Publication date: Aug 14, 2022 • 9 hours ago • 2 min read • 14 comments More than half of British Columbians believe the downtown cores of BC’s major cities are in a state of decline, according to a new Leger poll. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG
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More than half of British Columbians believe BC’s inner city cores are in decline, according to a new Leger poll.
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54 percent of respondents in B.C. said the downtown core of their nearest big city had shrunk somewhat or significantly in the past year, almost 10 points above the Canadian average of 45 per cent. “BC definitely stands out much higher than the rest of the country,” said Steve Mossop, executive vice president of Leger and author of the study. “But what I’m excited about is that it’s not just Vancouver, it’s across the country.” The results suggest another challenge for cities struggling to return their downtown cores to pre-pandemic states of activity. COVID-19 was “an amplifier for pre-existing inequalities that are happening in cities,” said Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program.
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“Now we’re entering the long-term economic COVID and it’s something we haven’t planned for. “There were certain segments of the population that were able to stay home, continue to work and actually maybe even save money,” Yan said. “Others who couldn’t work from home lost their jobs.” Forty-eight percent of British Columbians now work from home to some extent, according to Mossop. “That’s a huge number,” he said. Surveys have shown that employers have no immediate plans to bring workers back to downtown offices. “We don’t know if this will be a temporary or a permanent kind of new geography,” Yan said. Homelessness, mental health, addiction, crime and a lack of affordable housing were cited by respondents as major factors contributing to the decline of downtown cores in BC’s major cities.
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Ninety-nine percent of survey respondents in B.C. cited “mental health challenges for vulnerable populations” as a contributing factor, the highest rate of any province. Rising crime rates were cited by 98 percent of respondents, and 97 percent said homelessness and drug addiction were contributing factors. Nationwide, 89 percent of respondents cited mental health challenges as the leading cause of decline, followed by homelessness/housing affordability and increased crime. Only Manitoba/Saskatchewan reported mental health, homelessness and crime at rates similar to B.C. Yan said historically, many municipalities either denied the existence of low-income residents or tried to transfer them to other municipalities.
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He noted that services that support people experiencing homelessness, drug addiction or mental health issues “are not adequately distributed across the region” in Metro Vancouver. Mossop agreed that the root causes were beyond any city. “It’s a national and provincial health crisis, it’s homelessness,” he said. “It goes much deeper than what a local mayor can do.” The online poll, conducted by Leger and The Canadian Press, was a representative sample of 1,509 Canadians aged 18 and over. Held from August 5th to August 7th. No margin of error was calculated as the poll used a non-probability sample. [realated_links /] [email protected] twitter.com/njgriffiths More news, less ads, faster load time: Get unlimited, ad-lite access to The Vancouver Sun, The Province, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites for just $14/month or $140/year. Subscribe now through The Vancouver Sun or The Province.
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