Any day now the corner of Abbott & Hastings St. in Vancouver, British Columbia’s over-examined Downtown East will undergo significant change that will be the envy of all who have labored to alter it for so long. The change will – apparently quite effortlessly – bring about a hugely significant change in the tenor of the corner that cannot be matched.
Squads of efficient cops, under and over cover, if I may stretch the terms, can never approach the efficacy and thoroughness of the alterations that will be wrought upon this little micro-neighbourhood by citizens simply going about their business. The drug trade will likely continue, but will take on a certain genteel order, without the braying that punctuates so much of it when it is the largest constituent.
Ordinary folks, going about their day-to-day business in significant numbers will exert a civlizing calm on the corner that Abe Sidanko’s descendants have found elusive.
Time will tell.,
