Throwback: Douglas Coupland, Bryan Adams and Housing (Of Course)

For Vancouver magazine’s 50th year, we’re taking a look back through the archives and sharing a few classic covers each month. Just like the city, we’ve changed a lot over the past few decades.  

February 1981Our February 1981 issue reveals that some things never change: Vancouverites have always been obsessed with housing. In ’81, the city was experiencing some serious anxiety as housing prices climbed 30 to 50 percent from the previous year, but there was hope for the future: experts predicted it “unlikely that another year will see the drastic upswing in real estate that Vancouver experienced in 1981.” For those lucky enough to have a place to call their own, this issue also promoted hot decor trends: “a refined country look of press-back chairs and chintz slipcovers.”February 1986Surprisingly, Bryan Adams in tights is not the highlight of this issue. Rather, it’s the fur coat ad starring Sylvester Stallone. Simpler times.Jan/Feb 1994In this edgy issue: instructions for switching the BowMac sign on and off, a guide to graffiti slang (in case you were wondering what a “tag” was) and a portrait series of people’s hands.Jan/Feb 2000No surprise that an issue guest edited by Douglas Coupland contained a photo essay of an imagined Vancouver future, with one image captioned “August 2031: Rhiannon enters the bodies of her favourite band members for a few minutes.”