A great tool to show the way the city feels on the ground is to map the block form and the street and open space in black and white. White is open, black is the block form.
Marpole urban fabric -- note the short end of the block points south -- an exception throughout most of Vancouver.
What happens when you compare the block size and shape of other major cities of the world to that of Marpole? The strict grid of New York above meets the water in fanatic accordance to the superimposed anti-topographic streets.
Stockholm's grids somehow face its harbor, without becoming slave to rigid right angles.
Berlin's squares are dissected by diagonal avenues and impressive wide-open parkland. Oh yes: a river runs through it.
Amsterdam (here shown with north-south upside down) fits its canal belt entirely within the confines of Marpole's boundaries -- everything that the word Amsterdam connotes fits in the footprint of Marpole. "Coffee shops", red light district and Anne Frank House. Canals that spread like ripples from the harbour on the IJ river.
Key conclusions: the Fraser River flows through Vancouver. Our streets and urban zones look out over it -- but sadly never help us reach it. The world is full of better examples of approaching their major rivers.
