Why cities need to protect their warehouses

This story is part of Uytae Lee's Stories About Here, an original series with the CBC Creator Network. You can watch every episode of this series on CBC Gem.

There's a neighbourhood in New Westminster, British Columbia that I think is a bit strange. It's called the Brewery District. You can't miss it. Its name is proudly printed on signs, flags, and spelled out in big block letters.

But there's a key thing missing in New Westminster's brewery district. The breweries! There's not a single one. There's an insurance broker, a Freshii, a poké bar. But the only thing brewing here is coffee.

I think that's a problem.

The Brewery District was once home to an actual brewery. The Labatt brewery, best known as the makers of Budweiser. But in 2004 the building was closed and then later redeveloped into this brewery-free brewery district.

For me, the problem isn't that this neighbourhood's name is essentially a lie, or that my Budweiser now comes from Creston, on the other end of the province. No, the problem is with what this neighbourhood replaced: Industrial land.

That is land reserved by local governments for large and loud businesses like factories, warehouses and breweries. These are businesses that people usually want far away from their homes, so it makes sense to have areas set aside for them.

But recently, more and more cities across North America have been redeveloping industrial lands.

For example, Safeway's warehouse in Burnaby is about to become 20 apartment buildings with shops and restaurants, while a former warehouse in Halifax is being bulldozed to make way for an apartment complex with shops and restaurants. Or there's Mr. Christie's Cookie Factory in Toronto: Once known for its Oreos and Chips Ahoy, it will soon be known for 15 apartment towers with a mix of condos, offices, a new park, and of course, shops and restaurants.

This is such a common occurrence that some have described it as a crisis.

Now, when I was first researching this piece, I admit that I was skeptical. There are many crises out there.The housing one, the climate one, and my existential one. But since when did people care so much about warehouses?

What's so bad about turning this into shops and housing?

We actually have a long history of building over industrial lands in North America. In fact, it often makes a lot of sense.

Case in point: False Creek in Vancouver. It was once an industrial district of sawmills, warehouses, and train tracks in the heart of the city. But in the 1970s, False Creek began to transform into a residential neighbourhood. Today, those lands hold some of the hottest waterfront real estate in the city. Instead of sawmills and warehouses, there are glass condos with parks, shops, and the seawall. People love it!