ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the civic culture of the city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, contributes to our understanding of what drives the social and economic construction of a city and its capacity to thrive in the global market place. It also focuses on the power system of the city of Vancouver, its value system, its policy orientation and decision-making system. The chapter highlights the complex linkages that organize the social and political arenas and economic mediation that links agents to their environment. The Vancouver civic culture results from a unique blend of socially progressive and fiscally conservative activism, which finds its life-line in the persistence of very active and engaged civic groups and on-going, systematic, ambitious policy procedures of open consultation or evaluation managed by various local, municipal and regional governments. Vancouver is generally perceived as an entrepreneurial community with high tolerance for risks and a community where conservative and liberal ideals are debated in a secular environment.
