event relocation. The capacity to mobilize these volunteers was simply one aspect, though, of the very wide range of human and financial resources the MIV had at its disposal for deployment in its effort to win consent for its vision of the most 'rational' development and use of Hastings Park. The volunteers were foot soldiers

Selling the Spectacle 91 in a discursive struggle where the MIV seemed to have the money, the media savvy, and the connections to make the Hastings Park race site appear simply as a matter of common sense. Park activists who opposed the MIV plan would seem to have been at a profound strategic disadvantage.

4 Resisting the Spectacle

Why was the local community at Hastings Park so successful in fighting the promotional campaign waged by Molson Indy relocation proponents? The pro-Indy forces mobilized what seemed like a compelling economic rationale; the Vancouver media seemed generally onside, initially; and Indy was able to draw on the campaign efforts of an army of volunteers. The answer to this question is complex. To begin to answer it, we need to know something about the Hastings Park community itself. Hastings-Sunrise is a community in transition. It has a workingclass pedigree - a place where former waterfront and rail workers, tradesmen, and labourers were able to settle and buy homes. In recent years it has also attracted younger and more affluent homebuyers seeking less expensive downtown housing. HastingsSunrise is one of twenty-three communities in Vancouver, and has a population of some 30,000 people compared with Vancouver's total population of approximately 462,000. It is considered to be a 'stable' neighbourhood, primarily because of the area's high rate of home ownership (62 per cent). 1 According to a Vancouver community profile taken between 1986 and 1991, 46 per cent of Hastings-Sunrise residents changed their place of residence. For the same period, 58 per cent of Vancouverites did so. In other areas, the proportion of movers was as high as 80 per cent (the downtown) and as low as 40 per cent (Shaughnessy, an upscale community on the city's west side) for the same period. With respect to age distribution, 60 per cent of the community's

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population is between the ages of 19 and 39, while 27 per cent is between the ages of 40 and 64. The median 1991 household income in Hastings-Sunrise was $38,292 (approximately 12 per cent more than the city median of $34,174. Average household income was $44,538, slightly below the city average of $45,ISO.2 However, there is a slightly smaller proportion of very low income earners in Hastings-Sunrise than city-wide, 23 per cent compared with 25 per cent across all of Vancouver.5* Another significant point of interest concerning the area's demographic and socioeconomic make-up is that in 1991, baby boomers (those born between 1947 and 1965) comprised 35 per cent of this community's total population. That Hastings-Sunrise is developing into a younger, more middle-class and family-oriented community has significant implications for analysing the area's successful opposition to the Indy relocation proposal. After so much public consultation with the community itself on the Hastings Park restoration project, both older working-class residents and newer, somewhat more affluent community builders were united in their opposition to a last-minute proposal from 'outside' interests. In addition, opponents to the Molson Indy relocation plan were able to articulate their local concerns regarding a number of much broader public ideals around democratic process and environmental sustainability. They were able to mobilize their own promotional discourse about the benefits of a major green space in Vancouver's east side.4 COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, AND THE GROUNDS FOR OPPOSITION

Community activists presented four broad objections to the Molson Indy relocation. 1 Concern over the excessive noise, crowds, and significant personal inconveniences which afflict the MIV's host community; 2 The fact that a semi-permanent Indy racetrack at the park

94 Indy Dreams would be completely incompatible with the restoration plan already in place; 3 Deeper and more complex concern with 'community' control, and how residents want the area to develop: • The desire of local residents to control the shape of their community. They had so much invested in the park restoration, after first spending years lobbying, then working with city council and the Parks Board to realize the new vision for the use and development of Hastings Park as a green space. • In this sense, residents saw themselves as the real 'stakeholders.' The MIV had not been part of this ongoing process of planning for the restoration, it is only 'stake' was a lot of money at the last minute, and people resented this. • More abstractly, local residents argued that they are citizens more than consumers - they wanted public access to the park and the ability to flow through that space, to be free of private interests and restrictions. 4 Opposition to the notion that it was their 'civic duty' to host the MIV - that Hastings-Sunrise community had a responsibility to keep it in Vancouver at all costs, as 'doing their part' for the city. Because the main aspects of the first two of these grounds for opposition have been discussed in previous chapters, I want to focus here on the deeper and more complex issues noted in points 3 and 4. In an ideal sense, a community is a 'place' in which individuals share a collective sense of 'us' arising from shared identifications by virtue of living in that place. This does not necessarily mean everyone in a community has to think alike. In fact, the reality is far from it. Rather, I mean to suggest that it is a shared experience of living in a place with 'varied and overlapping involvements' which produces a sense of belonging. To be part of a community in these terms is to have a long-term investment - financial, emotional, and/or civic - in that place. It is in this sense that one

Resisting the Spectacle 95 can be said to have a 'stake' in the shape that community takes as it develops. What is quite evident from my research is the extent to which Hastings-Sunrise is a very committed local community, having invested a great deal of time, energy, and emotional resources over the years to secure a commitment from city council and the Parks Board to fully rehabilitate Hastings Park as a green space. One park activist nicely captured this spirit of community: 'I think there's nothing more important in this day and age than community. And, how a community should be able to direct their community's development, have a say in where they want it to go ... I sometimes think our city council has lost that somehow or other; they seem to listen to business interest groups rather than community groups. And, of course, they often regard community groups as special interest groups which has a very negative sense. Well, so be it: but its an interest group that should be looked at differently.' In this context, Hastings-Sunrise residents mobilized against the MIV relocation plan out of a deeply rooted sense of community. Many had invested so much personal time, effort, and emotion over the past two decades in their struggle to realize the restoration of Hastings Park, for its return to green space. This sense of community was also the wellspring for local residents' vigorous and uncompromising opposition to the MIV relocation plan. Opponents both criticized and invoked the discourse of 'stakeholders' to make the point that it is the local residents who have the real stake in the development of Hastings Park, this community's most vital public space. Community groups argued that the Molson Indy interests have a stake in the community only to the extent that they desired Hastings-Sunrise as a site to locate their event (to make money and promote their motorsport product and to work on their 'branding' of Molson Breweries beer products). C O M M U N I T Y AND THE P R O D U C T I O N OF SPACE

It is useful here to consider in greater detail the radically different forms of space these two competing visions would produce. Both

96 Indy Dreams False Creek and the older incarnation of Hastings Park are excellent examples of the quasi-public domains of commercial spectacle that have become such ubiquitous features of the contemporary metropolitan landscape. These spectacular consumption-biased leisure spaces offer up what Douglas Rutheiser calls 'sanitized and secure simulations of diversity' which function to 'substitute impersonal relations of market exchange for [genuine] intercultural communication and social interaction.'5 It is precisely these 'privatized dioramas' which have insidiously taken the place of public space in the city. As Sharon Zukin observes, building a city depends greatly on how people combine the traditional economic factors of land, labour, and capital. But it also depends on how they manipulate 'symbolic languages' of exclusion and entitlement. The look and feel of cities and their public spaces reflect decisions about who and what, should and should not be visible; and on concepts of order and disorder in these spaces. Now, this last point concerns not merely the issue of who does does not move through these spaces, although this is an important element of it. It is also about power in relation to social flows and movement in a spatial complex. Different social groups have distinct relationships to this differentiated mobility - some people are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows and movement, others do not; some are more on the receiving end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it.6 With respect to the case of Hastings Park, the vision of park advocates was to create an indusionary space; the vision promoted by advocates of the Molson Indy relocation plan would produce a more exclusionary space. These are conceptualized as follows: 1 the MTV model produces a place that has a highly restrictive space, with rigidly controlled access to much of the space such as there now is with the Pacific National Exhibition and Play Land amusement park that Hastings Park houses. 2 the park advocates' model sees the park as a public space open to the public to move through; contrary to the more private space you get at False Creek, which is the model of spatializa-

Resisting the Spectacle 97 tion that MFV relocation advocates would have imposed on Hastings Park. More specifically, this notion of a symbolic language of exclusion and entitlement cuts across two dimensions. The first pertains to access and freedom of movement through the space. Currently, because of the presence of the Pacific National Exhibition, the Play Land amusement park, and other facilities, access to much of the park is now rigidly controlled spatially by fences, and admission fees, as well temporally through hours of operation. The MIV plan would result in the reprivatization of much of the park the PNE and Play Land to be replaced by an even more spectacular entertainment; the Molson Indy Vancouver car race. Ultimately, the issue is one of private control: in exchange for finance, the MIV's promoters would receive not only space to build a semipermanent racetrack and facilities, but would also have exclusive control of that site for several weeks each year to prepare for and stage the event. Such is the nature of the privatization of public space, as the past several decades of experience at Hastings Park has clearly demonstrated. Closely linked to this concern with privatization is the second dimension which the language of exclusion and entitlement cuts across and that is issues of crime and security in urban park space. The argument typically made in this context is that some form of privatization can be a good thing for public parks because a corporate presence is often accompanied by private security firms, hired to patrol the area. 'Private employers of security guards,' write Friedan and Sagalyn, 'can operate with so few restrictions that some specialists believe privatization in itself goes a long way toward improving security.'7 One MIV staffer I interviewed argued precisely this perspective, making the case for privatization along the lines that having private interests controlling Hastings Park means that it will become 'a safer place to be.' As she explains: 'I think one of the things people are not taking into consideration about greening that area is that they already have a problem when there isn't a lot of activity in that space with hookers and drug dealers. By greening

98 Indy Dreams Hastings Park you're just giving them a nicer area to do their thing. And are you really going to want your kids running around in this park? Probably not.' A good example of this sensibility in action is the case of New York city's Bryant Park. Sharon Zukin describes how the city turned to a private sector strategy for taking Bryant Park back from the drug dealers and other undesirables who had dominated it for years.8 Earlier efforts to reclaim this once-popular space included setting up book and flower stalls, a box office for discount tickets to music events, and a series of live concerts in the park. The problem was that the crowds that came to move through this space never stayed long enough to make it safe, and as night fell the drug dealers returned. 9 Eventually, a successful strategy was employed, which involved the taking over of the park by a non-profit business association of local property owners and their major corporate tenants, called the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation. What this coalition did was redesign the park and organize fullday programs of assorted cultural events; they renovated the kiosks and installed new food services; they hired a phalanx of private security guards. All of this had the express purpose of filtering out the 'undesirables' and returning the park to its 'intended users' - local office workers. These were the people the Restoration Corporation wanted circulating in Bryant Park, the people who made the park 'a lively gathering midday place, as it had been prior to the mid-1970s - a park under private control.'10 As for the unsavoury cast of characters inhabiting the park in the evenings, they were taken care of by the private security forces. With this model of private control of public space in mind, I put the following question to one of the key Hastings Park activists: What do you say to the argument that was put to me, that developing this big park at Hastings Park will only attract more crime that it is just going to be a place for junkies and prostitutes to hang out? That's what is being said. What we're trying to do through the community association is make people aware that this is true for all parks; but at

Resisting the Spectacle 99 the same time that's no reason to not try to counteract that. Our plan, we think, is doing that by having an active park that is well-used. There will be places in it where there will be a sanctuary, and places where you can go where you will feel that you are away from the city. At the same time there will be activities happening there to draw people in - but it won't be a big sporting activity where you come in for two hours and you're gone again. Instead, it will be the sort of facilities and events ranging from basketball to tennis to baseball; and also arts and cultural events. It's these kinds of events that we want to concentrate on promoting, active events for what we want to be an active park. We don't want it to just sit there.

