TORONTO - Vancouver has been ranked as Canada's top-rated city for quality of living, retaining its fifth-place spot globally.
Clearly affordability is not one of their criteria. If you wanted to buy the place we live in, you're looking at 1.5 M. That gets you an average 4 bdrm home on a west side lot 20 min. from downtown. If you want to rent, it will cost you $2500/mo. The same home on the drug infested east side where you need bars on the windows and your car will be broken into twice a year starts around $850K.
If you're making 6 figures or up, then yeah, you can live well here. Working class? Forget it. Kids just starting out in life? Best thing to do is leave as you'll never be able to afford a home.
Then there's the transportation nightmare this city has become by not building mass transit and water crossings 20 years ago when they were needed. Going anywhere in peak hours is now a major logistical operation requiring a taxi driver's knowledge of back streets and alterrnate routes.
I could go on, but to summarize: it's not nearly as great as this survey suggests, in fact we're seriously thinking of leaving. Today, we can live cheaper in Japan - one of the places on our short list of retirement destinations. Back in the late 80's if you'd told me living in Japan would be cheaper than here I'd have laughed in your face.
Mish Stopped Clock goes on and on about a Vancouver real estate crash - he's been pounding that drum for several years now. The guy is clueless. Vancouver is one of the top international destinations for laundered drug money and capital flight generally and it all goes into real estate. That's what happens when you allow foreign ownership without residency, and you (intentionally I believe) don't look too closely at the source of the money coming in.
World Class? Yeah, keep repeating that phrase Vancouver (as they do ad naseum) and maybe someday it will come true. Meanwhile, anyone with half a clue is leaving or has already left.
Oh, but the climate is so mild! Yeah, if you like rain 400 days a year.
Feh.
ebear
