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Phalak Betab has given serious thought to the values that drive her.
When she was considering a move from India to Metro Vancouver in 2022, she watched every YouTube video she could find about the region.
“I knew where to live, where to eat, how to get there,” she says. “Before I even set foot, I knew this was a place that resonated with my values.”
Three years later, that instinct has proven true.
“I fit in here,” she says.
That sense of belonging isn’t unique to Betab, but is one of several values shared by many Metro residents, along with people who hope to move here. In addition to family and relationships, a new report identifies belonging as one of the three core values that matter most to residents, both current and future, and drive our daily decisions.
The report, commissioned by The Vancouver Sun and CityAge as part of a project called The Next Metro Vancouver , uses valuegraphics, a way of understanding people and what motivates them.
Vancouver-based creator David Allison describes valuegraphics as the “third leg of a stool” that includes demographics — a person’s age, gender, income and other common factors — and psychographics — their attitudes and aspirations based off previous behaviour.
“What we’re all trying to figure out is how do we understand and inspire and motivate people to do the next thing they’re going to do. So if we just keep looking at data from the past, that’s like driving the car by only looking in the rear-view mirror,” he said recently.
Allison’s research has been used by companies like Google and Lululemon, and organizations like the UN Foundation and the World Economic Forum. Valuegraphics are included — next to demographics — in college textbooks used around the world.
The author of the bestselling book The Death of Demographics, Allison told Postmedia News that he uses a database based on more than a million online surveys in 152 languages and 180 countries around the world, which identifies 56 core human values. For Metro, he conducted an “unlocking survey” of 1,800 residents, a representative sample, before plugging the responses into the database to determine what we value.
He found that what matters most to people living here now include personal growth, creativity and having basic needs met.
Allison said he noticed this when he moved to Vancouver from Calgary several years ago.
“Everybody’s doing stuff,” whether that’s taking a yoga class or running the seawall, he said. The city’s creativity also stood out to him: “If you ask anybody else in Canada about Vancouver, they’re going to come up with some kind of stereotype … and it’s true, we have so many amazing creative people here.”
For people who are hoping to move to Metro in the future, Allison identified shared values including employment security, financial security and personal responsibility.
But the area where the two groups align provides the best insight into what Metro should focus on to build a thriving community, said Allison. The three values that ranked particularly high — belonging, family and relationships — stand out, in part, because it’s rare for a region to have three “togetherness” values.
“I’ll go back to all the different profiles we’ve done all over the world for the last 10 years, every industry sector you can imagine. It doesn’t matter who we’re profiling … there’s always at least one way that people want to be with each other,” said Allison. “Always one, sometimes two. Three is getting on the rare side.”
Allison urged the region to look at its plans through the lens of values.
“People who are here and people who want to come, if you want to bring them together, focus in on these three things. … This is the stuff that will feed the hearts and the souls of both sides.”
Allison said he’s not a city planner, but there are many ways to build a community that reflects “togetherness” values. Homes that allow grandmothers and toddlers under the same roof. Programs where Gen Z are roommates with octogenarians. Streets that feel safe at 3 p.m. and 3 a.m.
Public spaces and parks are key, as well as festivals, he said.
Allison will be one of the speakers at a conference in Vancouver on Oct. 20 presented by CityAge and The Sun.
Miro Cernetig, CEO of CityAge, a network of 30,000 leaders in North America, said the Vancouver brand has “lost its mojo” during recent challenges. The present feels like an “inflection point,” not unlike other moments when the region has defined itself, including Expo 86 and the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Cernetig said Allison’s work provides a “values road map” as the region looks to the future.
“I think what he’s found is a hearkening back to what we used to have in spades: livability.”
Values continue to guide Betab’s path three years after she arrived in Metro. She identified creativity, freedom, uniqueness and ethics as her top values.
She remembers her Grade 2 teacher telling the class that creativity was “what you do with what you have.”
“That has always been with me,” she says.
Betab works as director of communications and marketing for PICS, the Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society. She appreciates the freedom she has to pursue creative ideas that align with her ethics. She also hosts a podcast called Stranger Stories , where she’s discovered that for all their diversity, many Metro residents have strong similarities.
“We’re all the same,” she says.
One of her favourite things about Metro is the way people greet strangers on the street, something she hopes helps alleviate loneliness.
“The community I’ve built here, my professional family, is so supportive. I feel very grateful,” she says.
This is the latest in our series, The Next Metro Vancouver, exploring the innovations and ideas that can help build a thriving region. The Sun is partnering with CityAge for a summit of leaders and innovators on Oct. 20. You can learn more at cityage.com/events/the-next-vancouver/