A petition speaking out against the re-branding of Vancouver’s Hastings Sunrise neighbourhood into East Village is gaining strength online.
Some residents are suggesting the “East Village” brand is unoriginal and does not resonate with them.
The neighbourhood has its own website branded as eastvillagevancouver.ca, “a vintage neighbourhood with a progressive attitude.”
The petition titled “Remove the East Village banners and the brand for our community,” addressed to Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson and MP for East Vancouver Libby Davies, has now garnered more than 600 signatures.
The petition says Hastings Sunrise has traditionally been a working class, low-income neighborhood, but has been recently experiencing a rapid change.
It claims the Hastings North Business Improvement Association (BIA) believes that people associate the name Hastings with the Downtown Eastside, so they decided to re-brand the area.
The petition reads:
The “East Village” movement has implemented a visual bombardment of their brand, hanging banners everywhere and changing signs that used to read “Sunrise” to “East Village.”
The North Hastings BIA privately had the brand designed and got approval from the city without ever consulting the community that calls the area home.
The name change has received massive disproval and it is time to officially have the voice of the community heard.
We can work to improve our community without changing our identity.
Do you agree with the petition? Let us know by voting in our poll below.
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