In 1943, after Japanese Canadians were uprooted from coastal British Columbia, federal officials commenced selling all of their property without consent. This article argues that the dispossession of Japanese-Canadian-owned property has an urban history that has been largely overlooked, as arguments for the dispossession emerged from the Vancouver municipal government, which focused federal attention on the historic Japanese-Canadian neighborhood in the city. Federal officials seized upon the condition of a small number of deteriorating "slum" properties as a justification of wholesale dispossession. An initiative town planners in Vancouver thus helped to motivate the wholesale dispossession of Japanese Canadians.