have you ever bothered to come to vancouver? have you ever wished you lived in vancouver? according to the ranking of famous magazines x and y you should have had such cravings. apparently it is the best city to live in on this planet. low crime rate, nice (never mind that sometimes superficial) people, green neighborhoods, organic restaurants and markets plus all the multicultural (well, mostly asian) components. oh, and it organizes winter olympics in 2010! wicked, no?
there is a place in vancouver, however, to spoil everything. EVERYTHING. there’s a place where capitalism shows its real (?), evil (?) face. hastings at main. there are myths about that intersection all around canada. people actually tremble when they hear "hastings at main". they tremble and change the topic of the conversation. vancouverites know what i am talking about.
hastings at main is the intersection of two quite important streets in the town. main street constitutes the heart of chinatown (second biggest in north america), while hastings street goes along the coast leading from downtown all the way up to burnaby mtn. and sfu (btw, i wonder how many pedestrians know what is meant by ‘hastings’… forgive the irony).
anyhow. intersection of hastings and main is the intersection where you don’t wanna go at night alone. it’s full of losers, talking in economic terms which apply to this country. it’s full of bums who eat and sleep on the street. it’s full of prostitutes and drug addicts. the rates of hiv and aids are highest per square meter in north america. generally speaking it’s very filthy and very, very depressing.
thought-provoking, too.
every time my bus pass along the hastings streets i take a look at these people. i wonder then who is to blame for their situation – themselves or the system they have been born into and against which they have lost. was it freedom that led them to degradation? surely, we could blame them: they live in canada, the country full of opportunities. their fault, let them have what they deserve!
but wait a second. is it really? the ideology of capitalism standing behind world’s economy and the idea of globalization will always leave the winners and the losers. we can observe on local and global scale; e.g. the us of a imposing free trade agreements on latin american countries or the bums on hastings. they have to be there, so other people can sleep at sheraton hotel.
but it is not injustice that pains me. well, that too, obviously, but it is the bc government action. as the olympics 2010 are approaching, they have to do something to the problem of hastings at main. godammit, it's almost the very center of downtown! "what will sportsmen, buisinessmen, and visitors from around the world think about our city when they bump into hastings at main!?"
good job, provincial government! you spotted a problem bothering your biggest city. now, what to do? what to do? let's displace them! that's right. they are displacing them, moving from downtown as far as possible. slowly, but steadily through buying the estates and "cleaning the street". bravo. but no banana.
apathy is one thing and this is what had been shown towards the bums so far. but now it is a reverse action! instead of real help they recieve a ticket to surrey. how narrow-minded can you be that this is not going to resolve a knot of hastings at main!? it's just going to shift it, and probably make it even bigger.
ps. you can't see hastings at main from the suburbs. you can't read about hastings at main in the media. you don't want to.
