[drewboy12]

Originally Posted by darklord700

Just spent a rain drench week in Vancouver and I have to wonder why such high praises for this city that she constantly ranks top 5 in the world.

The weather: March might be a bad month to visit but I was told you only see constant sunshine in July and August. The other 10 months vary between cloudy and rain.

The traffic: Being sea bound on the west so traffic going into downtown Vancouver mainly comes from the East. And there’s no highway in GVA and if you think rush hour on Deerfoot is bad, try doing it on Marine drive. At least there’s no traffic lights on Deerfoot and other than the few bridges, it’s traffic light galore in GVA.

The downtown: Downtown Vancouver is beautiful but you see more glass condo than office buildings. North Vacouver is scenic as well but it’s basically a rainforest and rains even more. Richmond, well, why would anyone wants to live there unless you are Asian? Some parts of Burnaby are not bad but the rest of Burnaby is neither a metropolitan nor a suburban so it looks weird to me. Surrey is more like a suburb but God bless you if you have to travel to downtown Vancouver for work each day. It makes going from Airdrie or Cochrane to downtown Calgary seem like a breeze.

The job market: There’re no jobs there as there are very few big corporations there. Even if you manage to fine one, it pays less and you commute longer to get to work.

The housing: Generally, it’s two steps down from what we have here. If you live in a single house here, you’ll be looking at a condo there in Coquitlam or a similar house in Surrey. People living in Richmond probably bought their properties before the boom. Working class cannot compete with institutional buyers there, people come to Canada with a suitcase full of cash.

The food: No questions here, Vancouver simply is one of the best in the world with good prices.

If you are raising a family on employment income, it’ll be tough to make ends meet there. Calgary is expensive and dense but Vancouver is two times as worse. I think all these most livable cities surveys missed the point in that they give equal weight to all factors. Vancouver might be beautiful but what fun would it be to live there as a beggar so to speak.

As someone who lived in Calgary his whole life, has traveled for 5 years all over the world, and now lives in Vancouver...

You're silly and racist