The first UN Habitat Conference on human settlements attracted a who's who of international thinkers to Vancouver, including Margaret Mead, Buckminster Fuller, Mother Teresa, economist Barbara Ward and utopian architect Paolo Soleri, along with politicians such as Pierre Trudeau and Bogota's famous mayor Enrique Pen alosa. Habitat ?76 specifically focuses on the conferences? free public component known as Habitat Forum, which was simultaneously deemed an out-of-control hippie gathering and ?the official suicide of counter culture? as a UN legitimized substitute for informal protest. Nevertheless, the Habitat Forum was a catalyst for those involved, having an influential bearing on their work for decades to come. Canadian writer, designer and activist, Lindsay Brown tells the imaginative and chaotic narrative of activists that circumvented government to bring the debate to the public. Through first hand accounts of those that participated, Habitat ?76 illuminates an imaginative moment of utopian possibility in Canadian politics, exploring approaches and discourses that perhaps merit reconsideration as a constructive counterpoint to contemporary urbanism and politics. Habitat ?7
6 is a timely publication with great implication for contemporary debate, documenting the rise of those issues our contemporary cities and communities continue to face, now to an even greater degree.