Vancouver As a “City on Edge”

Rebellion.

The following is excerpted from “City on Edge: A Rebellious Century of Vancouver Protests, Riots, and Strikes” by Kate Bird (Greystone Books, September 2017). Reprinted with permission from the publisher.

Everyone who lives outside of Vancouver thinks it’s peaceful here, but nobody who truly knows (or, I would venture, truly loves) the city falls for that. Class war, gang war, colonialism and its discontents; there’s some core, kinetically unsettled truth about Vancouver, which is not to say the city can’t change: over the course of our first century, give or take a few years, we went from anti-Asian race riots to multiracial hockey riots. Vancouverite or not, you’ve gotta admit that’s progress. We’ve learned at least a few lessons from our decades of upheaval, and taught a few to the suited suits back East, to boot.


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September 27, 2017