Policy recommendations

Shifting systems level beliefs and behaviours

Recommendation 16: Improve social cohesion and decreasing social distance

As shown in this report, parallel economic and social systems exist and are pronounced in Chinatown. While there are multiple parallels in existence in all neighbourhoods to a degree, we believe that it is highly pronounced in this neighbourhood due to its demographics, history, and recent changes.

As identified in the Resilient Vancouver Phase One Engagement Report (2018), social cohesion and community connectedness were of key interest to the City. The engagement report explores several reasons as to why there are high levels of social isolation, including the “lack of understanding about Vancouver’s history and cultural heritage.” This cultural blindness contributes to the reinforcement of injustices and inequitable flow of knowledge and resources.

To fully recognize historic ethnocultural spaces and parallel social and economic systems will:

• Meaningfully shift the orientation of policy from “Place-making” to “Placekeeping;”
• Support the maintenance and growth of Chinatown’s social infrastructure as something critical to residents, businesses, and other groups; and
• Broaden the definition of “food assets” to include cultural food assets for their role in ensuring residents have access to healthy, culturally appropriate, and affordable food, along with a place for community identity and social connection.

This approach should be applied across the city to historically significant and culturally specific neighbourhoods where there are clear parallels in social and economic systems. We recommend that there be further public discourse to recognize the histories and relations with the Coast Salish peoples, along with Hogan’s Alley due to the community’s shared space and history

As our findings showcased and we have discussed in our conclusion, integration is not always possible nor is it ideal. Policies should start to recognize these parallels and their histories; measures of social cohesion and social distance both reflect the segregation that we rarely talk about as a city.

There are also UNESCO implications beyond just recognizing and valuing diversity through intangible cultural heritage; “within the context of globalisation, Intangible Cultural Heritage has capital importance as it allows cultural diversity to be maintained through dialogue between cultures and the promotion of respect towards other ways of life.” Intangible cultural heritage, as UNESCO states, will contribute “to social cohesion, encouraging a sense of identity and responsibility which helps individuals to feel part of one or different communities and to feel part of society at large.”

While several actions are discussed in the recommendations to “Addressing Parallel Systems,” we believe that focusing on increasing civic and public knowledge of our history and cultural heritage will result in an emergence of strategies and tactics that will reflect a more equitable reality.