A Thousand Dreams: Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and the Fight for Its Future offers a deeply researched portrait of one of North America's most marginalized urban neighbourhoods: Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Blending history, investigative journalism, political analysis, and first-person accounts, the authors trace how poverty, addiction, and social policy have shaped the area over time. They highlight the human impact of those policies on people who live, work, and struggle in the neighbourhood.

The book also looks outward, showing how the crises seen in the Downtown Eastside mirror challenges confronting major cities across North America. Rather than stopping at critique, it lays out specific recommendations for change and recovery.

Key themes and ideas

• Impact of drug policy and the role of safe injection services such as Insite
• Debates around decriminalizing prostitution and drugs
• Integrating addiction care into the broader health-care system
• The importance of social housing and government-funded single-room occupancies

Thoughtful and urgent, this book is suited to readers interested in urban studies, public policy, criminology, social justice, and the future of Canadian cities.

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