Mike Howell
Mike Howell reports on civic affairs and city institutions for Business in Vancouver, connecting municipal politics, policing and urban development to their direct consequences for residents and neighbourhoods. His coverage is distinguished by close attention to official documents and public processes, paired with specific street-level details from places such as the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown Plaza. He brings the same civic lens to stories about restaurants and real estate as he does to election platforms and police oversight, treating them all as decisions that shape how the city works.
Municipal politics and election platforms
Howell covers municipal politics as a series of concrete commitments and conflicts rather than as horse-race commentary. In a recent story on ABC Vancouver and Mayor Ken Sim’s re-election bid, he breaks down the main pillars of their platform, including a proposed ban on open-air hard-drug use in public spaces and a pledge for a zero-per-cent property tax increase in 2027, tying those promises to the timing of the October municipal election. His reporting on a court case over candidates using Chinese names on the ballot treats the matter as a governance and representation issue, explaining who is affected, what is at stake procedurally, and when key hearings are set to unfold. Across these pieces, he foregrounds the mechanics of city decision-making and the practical implications for voters, rather than personality-driven coverage.
Policing, public safety and civic institutions
Policing and public safety are a recurring focus, where Howell tracks how institutional choices play out on the ground. In his coverage of the Vancouver Police Department’s new training academy in the Woodward’s building, he details the conversion of a former multi-level retail space into a dedicated facility, including the use of virtual reality training for incoming recruits and the scale of the first cohort. Another story on mounted police horse droppings in Stanley Park and the West End revolves around a complaint to the Vancouver Police Board, which he uses to show how everyday safety concerns can become matters of oversight and policy.
By following the chain from citizen complaint to board response, and showing where officers operate and how infrastructure is adapted, he presents policing as a civic service with tangible effects on shared spaces.
Chinatown, restaurants and commercial revitalisation
When Howell writes about restaurants, the subject is framed as economic strategy and urban policy, not lifestyle coverage. In his story on the city’s search for a new restaurant to act as a “catalyst” for Chinatown Plaza, he works through the details of the municipal request for proposals, including the requirement for high-quality Chinese cuisine with full-service dim sum, lunch, dinner and large-format banquet offerings. He highlights the mandated minimum capital reinvestment of $2 million and a minimum monthly gross rent of $70,000, explaining how those terms define the kind of operator the city is courting and the scale of risk involved. His description of the plaza’s large former Floata Seafood Restaurant space and the number of vacant commercial units situates the search for a flagship tenant within a broader story of Chinatown’s commercial struggles and the city’s attempt to drive foot traffic and activation.
This approach makes food and hospitality coverage part of a wider narrative about neighbourhood revitalisation and municipal intervention.
Urban development and long-term city-shaping projects
Beyond specific facilities and storefronts, Howell reports on large-scale developments that promise to reshape parts of the city over decades.
In his coverage of a $2.8-billion “transformational” project proposed by Holborn Group, he outlines how a mix of hotel, condominiums, rental housing, social housing and an Indigenous art gallery would span several properties, including in the Downtown Eastside. He pays attention to how these projects assemble properties and re-use existing sites, a theme echoed in his police academy story, where a former London Drugs space becomes a multi-level training facility for new officers. His work treats capital investment, land use and social infrastructure as intertwined, showing how development plans intersect with policing, housing and cultural institutions.
Beat evolution and civic focus
Howell brings a long-running civic affairs perspective to his current work at Business in Vancouver, developed over years reporting on city hall and local institutions.
His professional bio describes him as a longtime civic affairs reporter who has moved from the Vancouver Courier into his present role, carrying forward an interest in municipal governance and neighbourhood-level change. That background is reflected in the consistency of his themes: elections, police boards, urban redevelopment and commercial vacancies recur across his stories, with restaurants and real estate treated as policy instruments rather than lifestyle categories. For anyone following city politics or institutional change, his coverage offers a detailed, document-driven view of how decisions are made and how they land in specific streets, buildings and communities.
4 more food journalists.
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