This last point is especially instructive because it points to one solution offered by residents in response to arguments that a restored Hastings Park would function as some sort of illicit drug den should park activists have their way over the MIV proponents. Here is how one park activist put the case: 'It's up to the planning of the park to make sure that it's laid out in such a way that there's people moving through it all the time, so that it's not a place for crime. It is a concern, and we've had people working with us in planning this park to take this into account. For example, it's been suggested that we work with the thoroughbred horse racing people and maybe offer a couple of stalls for the police force, so they could have a couple of officers on horseback patrolling the park and also being a positive presence in the park and the community ... Really, it's all about finding creative solutions to problems.' In a broader and more general sense, what all this illustrates is how a significant group of Hastings-Sunrise residents worked together in a spirit of community consensus building, and open public participation. In remarking on this, one local resident and park activist commented: 'I think this community has to take the park under their wing, it has to take ownership of this space through active participation.' In doing so, the community would be in a position to address local concern such as crime and security. 'If we see something happening there we'll be able to take action and contact the proper people to work at getting it out

100 Indy Dreams of there, like prostitution and drugs. They could shut down Central Park, they could shut down Stanley Park because of drugs and crime - but are they going to do that? We're not.' What is more, the Hastings Park Restoration Plan itself addresses the potential of safety issues in the park arising from its planned transformation into a major green space. In fact, safety in the park was an issue raised many times in the public discussions. The plan is consistent with general crime prevention guidelines, such as having a mix of activities in the park to ensure that there are enough people using the park at different times of he day. The thoroughbred horse racetrack contributes to this by the fact that the stables are active from the early hours in the morning and that racing occurs in the afternoon and in the evenings; other smaller scale activities will also provide a presence in the park throughout the day. Two crime prevention officers with the city police reviewed and approved the crime prevention and safety aspects of the Restoration Plan. THE NEW CIVIC DUTY?

Another significant ground on which the local community mobilized against the MIV relocation plan was the notion that it was the community's 'civic duty' to host the MIV - that Hastings-Sunrise community had a responsibility to keep it in Vancouver at all costs, as 'doing their part' for the city. This discourse is a fundamental argument underpinning the ideology of the world-class city. Civic boosters in world-class cities have worked to establish a strong cultural link between popular desire to have high-profile sports teams and events represent their city and a narrow set of corporate and/or civic interests.11 Popular expressions of pride in and desires for spectacular entertainment have coincided with the financial interests of local and international business and 'the sometimes self-aggrandizing aspirations' of local politicians and cultural leaders. Because of the apparently 'natural' connections between spectacular public entertainments and the promotion of'community,' there is a long history of popular support for the civic provision of

Resisting the Spectacle 101 land and facilities for professional sports venues. Any opposition seldom receives the same kind of media coverage as do the supporting views of local business leaders, politicians, and sports celebrities. Opponents of such megaprojects are frequently cast as carpers and naysayers, or demonized as selfish members of 'special interest groups' who do not have the needs of the 'overall community' in mind. Consequently, opposing views seldom garner serious, thoughtful, and sustained coverage - rather, they are characteristically portrayed as 'Not doing their part' for the city. I asked one MIV staffer for reaction to the degree of collective opposition to the MIV relocation plan. With little mincing of words, the point is quickly made clear that all of Vancouver's communities have a responsibility to 'do their share' when it comes to hosting spectacular events that promote Vancouver as a world-class city: So it's like, Excuse me - you are going to have to share your green space with different organizations and different special events in this city because that's what happens to park space. Look, I've been a longtime west end resident and I have to share my community with the rest of the city. Symphony of Fire [an international fireworks competition] that's four nights, FOUR NIGHTS! where you shut down access to my community and we host 200,000 people each of those four nights. And what about the Gay Pride parade that ends up happening in my community? I have to share my community with the rest of the city ... So you can say this is your park. But you are in the city of Vancouver and the other residents of the city are going to be paying tax dollars to make your park happen and its our park as much as it is your community's park.

The not so subtle argument here is that the Hastings-Sunrise people are not doing their part; doing what is required of them as residents of a world-class city. Hastings-Sunrise residents belong to an urban community that is geographically and politically broader than the local HastingsSunrise neighbourhood. Being a resident of the city at large, and having a broader civic identity is important, however, there are

102 Indy Dreams broader city-wide interests to take into account. Still, as one local resident explains, 'I think all communities have to realize they have to do their full share, by hosting these big sports events and festivals and all that sort of thing': I'm sure the people that live around English Bay area get upset by all the traffic from Symphony of Fire; but that is their load that they have to carry, that they have to deal with as a community ... And we have the horse racing track. We have accepted that and we're trying to work together with those people to try to minimize the impact of their operations on the park, and how we can complement the park and the horse racing track; the racetrack can be made a destination point. So all of the traffic [and people] that race track brings in - that's our load to bear. And we're going to continue doing that. But when they try to put everything on to a community, that's when it makes them mad, when that community finally says: Enough is enough! POWER AND STRATEGIES OF RESISTANCE

I have already noted how the MIV forces had a wide array of resources to draw on in their efforts to mobilize support for their relocation bid: time, money, and volunteers - all of these were deployed to support an assortment of lobbying activities, including media relations, leafletting, letter writing campaigns, and door-to-door and telephone soliciting. Community activists had nothing approaching this level of resources. It is important to remember that opposition to the MIV relocation bid was a grass roots effort, lacking the huge institutional resources enjoyed by the MIV forces. Opponents roundly dismissed Molstar's volunteer corps (REW and Friends of Indy) and their proselytization as simply a promotional stratagem, not as authentic community-based support for the Molson Indy relocation to Hastings Park. 'The whole idea is ridiculous,' declared one irate resident. 'If there's an Indy, there won't be a park, it's as simple as that. Now they have a big public relations machine to try to divide the community with their fake Friends of Indy group.'12 Remarking on Molstar's public relations

Resisting the Spectacle 103 efforts, the president of the Hastings Community Association characterized them in a similar fashion: They did a massive leafletting campaign leading up to the public meeting they held at the end of January [1997]. And when they sent the leaflets out, it was a real snow job- the brochure said to think of all the money this is going to bring to the community, think of all the jobs it's going to create, and blah, blah, blah' She concludes, 'Despite all the [effort] they put into it, I think they were really shocked when the leafletting campaign backfired on them, when the community outright rejected them.' Relocation opponents especially resented the vast resources at Molstar's disposal, and the tremendous uphill struggle this created for opponents given their paltry resources (financial, human, and temporal) in comparison. They relied heavily on limited operational funds from the city and the Board of Parks and Recreation, plus whatever money could be generated through various fund-raising activities. 'We don't have money, not like the Indy people. We don't have resources like they do, we don't have all those sponsors and big corporations behind us like they do ... Huge groups like the Molson Indy, they have a lot of money to spread around and they [use it to] try to infiltrate the community.' Other Indy opponents interviewed offered similar perspectives on this question of differential resources, and how they found themselves at a significant disadvantage when it came to getting their message out to the wider community. For example, one park activist complained: 'We don't have the resources to do all sorts of public relations stuff, you know, all the polls and developing [strategic communication] plans. Actually, with this public meeting the Indy people called we only had a week and a half to get our act together, fielding phone calls, getting our little stickers made, and encouraging people to be ready to speak that night, and things like that.' Clearly, this lack of financial resources can make it extremely difficult for the community to engage in the kind of public relations activities that Molstar was able to undertake to promote its interests, and to reach as wide a public as possible with its own

104 Indy Dreams view of things and how they ought to be. The community certainly did not have a professional communications agency at their disposal, as Molstar did and continues to do. Two members of the Hastings Community Association who were active in the Hastings Park restoration action, described the tensions and sense of frustration their lack of resources gave rise to: It really gets overwhelming sometimes, you know? We just don't have the money to do things like mailouts. You need a huge amount of money to do a mailout; there's the printing costs and all that goes with that, plus postage; not to mention the fact you need people to plan a strategy for the mail out, write them up, mail them out or deliver them by hand; you've got to be ready to have people answer any questions from the community and the media that this mail out may generate. And at the same time we're trying to meet our mandate as a community association. All this takes so much time, effort, and money, which we don't have a lot of... yeah, it is frustrating. [Molstar] doesn't care about the community. They're looking for a place to hold their function, and as long as its not in their own backyard they don't care. They've got huge amounts of money because they've got huge corporate sponsors, these big international companies pumping millions of dollars into these races. Which we, of course, don't have. We don't have the money! All we have is our little committees and that sort of thing. What we have are determined and committed people working for their community, volunteers who have families and jobs to worry about, too.

