The visionary regional planning tradition and the Greater Vancouver region

Abstract

Since 1987, when the Brundtland Commission published its famous report, Our Common Future, discussions of urban and regional planning have tended to be strongly influenced by notions of 'sustainable development. ' This certainly is a welcome occurrence, but it is often forgotten that there is a far older tradition of visionary regional planning that anticipated many of the ideas of 'sustainable development.' While there is insufficient space here to treat their ideas in depth, a brief summary is offered in chronological order. In order to make the discussion more concrete, certain of these ideas are applied to the current situation in the Greater Vancouver region.