Walls or smog: ridding the Olympics of eyesores

The New York Times reported today that the Chinese government is erecting brick walls to enclose streets near Tiananmen Square. The walls will separate visitors to the Olympics from unsightly views of Beijing's poorest neighbourhoods.

The story tells about Mr. Song, who lives with his wife and 18-year-old daughter in one tiny room near the square. He rents out shops to migrants who sell groceries, nick knacks and all manner of loonie-store-type goods. Mr. Song has refused to leave the area, which has been eyed by developers for construction. Suddenly a wall has appeared around his shops.

This makes me wonder whether Vancouver will consider such a tactic during our own Olympics. The Downtown Eastside seems even dingier today than it did five years ago, when the city purchased the area's landmark Woodward's Building. The homeless still sleep in vacant store facades along Hastings Street, and it's hard to imagine the street will be bright and bustling or that the homeless will have anywhere else to go in 2010.

So will it be walls or what? Perhaps instead, the city could call a moratorium on all environmental clean-air projects. We could then be even more like Bejing and obscure our eyesores with smog.