This last point about volunteers having 'families and jobs to worry about' in addition to their community work is a crucial one. Indeed, it is not just in terms of money that Indy relocation opponents found themselves at a disadvantage, but also with respect to time and human resources. 'It takes a lot of money and time and effort to do this community work ... to reach residents who may not know what the issues are,' explained a long-time area resident active in local politics. The Hastings Park Working

Resisting the Spectacle 105 Committee, Hastings Community Association, and the other groups that were formed around the Hastings Park restoration project, and who worked so hard for so long are almost exclusively volunteer-driven. Like most such community groups, they are run on the sweat and perseverance of unpaid area residents. 'Community organizations like ours, they thrive on volunteers. [But] you can only push them so far in terms of their time and energy commitments.' One thing that is abundantly clear from my research is that the number of volunteers who gave up time to do this kind of work on behalf of the community did not match the numbers of volunteers mobilized by the MIV. An Indy race is generally perceived to be a much 'sexier' and 'hipper' thing to volunteer for. Indeed, people will pay to commit a lot of their time and effort to this commercial enterprise, for the privilege of being 'a part of the big show,' one REW member told me. This sentiment is echoed by another REW member, and is typical of the views of many volunteers when asked why they get involved with volunteer work for the Indy as opposed to other organizations: 'This is a world class event... and to be a part of it is quite a thrill. I love it.' This is not the case working as a volunteer for what is a more mundane, not nearly as sexy, local community-driven event with no glamourous outcome should you win. So not only do community groups like the Hastings Community Association, which helped coordinate the anti-Indy relocation lobby in the area, lack the kind of numbers that REW has, but those volunteers that they do have are stretched to the limit in terms of the time, effort, and passion they have to contribute. On this point a director of the Hastings Community Association, commented: 'You see, we don't have the resources ... We're just a community organization that is struggling at all times just to provide recreation opportunities for our community - let alone get involved with something like this in a big way. You have to remember that we're all volunteers; people are working, they've got kids to look after, they haven't got a lot of extra time to put into this, trying to protect the community.' Yet despite being at such a disadvantage in relation to the

106 Indy Dreams Molson Indy forces, opponents of the event's Hastings Park relocation bid were able to pull people together, organize, and coalesce opposition in time for the public hearing. For Indy opponents, 'this was a make or break night for us.' THE PUBLIC MEETING

The public meeting is described by Noel Hulsman as 'what must surely be the fastest, most effective non-brick-throwing uprising in Vancouver history.'18 At their public meeting on 27 January 1997, Molson Indy Vancouver general manager Phil Heard spoke of the role Molstar could play in seeing the Hastings Park Working Committee's restoration objectives realized, emphasizing Molstar's contribution towards the estimated $40 million needed over the next two decades to finance the project. In response, one resident stood up to say he would lay his body down in front of the first race car that showed up, inciting cheers from the roughly 700 people in attendance.14 An eyewitness describes the tenor of the evening as being 'profoundly anti-Indy': You know, what was so amazing about this was that somebody didn't have to go out and beat bushes to get people stirred up; when people heard about the meeting theyjust showed up. We didn't have a phone drive, we didn't do mailouts or canvass the neighbourhood - we didn't do anything to organize this; we didn't have the time or the money. The notice came out from the Indy people announcing they were having this public forum over at the PNE to discuss the Molson Indy coming to Hastings Park, and everyone just reacted. So - we didn't make a big fuss over this, there was no huge coordination effort at all. Theyjust came. I've never seen that kind of participation in a community, never.

I asked a community activist to talk about what the general atmosphere at this meeting: Q: Was it hostile? Because I get the sense from what you're telling me and from what other people whom I've spoken to that were there have told me, that the community was quite united in their opposi-

Resisting the Spectacle 107 tion, that there was a great deal of resentment directed towards the Indy relocation bid. A: That's right. It was great to think - By golly, this community can speak out. You know, there were some people in the health services community who spoke about the noise and how it affects the lives of people, and there were old people who stood up to speak and they were trembling in their opposition to it, they were so angry this might happen to their community when they'd been told for so long that this was going to be a park.

Another Indy opponent who was in the audience had this to say about the atmosphere at the public meeting: 'It was such a fun evening, if you want to put it like that, because when people got up to speak the rest of the crowd were clapping and yelling support. And when Heard had something to say in response there were derisive calls from the audience. It was a real east-end community meeting, [lots of fire and passion].' I asked one of the key mobilizers of the opposition forces to comment on the large turnout for the public meeting, what her reaction was, and what this kind of community mobilization meant. For her, the turnout 'was amazing' and demonstrated quite clearly the strong sense of community in the Hastings-Sunrise area: 'I just could not believe how incensed the community was about this Indy thing. For two reasons: they just didn't want that noise in the community, and as well they didn't want the ongoing plans for the restoration of the park to be compromised for the sake of this race ... This land has been designated as a park and is to be developed as a green area by city council, and that is what we have been working towards for many years now. And we have a plan in place for this and we're struggling with city council to get them to not extend the lease of the PNE so we can get on with our park plan that we have in place.' Going into this meeting, she explains, 'We were well aware of how against this proposal from Indy the broader community was. What we told these people who were phoning in was to be there at this public hearing, and speak your mind. But we also felt we needed to do more than this. So we had one of our members ...

108 Indy Dreams make sticky signs that said "No Indy At Hastings Park," and we had all these things ready to hand out at the meeting as people came in. Well, we did'nt have enough of them; we had 400 printed up and they went like wildfire, people were putting them on their shirts, foreheads.' With this degree of extremely hostile and vocal collective opposition to Molstar and its Indy-car event, it is not surprising that those who showed up at the public meeting to speak out in favour of the relocation to Hastings Park were loudly greeted with scorn and derision. As one local resident who attended the public meeting commented: 'There were, of course, a few people there who supported the race, who thought it was fine and would be good for the community to have a big event like the Indy. But they were very few, and one person that got up to speak felt a bit out of place, I think, because the audience was so vocal ... These few people who thought the race was good idea probably wanted to get tickets at reduced prices, which is one of the perks [Indy officials] were offering us.' A common thread running through many of my interviews with local residents was the notion that the Indy relocation crisis had a 'galvanizing effect' on the Hastings-Sunrise community: the incredible mobilization of opposition, the turnout at the public meeting, with so little time for preparation, and so few resources at their disposal. I asked the chair of the Community Affairs Committee for the Hastings Community Association for her reaction to this assessment. 'Yes, I think it was certainly a common cause, you know, hardly anyone was in support of it. People that hadn't seen each other for probably years were saying, Oh my god, isn't this great. They were all herded as one, and it was good. But is was a miserable night, raining like hell, people pushing their kids in baby carriages.' With respect to this reaction, which the Indy relocation crisis spawned, one community activist said: 'Most people were saying things that you want to hear from the community, that we don't hear enough. Like "I love my community, I want to protect my community, and have a nice place for my kids." All of these things you want to hear people say. And new people who have moved to

Resisting the Spectacle 109 the community and are looking forward to this wonderful, big park being there. It really brought the community together.' The president of the Hastings Community Association and staunch Indy opponent echoed this sentiment: 'You know, I really think the Molson Indy folks were really astonished at how vehement some people were in their reaction to having this going on in the neighbourhood. I think they were amazed at the friction that they got from such a large part of the community; I don't think they were expecting that at all.' If there was any doubt about the community's commitment to the 'green' park plan and their vehement opposition to the Molson Indy becoming a part of it, by the end of this tumultuous and often raucous evening it was wiped away. After reviewing tapes and notes of the meeting over the next few days, MIV officials came to the conclusion that Hastings Park was no longer a viable option for them. It simply was not going to work. Without a strong show of public support their relocation bid was dead in the water. So, in the face of political and community opposition to the relocation bid, the MIV general manager announced on 3 February 1997, less than a month after initiating public debate on the issue, that the Hastings Park relocation plan had been abandoned.15 The community had saved their long-awaited green space. In doing this, the community forces were able to construct and credibly present an alternative 'common sense' to the one promoted by Indy supporters. R E S O L U T I O N — B A C K TO F A L S E C R E E K

With this abandonment of the Hastings Park plan, the pressure on MIV officials intensified. They were down to the wire on a deadline set by Indy-car's governing body to have a new site secured. Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) had given Molstar until 31 March 1997 to secure a new site. As CART president Andrew Craig said, 'We are certainly working our way toward a resolution, but we will not back off the deadline we've set for March 31st [for Vancouver firming up its plans for 1998] ... We are coming down to the wire now. We need to decide in the next ten

110 Indy Dreams days whether we'11 be able to proceed on that site' at False Creek.16 Failing to capture the park, and unhappy with alternative sites, the MIV general manager struck a deal with Vancouver city council to squeeze the race back into False Creek for its 1998 event. As he tells the story: A lot of people said, stay where you are, expand the False Creek site or run the track to the east, do something to stay here. We were sitting around with some city engineers and the mayor had suggested that all the land between Quebec Street and Cambie Street Bridge, and between First Avenue and the water at False Creek. So we went and tried to design a racetrack in that space, but it was too small by itself; it couldn't hold our entire site. However, these city engineers came up with the idea of going with a half-and-half kind of thing, whereby we keep part of the existing track and add a new section. And that's how we got the track designed, and we ended up where we are now for the 1998 race.

The MIV's communications director made a similar case about the benefits of staying at False Creek with a reconfigured track. 'Certainly the area around False Creek is a terrific area, and the new site around Science World has much better views, both in terms of camera angles for television coverage and from the point of view of spectators, than the existing site offers. Which is why we are very pleased to still be there.' Following several discussions with MIV officials, on 13 March 1997 Vancouver city council voted 11-0 in favour of allowing Indy to use city property on the south side of False Creek to develop a site. A contract to continue staging the event there until the year 2001 was eventually agreed on. At that time the land will be slated for development. This agreement was hailed as a last second, a 'backs to the wall' triumph for the event's promoter and the city of Vancouver - Molstar has remained at a spectacular site on the water, and Vancouver keeps its spectacular international motorsport event, complete with the apparent 'world-class' status and economic spin-offs that go with it. If this was a victory for the Molson Indy and its boosters, it was

Resisting the Spectacle

111

less so for False Creek residents - a much less-organized community than Hastings-Sunrise - 'who were told that they'd be spared the neighbourhood input, but not the race.'17 The official line was that, after eight years of Labour Day noise and congestion, accommodating future races would not require much of an adjustment on their part - they were already so used to it anyway. 'Councilors said the din and inconvenience created by the Labour Day weekend event is more than compensated for by the roughly $18.6 million in economic benefits and by its huge local and international audience.'18 With that, the issue was closed. Molstar Sports and Entertainment secured a contract with the city to keep their event at its present site on the south and east shores of False Creek until 2001, at which time the city will begin developing the land for social housing and other residential uses. The MIV will be homeless yet again, and its next stop remains unknown.

