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VANCOUVER — If Vancouver were a person, the city would have a swollen head following a conference last week touting the place as gorgeous, livable, green, and everything in between.

Several thousand builders, urban planners and architects attending an Urban Land Institute gabfest soaked up every last detail about the urban development model known as “Vancouverism.”

Alas, those of us living here are aware of some nasty realities that have flowed from Vancouverism.

• In a city that snubs cars and freeways — at the moment, Vancouver is demolishing five downtown parking garages and is thinking about doing away with two viaducts — the transit system is nowhere near up to the challenge of accommodating a growing population.

• A lack of affordable land is discouraging people trying to purchase a home, as well as investors seeking locations for business operations.

• A relentless push for densification has created crowding, traffic jams, ceaseless residential demolitions, parking difficulties and strata fights.

• Absentee homeowners have left an undetermined amount of the city’s housing stock unoccupied, negatively affecting the character of many neighbourhoods.

The intriguing thing about all these problems is they derive from the fact that Vancouver has become so globally admired, and hence, expensive and more crowded.

Increasingly, those able to afford it want to live here, or at the very least invest here. And, in a world plagued by climate change, overpopulation and bad governance, this trend will only increase.

In other words, the more lovable we get, potentially the less livable we will grow — unless we can find ways to accommodate the growth better than in the past.

The city is not unaware of the challenges it faces.

While efforts are being made to enhance Vancouver’s public transit system — construction of a Broadway subway line to University of B.C. has been identified as a priority — funding will largely depend entirely on other, less-forthcoming levels of government.

And a planned 2015 referendum in which already-tapped out taxpayers will be asked to sanction higher levies for transit is a recipe for disaster if there’s a No vote.

On housing affordability, speakers at the conference acknowledged the problem is huge and not easily addressed. There was talk of building more row housing, townhouses, tinier condos, more rental units, and possible development of new forms of co-op housing, as well as greater residential density along Vancouver’s arterial roads.

Mayor Gregor Robertson frankly admitted last week that single-family home neighbourhoods are no longer an option for most. The mayor says he worries about young people opting to leave Vancouver and aging homeowners who no longer can afford houses they bought years ago.

The city touts its new policy of allowing three units of housing per lot, even in single-family zoned areas. In addition to having one principal residence, owners can rent out a basement suite and build a laneway house.

Vancouver at the moment is exactly twice as dense as neighbouring Seattle, former city planner Larry Beasley, now teaching at UBC, reported to his conference audience. “Density is our friend.”

To be sure, density is a necessary policy to address environmental challenges flowing from robust growth. But, for many, it’s not as friendly as Beasley suggests.

It does reduce commuting and makes sense for more efficient service delivery. But density yields crowded spaces, with all the attendant inconvenience and stress that brings. Density is being pushed too fast and too hard in this city.

Robertson and Co. will have to tame Vancouverism so that it does not come to mean unaffordable, overbuilt and gridlocked.

byaffe@vancouversun.com