Located at the edge of a continent and at the corresponding edge of national public consciousness, Vancouver has developed in unique and unanticipated ways. It is now emerging as an experiment in contemporary city-making, with international interest in Vancouver as a model of post-industrial urbanism increasing exponentially.

Lance Berelowitz explores the links between the city's seductive natural setting, its turbulent political history and changing civic values, and its planning and design culture. He also makes the startling case that Vancouver is to Canada's imagination what Los Angeles is to the American -- a mythologized place of endless possibilities, while being grounded in an altogether more limited set of socio-economic and environmental limitations.

Dream City is richly illustrated with both historical and contemporary photographs of many significant buildings and public spaces, as well as specially commissioned maps that reveal the underlying patterns of growth and change of Canada's youngest metropolis.

Lance Berelowitz is a well-known urban commentator and award-winning writer. He has written extensively about Vancouver, presented papers on the city at international conferences and is sought out by the media to comment on urban issues. He was the Editor-in-Chief of Vancouver’s successful 2010 Olympic Winter Games Bid Book. He lives in Vancouver.

Lance Berelowitz's profile page

.Full of fascinating detail and thoughtful visions of Vancouver's future, Dream City is just as engaging, and maddeningly contingent, as the city it portrays..

Quill & Quire

.Lavishly illustrated and persuasuvely argued, architect and urban planner Lance Berelowitz's Dream City makes a case for...more growth..

Georgia Straight

.With the aid of photographs and historic maps, Berelowitz also makes many bold observations about a city whose charms many of us take for granted and whose defcts we blissfully ignore..

Canadian Geographic

.While he's enthusiastic about Vancouver, Berelowitz isn't wholly uncritical. Furthermore, he's an engaging, knowledgeable writer. I find Dream City an often fascinating overview of how urban planning has shaped a city I know well..

Vancouver Sun

.Dream City is an essential book from whose venturesome spirit other essential books will be written..

Vancouver Review

.Even if you never get to Vancouver, this book offers the pleasure of seeing an acute, well-informed observer trying to come to grips with a unique place..

Planning Magazine