5 Spectacular Space and the Ideology of the 'World-Class' City

Space is political and ideological. It is a product literally filled with ideologies. Henri Lefebvre, 'Reflections on the Politics of Space'

A city's public spaces are the primary sites of its public culture. They are a window into its soul, writes Sharon Zukin, 'an important means of framing a vision of social life in the city, a vision both for those who live there and interact in urban public spaces every day, and for the tourists, commuters, and wealthy folks who are free to flee the city's needy embrace.'1 An increasing number of social theorists and cultural geographers echo this point, making the case that one of the most important roles that urban public spaces play is ideological in nature. In the sense that I am using the concept here, 'ideology' refers to ways that meanings are pressed into serving the interests of dominant social groups. That is, ideology is very much about persuasion and the cultivation of widespread support for an agenda. As John Thompson formulates the concept, ideology 'can be used to refer to the ways in which meaning serves, in particular circumstances, to establish and sustain relations of power which are systematically asymmetrical. Ideology, broadly speaking, is meaning in the service of 'power. '2 How do ideologies work? One way is by universalizing a narrow and often exclusive range of values and interests as common to all; by rationalizing these interests as logically consistent and smooth-

The Ideology of the World-Class City 113 ing over uncomfortable contradictions; and by naturalizing vested interests as self-evident, as part of the general 'common sense' of the society and, therefore, as something to be taken for granted. A successful ideology is one that renders its own interests as natural and self-evident, to be identified as the common sense of a society so that nobody could imagine how things might ever be different. Ideologies thus function to 'naturalize' a version of reality, to make it seem as natural, innocent, and unchangeable as Nature itself. Ideology seeks to convert culture into nature - it is 'a kind of contemporary mythology, a realm that has purged itself of ambiguity and alternative possibility.'3 Put in a slightly different way, ideologies present themselves as an 'Of course!' or 'That goes without saying' or 'That's just the way things are and there's nothing you can do about it.' Ideologies are most effective when they freeze into a second nature, presenting themselves as completely natural, inevitable, and thus unalterable. Urban public spaces are ideological fields precisely because they provide sites for civic elites to articulate a particular set of ideas, values, and assumptions about the way a city is and how it ought to be organized both spatially and socially. 'If, by being so tangible, so natural, so familiar, the landscape is unquestioned, then such concrete evidence about how society is organized can easily come to be seen as evidence of how it should, or must be organized.'4 Following this last point, I want to conclude by developing the argument that Vancouver's key public spaces are best understood as transformations of social and political ideologies into physical form. The landscape of the world-class city is a 'visual ideology' it is a form of representation, a discursive formation, and not simply an empirical object.5 In other words, the urban landscape has both a material and significative form. More notably, these forms often articulate dominant power relations. The structuring and symbolizing of a city's parks, streets, waterfronts, and its marketplaces typically manifest the interests and sensibilities of the city's 'place entrepreneurs,' those powerful coalitions of developers and political and business elites who are the principal architects of urban development. As I noted in the first chapter, we must look at what is happen-

114 Indy Dreams ing to the city's public spaces, its most vital collective spaces, if we want to understand its public culture. For it is here that public culture is defined; and here that you find competition for the ability to conceptualize, control, and experience it. "Like race, class, and gender, places can become important mechanisms through which collective identity is defined and expressed."6 This leads us to the fundamental question upon which the critique of ideology must hang: In whose interests? We need to ask whose interests are best served by the definition of 'world-class' status as being constructed in the image of flexible accumulation. What is at stake in the struggle to define what being world-class really means? Who is positively and negatively affected by the pursuit of world-class status, particularly in the area of commercial sporting entertainment? Who is 'invited' to move through the spectacular public spaces of the world-class city? HASTINGS PARK AS A V I S U A L I D E O L O G Y

Throughout this book, I have tried to show how Vancouver's place entrepreneurs typically strive to arrange the city's most vital public spaces to meet the exigencies of a particular economic and cultural growth agenda. This agenda is geared towards the production and marketing of Vancouver as a transnational consumer culture. Increasingly this is so much of what 'world-class' cities are all about: the promotion of an affluent consumer culture and its attendant spectacular consumption spaces. Such a culture is typically regarded as the hallmark of a world-class city, a status to which Vancouver's growth boosters have been aggressively striving over the past dozen years. Against this background we can understand urban public space as a consumable good, a commodity. As Henri Lefebvre (1977: 341) puts it: 'Space, which seems homogeneous, which seems to be completely objective in its pure form such as we ascertain it, is a social product. The production of space can be likened to the production of any particular type of merchandise.' Even when it is not bought and paid for, public space in the world-class city is often connected with retail spaces devoted to the purchase of

The Ideology of the World-Class City 115 goods and experiences. This has the effect of promoting the privatized corporate values of a consumer culture. The case of the Molson Indy relocation crisis at Hastings Park is especially revealing of an urban culture where many people seem obsessed with the production and consumption of entertainment spectacle. For a century now Hastings Park has functioned almost exclusively as a utilitarian, multipurpose entertainment complex; this despite its original designation in 1889 as a public park meant for the use, recreation, and enjoyment of the people of Vancouver. Here, truly public space has been vastly limited. Ample green space for quiet contemplation, the establishment of bird and animal habitats, recreational playing fields for community sports, and open space for people to simply move through and to engage in these, the supposed primary activities for the park, has been virtually eradicated. The reality is that much of the park's landscape is paved or fenced, and access to it has been rigidly controlled through admission prices and the hours of operation of its primary tenants (the Pacific National Exhibition, the Play Land amusement park, the Coliseum, and the Racetrack for thoroughbred horse racing). This state of affairs is perfectly consistent with the long-standing valorization of recreation in Canadian life, since the late nineteenth century. Much of the prime urban recreational space became increasingly commodified, produced and mobilized accordingly by growth boosters and other assorted political and business interests. As an early form of a consumption-biased spatial complex, Hastings Park operated both as a sight for consumption (a thing to be consumed as a visual spectacle, dominated as it is by large buildings, Play Land rides, and the Coast Mountains backdrop) , and as a site of consumption, a place to move through dedicated to the purchase of goods and experiences. In effect, the public had to literally buy its way into Hastings Park, this vital public space of Vancouver's east side. Consequently, the ultimate goal of public recreation at Hastings Park over the past century has been to attract the 'consumer' - it is the buying public that has counted most, and it is their wants, needs, and desires that have been paramount. Public investment in spectacu-

116 Indy Dreams lar recreations and entertainments now seems to be a more solid feature of civic common sense than ever before. In this context, 'world class' now refers to the standards of facility and the kinds of spectacular entertainment and leisure pursuits that circulate on a global stage and that are expected everywhere by affluent consumers. The pursuit of major league franchises and 'world-class' events today is now best understood as part of a larger project in which corporate and civic elites struggle to establish and maintain their city's status in a transnational economic and cultural hierarchy of cities. In this project, economic growth is the ultimate objective, but major league franchises and international events are also widely understood as badges of a city's stature, a symbolic sign of 'arrival' from which other forms of growth will presumably follow. In other words, spectacular events such as the Molson Indy act as symbolic representatives of 'community' - they operate as signifiers of civic prosperity and ambition. They are key elements in the broader promotional culture of the 'world-class city.' T H E FATE O F C O M M U N I T Y I N T H E ' W O R L D - C L A S S ' C I T Y

At one level, the idea of 'promotional culture' simply refers to the ubiquitous presence of promotional discourse and marketing activity in contemporary life, all of it seeking to create receptive audiences not only for products but also for politicians and even ideas (such as the very idea of the 'world-class' city). What is of greater significance, though, is a subtle shift in the content, and indeed the structure, of promotional discourse: away from making direct claims about the items being promoted and even away from (rational) argumentation, and towards a reliance on visual images, on stylistic connotations, and particularly on symbolic associations.7 Urban marketing and promotion have created the new vision of the world-class city - the urban place composed of televised and advertised areas at local scale, and symbolic structures at national and international levels. Sports entertainment megaprojects and their spectacular settings have both generated and enhanced this

The Ideology of the World-Class City

117

process. As Brian Goodey argues, cities increasingly survive, revitalize, and grow from the 'careful spatial and temporal manipulation of events around which shoppers, visitor and tourist programmes can be constructed.'8 Put another way, what is most significant about the notion of promotional culture in the age of flexible accumulation is its symbiosis of image and product, the scope and scale of selling images on a national and even a global level, and the role of the symbolic economy in speaking for, or representing, the 'world-class' city and its spectacular consumer culture. Arguing along these lines, Andrew Wernick remarks that we live amid a 'vortex of promotional signs' - an endless circulation of messages and images in which virtually every aspect of social life has become part of a sales pitch.9 In a world increasingly dominated by advertising and marketing, consumer goods (both material and symbolic) have become the currency of public life. Through these discourses of consumption, the 'citizen' has been replaced by the 'consumer' as the focal point in public life. The sports entertainment industry in particular has become a significant site for the promotion and extension of consumer goods and styles. It has created an unprecedented global field of sources for consumer satisfaction and identity formation. Yet these sources of satisfaction have become ever more integrated into the marketplace, to the need to find meaning through consumption. Tt is precisely in leisure and popular entertainment that people's chosen identities as consumers have most forcefully come to rival other, older forms of personal identification, such as "national" identity.'10 This has resulted in widespread construction and display of personal identities - of 'self - on the basis of consumer preferences, and 'the apparent naturalness of the notion that people have common "interests" with those who share their preferences.'11 This is a very narrow conception of community - one based on a constant appeal to our collective interests as consumers and consumers alone. In the context of major league sportsentertainment spectacle, this conception of community amounts to little more than a 'community of fans,' a community of consumers sharing a fleeting entertainment experience, united more

118 Indy Dreams by a shared product preference than anything else. As Gruneau and Whitson make clear, such 'communities' formed around acts of consumption or product loyalties (whether to the Molson Indy, the Vancouver Canucks, or Honda cars) are not political communities in any meaningful sense of the term. 'If we confuse these different meanings of community on a continual basis, or if political communities are effectively remade into communities of consumption and lifestyle, then surely we lose something important about the meaning and practice of public life.'12 Clearly, there is a profound distinction to be made between a 'community of consumers' and the ideal notion of community as a group of local citizens united by their common fate, by the common goal to control the shape in which their community develops and the need to make their neighbourhood a safe and comfortable place in which to live and work. It is this distinction around which the Hastings-Sunrise community mobilized against the vision promoted by the MIV forces. As we saw, opponents of the relocation proposal forcefully claimed a stake in the development trajectory their community was going to take. They actively resisted the attempt to undermine the results of a long-term consultative process that called for the 'greening' of Hastings Park. Furthermore, park activists refused to accept the notion that it was somehow their responsibility - their civic duty — to facilitate the incorporation of a semi-permanent Indy racetrack in the restored park. As citizens, residents had struggled for many years for recognition that Hastings Park has intrinsic value as a community green space, and that it should be developed in such a fashion that the resulting space be a truly public space, one in which everyone is invited to move through, experience, and appreciate. If anything, residents saw it as their civic duty to ensure that Hastings Park, contrary to the MIV vision, should not be privatized any more than it already was, with the retention of the thoroughbred horse racing facility. In a more abstract sense this was a discursive struggle between MIV officials and their allies and local community groups around Hastings Park. This struggle over vision is a struggle over common sense.

