Situating the New Economy: Contingencies of Regeneration and Dislocation in Vancouver's Inner City

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to make an argument about the importance of geographical context and contingency in the emergence of the new economy within the inner city. Using a case study of Vancouver, it is suggested, first, that its new economy has emerged precisely out of the peculiar trajectory of the city and is bound up with a staples economy, branch plant corporate offices, transnationalism, and mega-project orientation. Secondly, to illustrate the importance of situation and site, the paper focuses on two of Vancouver's inner-city locales: Yaletown, on the margins of the Downtown South, a former industrial and warehousing district now regarded as the epicentre of Vancouver's new economy; and Victory Square, the former commercial heart of the early Vancouver, for many years experiencing disinvestment and decline, but now on the cusp of a major revitalisation which threatens to displace long-established social cohorts.