ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of the response of deprived communities to the development of prestige projects and mega-projects near, or adjacent, to their neighbourhoods, and focuses on the extent of local community resistance to such developments in three cities: Vancouver, San Francisco and Birmingham. The Pacific Place site is located on the North Shore of False Creek and is approximately 204 acres in size. The site represents about one-sixth of Vancouver's downtown peninsula, and is currently recognised as one of the most valuable and desirable redevelopment sites in North America. Activists working for the Downtown Eastside Residents Association warned the provincial government of the potential risk of housing displacement as Expo progressed. In downtown redevelopment cliches the common justification for pushing working class residents, including the elderly, off their land is that the land can be put to a “higher and better use”.