The Ideology of the World-Class City 119 The community groups were successful in their opposition to the MIV relocation precisely because they were able to establish an alternative vision of Hastings Park as 'common sense.' This was no small feat given that the opponents were up against a coalition of civic and corporate leaders who in today's entrepreneurial cities go to great lengths to keep their major league sports events and teams. This is the result of the depth of popular appeal such events and teams have, their alleged economic value, and their significant role as signifiers of civic prosperity and ambition. These boosters expend enormous amounts of time and money in a relentless effort to establish this promotional discourse as a 'common sense.' Opponents were also successful because they were able to effectively mobilize competing discourses that struck a deep chord in the community by making reference to enduring concerns over community and citizenship, democratic process, the family, the natural environment, the role of urban parks, and of free public access to recreation and leisure space. Essentially, they constructed an 'alternative common sense' - a different visual ideology from that promoted by the MIV forces - and successfully promoted it as the ideal vision for the use and development of Hastings Park. So, for example, when MIV officials talked of the 'tremendous economic benefits' Vancouver would enjoy as a result of hosting the Indy at Hastings Park, community activists countered this discourse by articulating their local concerns with the broader interests of the city in terms of the benefits of having a major green space on Vancouver's east side. They mobilized in their favour countering discourses grounded in the environmental movement, an increasing anti-car sensibility, and community and democratic process. Opponents also effectively turned the 'stakeholder' discourse advanced by the MIV forces back on them, successfully arguing that Molstar and its volunteers had absolutely no stake in the community beyond a very narrow economic interest, and even that was an 'eleventh hour' concern, a last minute attempt to save their Vancouver event. These arguments could not simply be ignored by many of Vancouver's local politicians and boosters, who had spent more

120 Indy Dreams than a decade marketing 'Super-Natural B.C.' Similarly, in a time of heightened environmental sensitivity and concerns about political accountability, there was considerable political danger in ignoring the scale of opposition in the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood. In making these comments it is important to acknowledge that Hastings-Sunrise residents were not the usual people we hear about struggling against the forces of gentrification and urban development. The community is an increasingly middle-class neighbourhood, a stable community with people who own homes, and earn average family incomes. In its struggle, the community was able to articulate and draw on long-standing privileged upper-middle-class conceptions of the value of the passive appreciation of nature, green space, gardens, and recreational and leisure pursuits in order to construct an oppositional discourse and establish it as common sense. I am left wondering if this crisis had not occurred when it did, in these particular circumstances, and in this particular community (which has a long record of activism), would the outcome have been different? Would we have seen an Indy race site going in at Hastings Park at the very moment that the Sanctuary was under construction in the spring of 1999? Whatever the answer to these questions it is still important to underscore that market-driven urban development forces do not always win; that discourses which oppose the 'common sense' of subsidizing spectacular urban entertainments still have resonance in today's promotional culture. At a time when local communities seem to be under assault on all sides, it is important to celebrate occasions when Canadians act as though their communities 'belong to them' rather than to the developers and other business, political, and cultural elites who typically constitute a city's power bloc. The Hastings Park relocation crisis shows how community organizations can voice their anger over a loss of local control in the face of developmental forces. Citizens can take back control over the urban landscape and implement their own local visions of their community's future. The continuing task for researchers is to examine the manifold ways in which these future urban visions are framed and con-

The Ideology of the World-Class City 121 tested, and what are the limits and possibilities for resistance. These visions are complex, rooted deeply in belief systems and values that constitute not only the way people think and act, but they also reference more instrumental places of deliberate selfaggrandizement and ambition. We need to better understand how efforts to shape a particular vision of a city's future draw on and help to transform broader, 'common sense' understandings of Canadian democracy and the role of citizens within the city. Examining how these visions are manufactured and disseminated, and how they articulate with wider political-economic processes and cultural logics is the first step towards a fuller understanding of the changing nature of urban life as we enter the twenty-first century.

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APPENDIX

A Note on Method

My rationale for employing a case study is guided by the argument that data must push to build theory and avoid contentment with simply telling a good but often limited story. Following the canons of grounded theory such theorizing involves integrating many observations into a system of propositions and using that system to define and explore problematic issues.1 These problematic issues are linked to comprehensive understandings or explanatory systems about society. Particular case studies, such as this one of the Molson Indy Vancouver's proposed relocation to Hastings Park, are at once illustrations of these comprehensive theories and are a means of extending and fine tuning them by holding them accountable to concrete experience. It was not until several weeks after the Hastings Park relocation crisis was resolved that I struck upon the idea of using it as an empirical case to investigate at a more theoretical level the struggle around the ideology of 'world-class' city and its public culture. I was very interested in the role the city's most vital collective public spaces play as the key sites where an urban public culture is produced and consumed, and how various interest groups are in competition to control the development and use of these spaces, often for radically different ends. The conflict between pro-Indy forces and community activists nicely captured this. Coming to the conflict after the fact meant, of course, that I was unable to observe it first-hand as a participant observer attending

124 Appendix: A Note on Method public meetings and city council and Parks Board meetings. So in order to develop a better understanding of the conflict - how it developed, the competing interests involved and the power relations among them, and how and why the crisis was ultimately resolved the way it was -1 had to reconstruct the event by drawing on personal accounts of principal actors, media coverage, and official documents and reports submitted to Vancouver city council. To this end I employed three methods of data collection: open-focus interviewing, direct observation, and document analysis. Data were collected over a period of several months, from May through September 1997, culminating with four days of fieldwork at the 1997 Molson Indy Vancouver event. A total of twenty-seven interviews were conducted with people who were associated with the Molson Indy Vancouver (either as staff members or as volunteers) or who were involved in some capacity the with Hastings-Sunrise community and their park restoration efforts. I also interviewed bureaucrats with the city of Vancouver, Tourism Vancouver, the mayor of Surrey, and some members of the Vancouver sports media. Throughout my fieldwork I carried with me four basic interview guides, each designed for one of the primary interest groups under study: Hastings-Sunrise community activists, city bureaucrats, local sports reporters, and Molson Indy Vancouver staffers. These were used only as guides; they were not rigorously adhered to, as required in structured survey techniques. I wanted to provide interviewees with minimal guidance, allowing considerable latitude for exploring new avenues of inquiry opened up during the course of an interview; many times these were dead ends, and at other times important insights were yielded. During the course of an interview, the use of a specific question was guided by the progress of that interview. If a respondent was especially responsive to a particular question, I probed the topic thoroughly with supplementary questions (some drawn from the interview guide, others devised on the spot). Questions eliciting little response were often rephrased, and if they continued to come up empty I put them aside for a possible later meeting. In a sense, these

Appendix: A Note on Method 125 intensive interviews were customized to each respondent and interview context. Most of these interviews spanned more than ninety minutes in duration; the average duration was about forty-five minutes. All of these interviews were pre-arranged, and were conducted either over the telephone or face to face depending on a number of factors, such as availability of the interviewee due to work commitments, time and geographic constraints. Notably, I did not encounter one person over the course of my fieldwork who refused to be interviewed. All interviews were tape recorded and transcribed (usually later that evening, while the experience was still fresh in my mind). I also kept a field diary with me, in which I recorded key points made during an interview; I would also jot down ideas that came to me in the time leading up to and following an interview. In addition to these open-focus intensive interviews, approximately twenty-five spontaneous and unstructured interviews were randomly conducted with spectators, event volunteers, and sports journalists at the 1997 Molson Indy Vancouver event. These interviews typically lasted less than twenty minutes, and were not transcribed. Here I simply took notes in my field diary which were later written up, though not verbatim. The direct observation component of the research was confined to the 1997 Molson Indy Vancouver event. I spent four days moving through the event site, having been given full credentials by MIV organizers. My objective was to get a sense of the experience of being at this spectacular motor sport event, to experience what it was like to move through this spatial complex at False Creek. I wanted to talk to spectators and volunteers about their reasons for being there - what being at the Indy means to them and how it connects to their experience of living in or visiting Vancouver the 'world-class' city. During my interviews and fieldwork I was given copies of press releases, consultant reports, meeting minutes, promotional packages and press kits, and a host of other documents which proved very useful to my analysis. I also made extensive use of newspaper

126 Appendix: A Note on Method archives, from which I collected every news item 1 could that touched on the crisis sparked by the proposal to relocate the Molson Indy Vancouver to Hastings Park. These news items I used to reconstruct a timeline of the crisis; they also proved to be valuable sources of background information and quotations from key actors in the conflict.

