A city is its people. It is the child riding a bicycle to school, the senior waiting for a bus beneath a cold November sky, the newcomer learning the streets of a new country, the renter wondering whether next year’s rent will finally push them out of the neighbourhood they have called home. It is the nurse finishing a shift, the small-business owner unlocking the door at dawn, the family lining up at a community pool, the young couple wondering whether they will ever be able to afford a home of their own. These are the people for whom a city exists. And these are the people for whom government must work.

There is something almost beautiful in the idea that ordinary people, working collectively and putting aside the divisions that too often separate us, can change the direction of the place they call home. The Change Brigade finds itself in a unique position to make that change possible — to bring together people from across Vancouver, from every neighbourhood and every walk of life, and to insist that prosperity means something more than rising property values and increasingly expensive glass towers.

Prosperity should mean that a family can afford to live here. That a young person can find a home here. That a senior can remain in the neighbourhood where they raised their children. That newcomers can put down roots. That workers can earn a decent living and still have enough left at the end of the month to enjoy the city they help sustain.

That is why affordability cannot be treated as an afterthought.

Affordable housing, sensible economic policy, strong public services, thriving neighbourhoods, parks, libraries, pools, community centres and accessible transportation are not competing pieces of a city — they are the architecture of a city that works.

The Vancouver worth fighting for is one in which the success of one neighbourhood does not require the neglect of another, where public investment serves the many rather than the few, and where government understands that fiscal responsibility and compassion are not opposing ideas. We can balance the books while building homes. We can support business while protecting working people. We can grow the economy while preserving the places and institutions that make Vancouver worth living in.

And perhaps that is the most hopeful thing of all.

Vancouver does not have to accept that the future has already been written. It does not have to become a city where only the wealthy can afford to stay, where renters are an afterthought, where families are pushed farther and farther from the communities they love, or where the promise of this extraordinary place is measured only in dollars.

The Change Brigade has an opportunity — a rare opportunity — to help turn the page: to bring people together, to listen to the aspirations of every Vancouverite, and to build a city that belongs to all of us. No matter where we were born. No matter what language our parents spoke. No matter our ethnicity, our country of origin, the size of our bank account, or the circumstances into which we were born.

We are all Vancouverites. And if we choose to work together, with courage, imagination and a belief in one another, there is no reason we cannot build a Vancouver that is fairer, more inclusive, more affordable and more just — a city worthy of the people who call it home.

At the Advance Polls and on Election Day, VOTE for the members of The Change Brigade.