ABSTRACT:The implementation of Modern Movement town planning is still regarded as both rapid and relatively unproblematic in the aftermath of World War II. A more complex narrative emerges from an examination of the urban redevelopment policy and practice at Vancouver, British Columbia, during the immediate World War II decades. The analysis focuses on the civic and professional discourse of redevelopment. It illuminates the diverse interests and processes by which Modernist planning theory and practice were introduced, modified and resisted. New concepts and values are shown to have been subject to internal no less than external forces of revision.