Notes

PREFACE

1 David Whitson, 'Sport and Canadian Identities,' Canadian Issues / Themes Canadiens (Autumn 1999), 8-9. 2 Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada: Sport, Identities, and Cultural Practices (Toronto: Garamond, 1993), 224. 3 Vincent Mosco, "Citizenship and the Technopoles," draft copy of a plenary paper presented to the 12th Euricom Colloquium on Communication and Culture, University of Colorado, Boulder, Oct. 1997, no page number. 4 Robert A. Stebbins, Exploratory Research in the Social Sciences (Thousand Oaks, CA.: Sage, 2001), 3. 5 Ibid., 6. 6 Anthony M. Orum and Joe R. Feagin, 'A Tale of Two Cities,' in Anthony M. Orum, Joe R. Feagin, and Gideon Sjoberg (eds.), A Case for Case Studies (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 336. INTRODUCTION

1 This quote is taken from an interview with the author. Throughout this study, unless otherwise noted, all quotations are taken directly from author's interviews. 2 Robert A.J. McDonald, '"Holy Retreat" or "Practical Breathing Spot"? Class Perceptions of Vancouver's Stanley Park, 1910-1913,' Canadian Historical Review 65, 2 (1984), 144.

128 Notes to pages 7-14 3 'Indy misfires at PNE site,' Province, 17 Jan. 1997, A5. 4 Doreen Massey, Space, Place, and Gender (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994). 5 Zukin, Sharon, The Cultures of Cities (London: Blackwell, 1995), 279. 6 David Whitson and Donald Macintosh, 'Becoming a World-Class City: Hallmark Events and Sport Franchises in the Growth Strategies of Western Canadian Cities,' Sociology ofSport Journal 10, (1993), 221-40. 7 Cited in BJ. Frieden and L.B. Sagalyn, Downtown Inc.: How America Rebuilds Its Cities (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989), 279; my emphasis. 8 The best work that I have come across that deals with the economics of stadium funding is the collection of essays edited by John Bale and Olof Moen, The Stadium and the City (Keele, Staffordshire: Keele University Press, 1995). 9 H. Hiller, 'Impact and Image: The Convergence of Urban Factors in Preparing for the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics,' in G. Syme, B. Shaw, D. Fenton, and W. Mueller (eds.), The Planning and Evaluation of Hallmark Events (Brookfield: Avebury, 1989), 119. 10 Robert A. Baade, 'Stadiums, Professional Sports, and City Economics: An Analysis of the United States Experience,' in Bale and Moen (eds.), The Stadium and the City 279, 290; Richard A. Baade and Richard F. Dye, 'The Impact of Stadiums and Professional Sports on Metropolitan Area Development,' Growth and Development (Spring 1990), 321-42. 11 See, e.g., Roger G. Noll and Andrew Zimbalist (eds.), Sports, Jobs, and Taxes: The Economic Impact of Sports Teams and Stadiums (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997). See also Bale and Moen, The Stadium and the City. 12 A.G. Ingham, J.W. Howell, and T.S. Schilperoot, 'Professional Sports and Community: A Review and Exegesis,' in K. Pandolf (ed.), Exercise and Sport Science Reviews 15 (1989), 437; cited in Bale and Moen (eds.), The Stadium and the City, 191. CHAPTER 1 Spectacular Consumption Spaces 1 Mike Beamish, 'Concord Pacific Place: Creating a Course,' Molson Indy Vancouver Program, 1995, 8.

Notes to pages 15-22 129 2 Ted Laturnus, 'Concord Pacific Place: Creating a Course,' Molson Indy Vancouver Program, 1995, 60. 3 Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada: Sport, Identities and Cultural Practices (Toronto: Garamond, 1993), 210-11. 4 Ibid., 211. 5 For an excellent analysis and discussion of the emergence of organized sport in late eighteenth-century Canada, see Alan Metcalfe, Canada Learns to Play: The Emergence of Organized Sport, 1807—1914 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1987), Chapter 3. See also, Bruce Kidd, The Struggle for Canadian Sport (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996). 6 Gruneau and Whitson, Hockey Night, 67. 7 David Breen and Kenneth Coates, Vancouver's Fair (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press 1982). 8 Sharon Zukin, Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Harvey, The Condithat is crucial to imaging theBlackwell, city: the lifestyles thatSmith can be pursued tion ofPostmodernity (Oxford: 1989); Neil and Peter Williams (eds.), Gentrification of the City (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1986); David Ley, A Social Geography of the City (New York: Harper and Row, 1983); H. Holcomb and Robert Beauregard, Revitalizing Cities (Washington, DC: Assocation of American Geographers, 1981). 9 Ash Amin, 'Post-Fordism: Models, Fantasies and Phantoms of Transition,' in Ash Amin (ed.), Post-Fordism: A Reader (London: Blackwell, 1994), 1-40. 10 David Harvey, 'Flexible Accumulation through Urbanization: Reflections on "Post-Modernism" in the American City,' Antipode, 19(3), 1987. 11 Gruneau and Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada, 235-6. 12 On this point, two articles by Neil Smith are instructive: 'Gentrification and Uneven Development,' Economic Geography 58, (1982), 139-55; 'Gentrification and the Rent Gap,' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77, (1987), 462-78. 13 Holcomb and Beauregard, Revitalizing Cities, 52. 14 B.J. Friedan and L.B. Sagalyn, Downtown Inc.: How America Rebuilds its Cities, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989). 15 Harvey, The Condition ofPostmodernity, 91-2. 16 Zukin, The Cultures of Cities and Landscapes of Power.

130 Notes to pages 23-8 17 Zukin, The Cultures of Cities, 260. 18 Rob Shields, (ed.), Lifestyle Shopping: The Subject of Consumption (London: Routledge, 1992), 7. 19 Ibid. 20 Zukin, The Cultures of Cities, 188. 21 David Chancy, Lifestyles (London: Routledge, 1996), 18. 22 Rudi Laermans, 'Learning to Consume: Early Department Stores and the Shaping of the Modern Consumer Culture (1860-1914),' Theory, Culture and Society, 10(4), (1993), 87. 23 R. Row\by,Just Looking: Consumer Culture in Dreiser, Gissing and Zola (New York: Methuen, 1985), 4. 24 Shields, Lifestyle Shopping, 6. 25 Ibid. 26 S. Ewan, and E. Ewan, Channels of Desire (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982), 68. 27 Celia Lury, Consumer Culture (Oxford: Polity Press, 1996); Sutjhally, The Codes of Advertising (London: Routledge, 1990); William Leiss, Steve Kline, and Sutjhally, Social Communication in Advertising: Persons, Products and Images ofWell-Being (Toronto: Methuen, 1986). 28 Lury, Consumer Culture, 80. 29 Ibid., 46. The classic study of commodities as markers of social position is Thorstein Veblin's 1899 book, The Theory of the Leisure Class. 30 Sharon Zukin, 'Socio-Spatial Prototypes of a New Organization of Consumption: The Role of Real Cultural Capital Society 24(1), (1990). 31 Smith, 'Gentrification and the Rent Gap,' 462-78; 'Gentrification and Uneven Development,' 139-55; 'Toward a Theory of Gentrification: A Back to the City Movement by Capital, Not People,' Journal of the American Planners Association 45, (1979), 538-48. 32 David Harvey, SocialJustice and the City (London: Edward Arnold, 1973). 33 I., Munt, 'Economic Restructuring, Culture, and Gentrification: A Case Study in Battersea, London,' in Environment and Planning A 19, (1987), 1175-98. 34 Smith, 'Toward a Theory of Gentrification,' 545.

Notes to pages 28-33 131 35 Neil Smith and Peter Williams (eds.), Gentrification of the City (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1986), 4. 36 Katharyne Mitchell, 'Visions of Vancouver: Ideology, Democracy, and the Future of Urban Development,' Urban Geography 17(6), (1996), 478-501; David Ley, 'Styles of the Times: Liberal and Neo-conservative Landscapes in Inner Vancouver, 1968—1986,' Journal of Historical Geography 13(1), (1987), 40-56; David Ley, 'Liberal Ideology and the Postindustrial City,' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70(2), (1980), 238-58; Robert Beauregard, 'The Chaos and Complexity of Gentrification,' in Smith and Williams (eds.), Gentrification of the City. 37 Beauregard, 'The Chaos and Complexity of Gentrification,' 43. 38 Chris Hamnett, 'The Blind Men and the Elephant: The Explanation of Gentrification,' Translations of the Institute of British Geographers 16, (1991), 175. 39 Smith, 'Gentrification and the Rent Gap,' 463. 40 Ley,'Styles of the Times.' 41 Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (New York: Basic Books, 1973). 42 Ley, A Social Geography of the City, 45; emphasis added. 43 Nick Witheford and Richard Gruneau, 'Between the Politics of Production and the Politics of the Sign: Post-Marxism, Postmodernism, and "New Times,"' Current Perspectives in Social Theory 13, (1993), 83. 44 Walter G. Hardwick, Vancouver (Don Mills, ON: Collier-Macmillan, Ltd., 1974). 45 Bruce Constantineau, 'Yaletown: Historic Area Draws New Gang,' Vancouver Sun, 7 Jan. 1989, HI. 46 'Even Seagulls Sit Pretty in New Yaletown,' Vancouver Sun, 28 Aug. 1993, Al. 47 Ibid., A2. 48 'Yaletown on the Edge: The First Phase of Development on Vancouver's Expo Lands Brings Urban Street Form to the New Downtown Edge,' Canadian Architect 40(3), (1995), 20-1. 49 For a detailed study of New York's SoHo district, see Sharon Zukin, Loft Living: Culture and Capital in Urban Change (London: Radius / Century Hutchinson, 1988).

