The Globe and Mail has published two stories on Surrey. One, by urban critic Lisa Rauchon, describes efforts underway to urbanize our sprawled city:
How Surrey accommodates an exploding population and ramps up development has enormous repercussions, not only for the young families and new immigrants living here, but also for many similarly amorphous suburbs in North America struggling to discover or create magnetic centres of their own.
The other, written by local reporter Frances Bula, provides readers with a quick bio on Mayor Dianne Watts:
The woman at the helm of Surrey’s makeover fools people with her classic suburban look – big house, husband and two kids, big blond hair, figure-hugging outfits.
But Dianne Watts has a much more complex background than what shows on the surface. It includes ditching a domineering stepfather, an abusive early marriage and small-town life in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley to roam around the world for years, a period during which she developed a long-term attachment to Buddhism.
