Integrative or insulative? : making the most of urban industrial spaces

Abstract

Faced with the considerable challenge of preserving industrial land in major cities, local governments tend to respond either by safeguarding the land for core industrial purposes, or by broadening its use range to include other nonindustrial activities in an effort to transform it into a more attractive, vibrant place. These two approaches can be thought of as insulative and integrative, respectively. This thesis examines the tensions and tradeoffs that planners face when addressing these two seemingly divergent industrial redevelopment approaches. It examines Vancouver, a city that has received justifiable credit for creating a livable, sustainable urban realm, but in the process has released a large amount of its industrial land to other uses, and is under continual pressure to do so with its remaining industrial land.

The thesis first reviews the historical conception of industry as nuisance and how this has led to reflexive assumptions that all industry must be separated from other uses, even as the nature of production has evolved to make many forms of industry much more tolerable to be around. The thesis then defines a set of parameters common to integrative industrial planning - which is arguably newer and less well-recognized than the insulative approach - noting current examples in North American cities. It moves the focus to Vancouver's False Creek Flats industrial district, where a recent area plan is evaluated for how it selectively uses both integrative and insulative strategies to transform the False Creek Flats into a vibrant employment district while also safeguarding much-needed local industries that are vulnerable to displacement.

A final section uses the Vancouver case to highlight some important conflicts cities face when addressing the integrative-insulative question for their own inner city industrial districts. The thesis concludes that Vancouver's False Creek Flats demonstrates promising possible resolutions for some, but not all, of these conflicts.