132 Notes to pages 33-8 50 'Even Seagulls Sit Pretty in New Yaletown,' A2. 51 Sharon Zukin, 'Socio-Spatial Prototypes of a New Organization of Consumption: The Role of Real Cultural Capital,' Society 24(1), (1990), 41. 52 'Here Comes the Neighbourhood: The Redevelopment of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Creates Striking Contrasts, Exciting Opportunities and Uneasy Neighbours,' B.C. Business Magazine 22(7), (1994), 22-30. 53 Smith and Williams (eds.), Gentrification of the City, 16. 54 Zukin, Landscapes of Power, 187. 55 Quoted in Ley, 'Styles of the Times, 48. 56 Alan Fotheringham, 'Development Seeks Out the Water: Vancouver's Face Is Changing and List of the Top 25 Vancouver Houses Owned by Asian Canadians,' Financial Post Daily 7(193), (1995), 15. 57 For detailed accounts of specific development projects around False Creek, see C.A. Mills, '"Life on the Upslope": The Postmodern Landscape,' Environment and PlanningD: Society and Spaced, (1988), 169-89; David Ley, 'Styles of the Times'; David Ley, 'Liberal Ideology and the Postindustrial City,' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70(2), (1980), 238-58. CHAPTER 2

Competing Visions

1 This account of the developmental history of Hastings Park is a composite of three primary sources: The Greening of Hastings Park: Restoration Program, prepared by the Hastings Park Working Committee and the Vancouver Parks Board (Feb. 1996); Financial Analysis of Alternatives under Consideration for Hastings Park, prepared for the City of Vancouver by Deloitte and Touche Management Consultants (Aug. 1991); Functional Programming and Design Objectives Study for Hastings Park and New Brighton Park, prepared for the City of Vancouver by APRA Group, Inc. et al. (Aug. 1991). These sources are supplemented by data collected from primarily newspaper accounts of the MIV relocation crisis as well as from my intensive interviews with various community activists, city of Vancouver bureaucrats, and MIV officials.

Notes to pages 39-45 133 2 Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada: Sport, Identity, and Cultural Practices, (Toronto: Garamond, 1993), 16. 3 Alan Metcalfe, Canada Learns to Play (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1987), Chapter 5. 4 Ibid., 134. 5 Ibid., 134-80. 6 Gruneau and Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada. 1 Robert McDonald, '"Holy Retreat" or "Practical Breathing Spot"? Class Perceptions of Vancouver's Stanley Park, 1910-1913,' Canadian Historical Review 65 (2), (1984), 138. McDonald notes that the public parks movements in both Canada and the United States gained widespread acceptance in the latter part of the nineteenth century, although they did begin earlier. In Canada, he notes, some open spaces had been set aside before Confederation, including Halifax Common (1763), squares in Montreal (1821) and Hamilton (1862), and the Garrison Reserve in Toronto (1848). 8 Elsie M. McFarland, The Development of Public Recreation in Canada (Vanier: Canadian Parks-Recreation Association, 1970), 14. 9 David Breen and Kenneth Coates, Vancouver's Fair (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1982), 18. 10 Robert McDonald, '"Holy Retreat" or "Practical Breathing Spot"?' 11 Ibid., 127. 12 Ibid., 127-30. 13 Ibid., 142. 14 Ibid., 152. 15 Ibid., 144-55. 16 Ibid., 144. 17 For an excellent oral history of the formation and operation of the Vancouver Exhibition, see Early History of the Vancouver Exhibition Association, City of Vancouver Archives, March 1953. 18 Advertisement reproduced in 'Pacific National Exhibition: Moving On,' Vancouver Sun, 14 Aug. 1997, Cl. 19 For a description of wartime use of PNE facilities, see David Breen and Kenneth Coats, The Pacific National Exhibition: An Illustrated History (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1982), Chapter 4.

134 Notes to pages 46-50 20 'Functional Programming and Design Objectives Study for Hastings Park and New Brighton Park,' 75. 21 The Greening of Hastings Park: Restoration Program,' 7 (hereafter referred to as the Restoration Program. 22 Ibid., 42. 23 Report to Standing Committee on Planning and Environment, City of Vancouver, 27 Feb. 1997, Dept. File No. 1063. 24 'Racetrack Deal Cited as Symbolic Victory for City in Park Fight,' Vancouver Sun, 14 Jan. 1998. 25 The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation has a history dating back to 1886, the year Vancouver itself was officially founded. In fact, the first resolution of the first city council in 1886 was to petition the federal government for the use as park space, a 1,000acre peninsula now known as Stanley Park. Not long after this request, city council put together an appointed Park Committee to manage its new park by buildings and gardens. By 1890, the Parks Board had become an elected body - and remains the only board of its kind in Canada. 26 Initially, two other forums had been proposed: Business and Youth. These, however, did not materialize. Despite an effort to organize Hastings Street merchants, there was insufficient interest to form a group. Likewise, the Youth Forum ultimately proved impossible to organize despite several efforts. Instead, co-design workshops were exclusively focused on secondary school students in the immediate catchment area; this was 'successful in obtaining a youth perspective' on the future development of Hastings Park. See 'Administrative Report,' General Manager, Parks Board to Vancouver City Council and Vancouver Parks Board, 13 Feb. 1996. 27 These component organizations of the B.C. thoroughbred horse racing industry are the Pacific Racing Association (which operates the Hastings Park Racetrack); the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association of British Columbia (representing the owners and trainers of thoroughbred horses that race at Hastings Park); and the B.C. Division of the Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society (representing the breeders of thoroughbred horses racing at the park). 28 Press release, City of Vancouver, 13 Oct. 1995.

Notes to pages 50-62 135 29 'Groups Share Visions of Restored Hastings Park,' Vancouver Sun, 23 Oct. 1995, A5. 30 For a detailed account of the public consultation process, see the Restoration Program, Chapter 2. 31 Ibid., 13. 32 See also, 'The Greening of the PNE,' Vancouver Sun, 11 May 1996, D3, D4. 33 Terry O'Neill, 'Disneyland for Fish Lovers: Questions Mount over a Costly Plan to Resurrect an Urban Salmon Stream,' British Columbia Report, 8(29), 1997, 16-17. 34 Restoration Program, 17. 35 'Hastings Park Restoration,' Information Sheet, City of Vancouver, Aug. 1997. 36 'Fact Sheet: Hastings Park Restoration Transition Plan, 1997-1999,' City of Vancouver, Oct. 1997. 37 'New Hastings Park Plan Unveiled,' Vancouver Sun, 8 March 1997, A15. 38 Functional Programming and Design Objectives Study for Hastings Park and New Brighton Park, 33. 39 'New Hastings Park Plan Unveiled,' Vancouver Sun, 8 March 1997, A15. C H A P T E R 3 Selling the Spectacle 1 'Indy Fan Mayor Finds Foes Think Park Site Is a Stinker,' Vancouver Sun, 18 Jan. 1997, A9. 2 Noel Hulsman, 'The Molson Indy Approach to Neighbourhood Park Planning,' New City Magazine 17(3), (1997), 16-17. 3 'PNE Would Consider Indy as a Partner at New Site, Official Says,' Vancouver Sun, 18 Jan. 1997, A9. 4 'Gentlemen, Stop Your Noisy Engines,' Province, 17 Jan. 1997, A5. 5 Ibid. 6 'Chesman Prepared to Lead Charge against Indy,' Vancouver Sun, 17 Jan. 1997, A2 (emphasis added). 7 The Greening of Hastings Park: Restoration Program prepared by the Hastings Park Working Committee and the Vancouver Parks (Feb. 1996), 1.

136 Notes to pages 63-77 8 'Molson Indy Woos Residents with Discount Tickets, Free Passes, Jobs,' Vancouver Sun, 27 Jan. 1997, A5. 9 'Racing Cars at the PNE "Absolutely Outrageous,"' Province, 17 Jan. 1997, A55. 10 'PNE Would Consider Indy.' 11 'Racing Cars at the PNE.' 12 'Chesman Prepared.' 13 'Molson Indy Woos Residents.' 14 Ibid. 15 'Premier Sides with Residents.' 16 Ibid. 17 Hulsman, The Molson Indy Approach.' 18 '4 U.S. Cities Said on Sidelines to Take Over Indy Race,' Vancouver Sun, 29Jan. 1997,A1. 19 David Harvey, The Condition of Post-Modernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989), 92. 20 David Whitson and Donald Macintosh, 'Becoming a World-Class City: Hallmark Events and Sport Franchises in the Growth Strategies of Western Canadian Cities,' Sociology ofSport Journal 10, (1993), 223. 21 'PNE Would Consider Indy.' 22 'Indy Backers say Surrey Simply not the Place to Race,' Province, 19 Jan. 1997, A5. 23 'Indy Hopes Head Back to a False Creek Route,' Vancouver Sun, 26 Feb. 1997, Bl. 24 Whitson and Macintosh, 'Becoming a World-Class City.' 222. 25 'Three False Creek Sites to Face Indy Evaluation,' Vancouver Sun, 26 Feb. 1997, Bl, B5; emphasis added. 26 'Vancouver Molson Indy Looking for a New Home,' Financial Post, 4 March 1997 (no page number available). 27 'Indy Hopes Head Back.' 28 'A Caution Flag,' Vancouver Sun, 18 Jan. 1997, A22. 29 'Indy Shifts into Image-Repair Mode,' Vancouver Sun, 31 Jan. 1997, Dll. 30 'Vancouver Race Runs into Opposition,' Globe and Mail, 31 Jan. 1997, C19. 31 'Indy Offers Hastings' Area Residents Perks for Race Support,' Vancouver Sun, 27 Jan. 1997, A2. 32 'Molson Indy Woos Residents.'

