City Manager Says: Stop Sprawl? — Eliminate the Urban Containment Boundary

In 2008 as part of a 10 Year Official Community Plan Review then Nanaimo City Manager Gerry Berry explained to Council that the elimination of the Urban Containment Boundary would halt sprawl by stemming low density development in the Regional District. Seriously. Listen to the logic and urbanist sounding jargon he offers to make his case...

"Increasingly Council is called upon to act on some very complex issues, and it's an organized complexity - so often effects in one area aren't necessarily linear and they're felt elsewhere." — Nanaimo City Manager Gerry Berry, 2008 appropriates some Jane Jacobs speak. What the hell he means by this still escapes me...

From The Pop-Up City — Top 5 Of The Greatest Urban Rooftop Farms

Urban farming has become one of the major international urban trends — a good reason for us to make a Top 5 of the greatest rooftop farms we’ve come across over the last years. Read more: Attribution Non-CommercialTop 5 Of The Greatest Urban Rooftop Farms — The Pop-Up City

From Changing City Updates blog

The system, which has been trialed in the UK, is claimed to produce 20 times the yield of field crops, using a fraction of the space and 92 percent less water. 

This isn’t our usual development proposal update – 635 Richards is a parkade, owned by the City of Vancouver. Vehicles seldom bother to drive all the way to the top – but by the middle of 2012, when they do, it will be to collect a crop of lettuces. VertiCrop™ a Vancouver based company whose invention was one of Time Magazine’s top 50 best inventions in 2009 plan to build a legal grow-op on the roof. The system, which has been trialed in the UK, is claimed to produce 20 times the yield of field crops, using a fraction of the space and 92 percent less water.

The company claim the vertical growing system will produce 95 tonnes of fresh vegetables a year, equivalent to a growing area of 16 acres. Assuming the project proceeds, the 6,000 sq ft facility will be covered in a fluoropolymer greenhouse.