In both local and international imaginations, Vancouver, Canada, is often celebrated as one of the world’s most beautiful, cosmopolitan, and livable cities. Simultaneously, the city continues to be ground zero for successive waves of public health emergency and intervention, including a recent and unprecedented drug overdose crisis driven by the proliferation of illicitly manufactured fentanyl and related analogs in the local drug supply. In The Best Place: Addiction, Intervention, and Living and Dying Young in Vancouver, Danya Fast explores these politics of place from the perspectives of young people who use drugs. Those who are the subject of this book were in many ways relegated to the social, spatial, and economic margins of the city. Yet, they were also often at the very center of city life and state projects, including the project of protecting life in the context of the current overdose crisis.

Vancouver today is recognized as one of the most livable cities in the world as well as an international model for sustainability and urbanism. Single-family homes in this city are “a dying breed.” Most people live in the various low-rise and high-rise urban alternatives throughout the metropolitan area.

The Death and Life of the Single-Family House explains how residents in Vancouver attempt to make themselves at home without a house. Local sociologist Nathanael Lauster has painstakingly studied the city’s dramatic transformation to curb sprawl. He tracks the history of housing and interviews residents about the cultural importance of the house as well as the urban problems it once appeared to solve.

Although Vancouver’s built environment is unique, Lauster argues that it was never predestined by geography or demography. Instead, regulatory transformations enabled the city to renovate, build over, and build around the house. Moreover, he insists, there are lessons here for the rest of North America. We can start building our cities differently, and without sacrificing their livability.

Vancouver, the fourth largest film and television production center in North America, has hosted Hollywood filmmakers from Robert Altman and Dennis Hopper to Jason Reitman and Brad Bird, and is home to independent talent such as Bruce Sweeney and Mina Shum. World Film Locations: Vancouver offers insight into how so-called “runaway” productions from Hollywood use Vancouver as a stand-in for other locations and it highlights the work of Canadian filmmakers who deserve more attention. Thirty-eight analyses of different film scenes reveal the cinematic city in its myriad forms, while spotlight essays provide insight into the creativity and contradictions of Vancouver’s film industry throughout the ages. The volume presents Vancouver’s rich diversity and complexity, where magnificent marine and mountain views are both showcased and masked, downtown landmarks provide the backdrop for thrilling sequences, and lesser-known neighborhoods frame intriguing characters and plotlines. This book offers new perspectives on the relationship between the movies and the metropolis.