Notes to pages 77-93 137 33 Report to Standing Committee on Planning and Environment, City of Vancouver, 27 Feb. 1997, Dept. File No. 1063. 34 Ibid. 35 'Molson IndyWoos Residents.' 36 Ibid. 37 'Anti-Indy Crowd Boos Hastings Plan,' Vancouver Sun, 28 Jan. 1997, Bl. 38 'Indy Offers Hastings-Area Residents Perks for Race Support,' Vancouver Sun, 27 Jan. 1997, Al. 39 Kimberley S. Schimmel, 'Growth Politics, Urban Development, and Sports Stadium Construction in the United States: A Case Study,' in John Bale and Olof Moen (eds.), The Stadium and the City (Keele, Staffordshire: Keele University Press, 1995), 113. 40 Ibid., 131-2. 41 'Molson Indy Woos Residents.' 42 'Anti-Indy Crowd Boos Hastings Plan,' Vancouver Sun, 28 Jan. 1997, Bl. 43 1997 REW membership application form. 44 REW Information Package, 1997 Area Descriptions. 45 Taken from Speaking Notes for a REW recruiting drive, Summer 1997. 46 Molson Indy Vancouver, Program, 1995. 47 This notion of REW's activities enhancing the city's sense of community and community spirit is nicely encapsulated in the association's 1997 membership application, which reads: 'As a member of REW you will be an important part of the most exciting volunteer organization in Vancouver. Not only will you enhance Vancouver's community spirit, you will experience first hand a racing event unparalleled with speeds soaring to nearly 200 miles per hour. Guaranteed to make memories and friends to last a lifetime.' 48 'Chesman Prepared to Lead.' c HA P T E R 4

Resisting the Spectacle

1 All data for this Hastings-Sunrise profile are taken from The Greening of Hastings Park (1996) produced by the city of Vancouver's planning department. 2 Median household income, as defined by Statistics Canada, is the

138 Notes to pages 93-106 amount which divides an area's income distribution into two halves, where an equal number of households are either above or below the median amount. 3 Low-income cut-offs as defined by Statistics Canada are income levels where 59 per cent of gross income goes to the essentials of food, clothing, and shelter. 4 I am indebted to Richard Gruneau for bringing this set of arguments to my attention. 5 Douglas Rutheiser, Imagineering Atlanta: The Politics of Place in the City of Dreams (London: Verso, 1996), 110-11. 6 Doreen Massey, 'A Global Sense of Place,' in Trevor Barnes and Derek Gregory (eds.), Reading Human Geography (London: Arnold, 1997), 317. 7 BJ. Frieden and L.B. Sagalyn, Downtown Inc.: How America Rebuilds Its Cities (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989), 233. 8 Sharon Zukin, The Cultures of Cities (London: Blackwell, 1995). 9 Frieden and Sagalyn, Downtown Inc., 235-6. 10 Zukin, The Cultures of Cities, 6. 11 Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada: Sports, Identities and Cultural Practices (Toronto: Garamond, 1993), 213. 12 Tndy Fan Mayor Finds Foes Think Park Site is a Stinker,' Vancouver Sun, 18 Jan. 1997, A9. 13 Noel Hulsman, 'The Molson Indy Approach to Neighbourhood Park Planning,' New City Magazine, 17(3), (1997), 17. 14 Attendance figures are taken from several newspaper and eyewitness accounts which reported attendance as between 600 and 700. In addition, a brief account of the public meeting is provided in the Minutes of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, 27 Jan. 1997 (emphasis added): 'Commissioner Chesman reported on the meeting held at the Centre Ice Restaurant at the Pacific Coliseum regarding the Molson Indy Proposal to use the Hastings Park area. There were approximately 700 people in attendance and probably the majority of them were against the Indy. Phil Heard from Molson Indy outlined their proposal and expressed a willingness to work with the community. They have six potential plans [for Hastings Park] but all were within the park. Commissioner Chesman stated it was a question of keeping a promise to return Hastings Park to its

Notes to pages 109-17 139

15 16 17 18

original state. The Parks Board position regarding the Indy is that it will not support it.' The Sites of Indy,' Province, 4 Feb. 1997, A44. 'Vancouver Molson Indy Looking for a New Home,' Financial Post, 4 March 1997. Noel Hulsman, 'Good NIMBY: Molson Indy vs Hastings Park - The Aftermath,' New City Magazine 17(4), (1997), 5. Tndy Shifts Gears, Goes Ahead with New Plan for False Creek Course,' Vancouver Sun, 14 March 1997, Bl.

C H A P T E R 5 Spectacular Space and the Ideology of the World-Class City 1 Sharon Zukin, The Cultures of Cities (London, Blackwell, 1995), 259. 2 John Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 7. 3 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 135. 4 J. Duncan and N. Duncan, '(Re)reading the Landscape,' Environment and PlanningD: Society and Space 6, (1988), 123. 5 Gillian Rose, 'Looking at Landscape: The Uneasy Pleasures of Power,' in Trevor Barnes and Derek Gregory (eds.), Reading Human Geography: The Poetics and Politics of Inquiry (New York: Wiley, 1997) ,344. 6 Kevin Fox Gotham, 'Political Opportunity, Community Identity, and the Emergence of a Local Anti-Expressway Movement,' Social Problems 46(3), (1999), 333. 7 Richard Gruneau and David Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada: Sports, Identity, and Cultural Practices (Toronto: Garamond, 1993), 137. 8 Brian Goodey, 'Art-Full Places: Public Art to Sell Public Spaces?' in John R. Gold and Stephen V. Ward (eds.), Place Promotion: The Use of Publicity and Marketing to Sell Towns and Regions (New York: Wiley, 1994). 9 Andrew Wernick, Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology, and Symbolic Expression (London: Sage, 1991). 10 David Whitson, and Richard Gruneau, 'The (Real) Integrated

140 Notes to pages 118-23 Circus: Political Economy, Popular Culture, and "Major League" Sport,' in Wallace Clement (ed.), Understanding Canada: Building on the New Canadian Political Economy (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997), 360. 11 Gruneau and Whitson, Hockey Night in Canada, 221. 12 Ibid., 219-21. APPENDIX

1 Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1967).

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144 References - 'Styles of the Times: Liberal and Neo-conservative Landscapes in Inner Vancouver, 1968-1986.' Journal of Historical Geography 13, 1 (1987): 40-56. - A Social Geography of the City. New York: Harper and Row, 1983. - 'Liberal Ideology and the Postindustrial City,' Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70, 2 (1980): 238-58. Lury, Celia. Consumer Culture. Oxford: Polity Press, 1996. Massey, Doreen. 'A Global Sense of Place.' 315-23 in Trevor Barnes and Derek Gregory (eds.), Reading Human Geography. London: Arnold, 1997. - Space, Place, and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. - 'Politics and Space/Time.' New Left Review 196 (1992): 65-84. McDonald, Robert AJ. '"Holy Retreat" or "Practical Breathing Spot"'? Class Perceptions of Vancouver's Stanley Park, 1910-1913.' Canadian Historical Review 65, 2 (1984): 127-53. McFarland, Elsie Marie. The Development of Public Recreation in Canada. Vanier, ON: Canadian Parks-Recreation Association, 1970. Metcalfe, Alan. Canada Learns to Play. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1987. Mills, C.A. '"Life on the Upslope": The Postmodern Landscape,' Environment and PlanningD: Society and Space 6 (1988): 169-89. Mitchell, Katharyne. 'Visions of Vancouver: Ideology, Democracy, and the Future of Urban Development.' Urban Geography 17, 6 (1996): 478-501. Munt, I. 'Economic Restructuring, Culture, and Gen unification: A Case Study in Battersea, London.' Environment and Planning A, 19 (1987): 1175-97. Noll, Roger G., and Andrew Zimbalist (eds.). Sports, Jobs, and Taxes: The Economic Impact of Sports Teams and Stadiums. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1997. O'Neill, Terry. 'Disneyland for Fish Lovers: Questions Mount over a Costly Plan to Resurrect an Urban Salmon Stream,' British Columbia Report8(29), (1997): 16-17. Orum, Anthony M., and Joe R. Feagin. 'A Tale of Two Cities.' Pp. 121-47 in Anthony M. Orum, Joe R. Feagin, and Gideon Sjoberg (eds.), A Case for Case Studies. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

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The Greening of Hastings Park: Restoration Program. Prepared by the Hastings Park Working Committee and the Vancouver Park Board, Feb. 1996. Financial Analysis of Alternatives under Consideration for Hastings Park, Prepared for the City of Vancouver by Deloitte and Touche Management Consultants, Aug. 1991. Functional Programming and Design Objectives Study for Hastings Park and New Brighton Park. Prepared for the City of Vancouver by APRA Group, Inc. et al., Aug. 1991. Report to Standing Committee on Planning and Environment. City of Vancouver, 27 Feb. 1997, Dept. File No. 1063.

Index

Baade, Richard, 10 Bell, Daniel, 30 Bryant Park, 98 Citizenship, xv-xvi, 93—103 Civic duty: supporting major league sports as, 99-102 Civic identity, ix, 17-23, 100-2 Community, 93-100, 115-18. See also Citizenship Dye, Richard, 10 Entrepreneurial cities, 20. See also 'world-class' cities

Harvey, David, 11, 21, 27, 31 Hastings Park: early history of, 6, 38-48; commercialization of, 38-48; decision to restore, 6-8; plans for restoration, 48-57; competing visions for its restoration, 8, 60-6, 93-5, 120 Hiller, Harry, 10 Ideology, 8, 112-21; landscape as a visual ideology, 113—14; Hastings Park as a visual ideology, 114—16

False Creek, 3, 16, 32-7, 109-11

Laermans, Rudi, 24 Lefebvre, Henri, 112, 114-15 Ley, David, 30-1

Gentrification, 27-37; defined, 29; 'supply-side' argument, 278; 'consumption-side' argument, 28-9. See also False Creek Goodey, Brian, 117 Gruneau, Richard, 20, 31-9, 118

Massey, Doreen, 8 McDonald, Robert, 41-4 Metropolis, ix Metcalfe, Alan, 39 Molson Indy Vancouver (MFV): as promotional signifier, xiii-xiv,

148 Index 14, 16, 115-16; as Canada's Monte Carlo 14-16; relocation to Hastings Park, 3-6, 57-60 Mosco, Vincent, 11-12 Opposing the MIV relocation, xiii, 60-5; grounds for, 93—5 Oppositional discourse, xiv, xvii, 11,119-21 Pacific National Exhibition (PNE), 18-19, 44-7, 115; formerly Vancouver Exhibition Association, 44—5 Post-Fordism, 19, 31-2 Post-industrial city, 30-4 Promotional culture, xiii, xv, 116-21 Promotional discourse, x; 'boosterism,' 17-23 Promotional strategy, xiii, xvii Race Event Volunteers of Vancouver (REW), 12, 84-91, 102-3 Resisting spectacle, xv, 102-6

Resolving the relocation crisis, 109-11 Rutheiser, Douglas, 96 'Selling' the Indy to opponents, 66-84; brinkmanship, 66-76; financial inducements, 76-82; symbolic benefits, 82-4 Shields, Rob, 23-4 Smith, Neil, 27-31,34-5 Spectacle, xv. See also resisting spectacle Stanley Park, 41-3 Thompson, John, 112 Wernick, Andrew, 117 Whitson, David, 20, 39, 118 'World-class' cities, 17-23; projecting image of cultural sophistication and economic dynamism, x, 21; and spectacle, xv, 14; ideology of, xv, 114-21 Zukin, Sharon, 9, 26, 96, 98, 112