Vancouver is a nice city

[lenny]

The other day (Dec. 24, perhaps) I was walking along Robson near Burrard. Two people had signs saying they were offering "free hugs". One male & one female. I wondered, what's the catch. Wasn't in the mood, but if it was free DFKs or BBBJ's i might have been tempted.

On another occassion recently a young guy at the corner of Granville & Robson said rather quietly & with a poker face to someone or the crowds, ebola is a judgement of God. I began moving my feet quickly in the opposite direction.

Buying sex is now illegal in Vancouver. While within 2 blocks of Main & Hastings passing strangers are openly offered every drug known to mankind. Some real estate businesses are advertising this as the up & coming area to live.

What's your experience in this nice town? It seems to me, since returning to this fair land, that some ladies are quite friendly, while others are like skittish kitty cats, afraid of their own shadow.

Certainly lots of eye candy that's gets the juices flowing, as my guitar gently weeps, especially from (i'm guessing) China or Hong Kong.

 

[manni]

just talking aesthetics here, but to me,
Vancouver's general appearance has gone to bits.
yet it boasts itself as a "cosmopolitan" city.

 

[hornygandalf]

Depends on how you define 'world class'.
But, I have to agree that it is a nice quiet little city, albeit with a reasonably cosmopolitan flavour.

 

[ziggyzoo]

Van is a joke and getting worse, outrageous cost of living with junkies shooting up in your high end alley

Asians have already taken over buying up all the real estate and forcing young working couples to go east of Abbotsford


I'm out

 

[vancity_cowboy]

Apparently Union station sees 200,000 visitors A DAY.
Waterfront station sees 200,00 passengers from Skytrains IN A YEAR.

i had a look around to back up your statistics, and i found that the 2011 skytrain traffic at waterfront = 67,000/day (24,500,000/yr)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfront_Station_(Vancouver)

the westcoast express traffic during 2008 was 11,000/day (4,000,000/yr)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Coast_Express

and the seabus traffic during 2013 was 16,500/day (6,000,000/yr)

http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/TransitRidership.pdf

so a total of 94,500/day or 34,500,000/year

roughly half of union station

 

[Equity Market investor]

Vancity, 34,000,000 a yr is almost all of Canada's population. Cool info

Imagine if Perb had that many members Registered & lurkers combined.

 

[westwoody]

Vancouver is just a hilly overpriced version of Toronto now.

It was the nicest city in the world once.

Anyone here remember when Robson was called "Robsonstrasse"? That was when Vancouver had character. Now Robson is just like any other expensive shopping district in major cities with all the exact same cookie cutter designer fashion stores.

 

[BabyBump]

Since I have not lived here long and am undetermined right now if I will continue to. I will say it is very pretty here, especially at the beach, I have not yet been much of anywhere else except for the airport.

 

[vancity_cowboy]

I guess Wikipedia is not always the best place to get your facts. Or maybe I misread the chart. I was shocked by the numbers so am kinda glad I am wrong

you are right, that the agency providing the information (or the wiki contributor) did a piss-poor job of communicating the data. i guess they missed the memo that the devil is in the details, when it comes to statistical data. i had to mentally divide by 300 to see that they were not talking about annual traffic!

i was surprised to see that the seabus and westcoast express contributed such a small amout to the total, which confirms the fact that the skytrain is the real transit commuter-mover for the financial district downtown (second only to automobiles)

 

[ziggyzoo]

Ni men hao

 

[UhOh]

On another occassion recently a young guy at the corner of Granville & Robson said rather quietly & with a poker face to someone or the crowds, ebola is a judgement of God. I began moving my feet quickly in the opposite direction.

Well that may be a big coincidence or else the guy was yelling that all day. I was crossing that very intersection on the afternoon of the 26th and heard a guy yell that very statement the moment the walk light lit to cross Robson from south to north. Could we both have been at that same spot at the same time?

 

[manni]

putting another spin on this–
if you took away the mountains and ocean backdrop, would we
still think Vancouver is beautiful?

the architecture isn't much to write about either.

 

[1nitestan]

World class city? not even close. How many world class cities do you know with ZERO Michelin rated restaurants?

Multicultural? Aside from the highly visible Asian communities..Vancouver lacks a strong black, latino, french communities. The only evidence is clustered around Commercial Drive and only during festivals. Toronto, NYC, LA are way more multicultural.

There's no world renown symphony or opera.
The VAG can't compare to the Met or the Louvre.
Our premier sports team hasn't won a Stanley Cup
No NBA franchise
A transit system that sucks compared to other cities in europe or asia

 

[hornygandalf]

World class city? not even close. How many world class cities do you know with ZERO Michelin rated restaurants?

Then why is it that SOOO many people want to move here and have pushed property prices to world class city affordability levels?
And it is ranked in the top 10 most liveable cities? Surely that makes it world-class in terms of liveability.

I have lived in a number of large, so-called 'world-class' cities, and visited many others, and although there is much that Vancouver is missing, it is certainly the most liveable I've spent time in. And does Macau really qualify as being more world-class than Vancouver because of the number of Michelin restaurants it has? I like Macau. It is a charming little city, but certainly not what I would expect of a world-class city... though again, depends on how you define it. Or places like Vaassen or Zwolle or Sant Pol de Mar or Travemunde or Perl, just to name a few, who all have a Michelin-starred restaurant or two. Does that make them more world-class? Canada doesn't have any Michelin-starred restaurants because Michelin doesn't review restaurants in Canada. If they did, then I'm sure we would have a few (Belgium has 112 and Netherlands 84, so why couldn't Canada pick up a few).

 

[princeofdarkness]

Van is a joke and getting worse, ... I'm out

Just a friendly reminder to give your Asian Landlord notice. Just sayin'.

 

[vancity_cowboy]

what nightfall said ^^ :thumb:

when i visit a 'friend' in kerrisdale, i can see 5 or 6 apartment buildings out her window

not ONE of them has any lights on except in the stairwells... night after night

 

[Fullhouse]

Van is a joke and getting worse, outrageous cost of living with junkies shooting up in your high end alley

Asians have already taken over buying up all the real estate and forcing young working couples to go east of Abbotsford

Well then, ziggyzoo, you should stay out of the high end alleys.............................I only go through the low end alleys, and never have a problem.

Oh, and if you are contemplating to move to the vicinity of Abbotsford, you'll be real close to the zoo, ziggy.....

 

[girth-brooks]

I'm reading all the pros and cons on here about Vancouver and I think it comes down to what you want in life. There's a lot I love about the city and a lot that drives me nuts, but I think the good outweighs the bad. I have been to a few major cities worldwide and they all have problems. I always hear about Sweden and Norway as 'number one this, and number one that.' But you don't hear a lot of people in Canada raving about moving there. Yes, there is plenty to bitch about, but most of what you are bitching about is beyond your control (at least for the most part). Don't take things that others in the world would die for. As they say, love it or leave it.

 

[1nitestan]

Yes, the "surveys" all rank YVR as 'most livable'...which is not to be confused with "affordable" The way things are going, YVR will become like Monaco where only the rich would be able to afford to actually live in the city.

People don't want to move to Sweden or Norway because they simply don't want to pay the taxes that support the incredible health care and social services.

 

[girth-brooks]

That's my point. It depends what you value. Would you rather live here or there? They're both good, but they're both different.