The distinguished urban planner and President and CEO of the SFU Community Trust Gordon Harris discusses the new book he’s written with Richard Littlemore, Building Community: Defining, Designing, Developing UniverCity (Ecotone, 2018), with Joseph Planta.

Building Community: Defining, Designing, Developing UniverCity by Gordon Harris, with Richard Littlemore (Ecotone, 2018).

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

Wherever you find yourself, a liveable and sustainable community is the ideal place to live. One such community exists, built from scratch in and around the Simon Fraser University campus atop Burnaby Mountain. In the mid-1990s, the SFU Community Trust was created with the purpose of developing a model community of both residential and commercial that would liven up the otherwise lifeless SFU outside school hours. UniverCity now boasts 5,000 residents, with retail and restaurants, an elementary school, and more, that is a model of sustainable planning and practice. A new book, Building Community: Defining, Designing, Developing UniverCity has just been published. Written by Gordon Harris, with Richard Littlemore, the book chronicles how UniverCity came to be, and its future plans. It could house up to 10,000 people in the foreseeable future. Mr. Harris who joins me now talks in the book about the history, about what was there, and how people like Arthur Erickson and Geoff Massey, who were SFU’s architects, as well as university presidents Gordon Shrum and Pauline Jewett, envisioned its future. Harris talks about the creation of the SFU Community Trust, his predecessor Michael Geller, and the collaboration with other stakeholders like the province and the city of Burnaby. Gordon Harris is an urban planner, development strategist, and real estate market analyst. He is a lecturer, and elected to the College of Fellows of the Canadian Institute of Planners, and the College of Fellows of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Since 2007, he has been the President and CEO of the SFU Community Trust. This new book is from Ecotone Publishing. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Gordon Harris; Mr. Harris, good morning.

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