On a cloudy but dry Saturday afternoon, the sidewalks of old Cloverdale were almost deserted.  This village in the city of Surrey, B.C. makes a good starting point for the Fraseropolis.com Urban Villages project: it has potential as a residential and commercial centre, but its future prospects are unclear.

Cloverdale village sits at the junction of provincial highways 10 and 15, providing easy access from much of Surrey and Langley.  Its identity dates from the days of the Interurban commuter railway line, which ceased operation in the 1950s.  Settlement began in the 1870s, but the vintage architecture appears to date from about 1930.  Its “Anytown USA” look attracted the makers of Smallville, a now-defunct television series about the boyhood of the comic-book hero Superman.  At the time of this post, the Cloverdale Business Improvement Association still promoted the village as “The Home of Smallville”, although the cameras for the Superman-as-teenager TV series had been gone for some years. Continue reading →