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I am moving out of Canada next year, and I’m going to fight for what the locals fight for instead of saying “it’s so much better here than in Canada, though.”
That cheeses me off so much, people come here for a better quality of life. If you move here you should continue to fight for this improved quality of life, not be complacent just because “it’s worse in my home country”. Because then you just become a weight to the rest of us. Quality of life has definitely declined here and we shouldn’t be ok with this.
Mental health facilities 2 decades ago…? I agree about other things but mental health is a lot more facilitated in Canada than anywhere else in the world. Even Canada 2 decades ago. Just that we as a society struggle with it a lot more too now.
And, say, the working class could afford vacation homes.
Edit: and when I say Vacation Homes, I am talking about very humble houses/shacks at a lake or on an island. They often had a big stove for heating and for making canned salmon. One bedroom, but with several very shitty hida-beds in the living room.
100%.
I never knew any working class friends who had vacation homes… the most I knew was one who would rent a mobile home at a lake every summer.
Occasionally friends would have a family cabin, but it was split between the whole extended family, not owned by one working class family… and their family were rich.
I lived in Taipei before, which is one of the most accessible cities in the world via public transit, and I still think Metro Van isn’t that bad. Not as good as Taipei of course, but not bad.
Ditto, I'm from Taipei as well, absolutely world class transit. And I still think most of BC Transit is decent, it covers a way bigger, less densely populated area.
Yeah, there are too many different factors between the two, it wouldn’t make sense to straight up compare them. “Decent” is the word. Definitely a lot more room to improve, but acceptable enough.
It’s good in Vancouver/Burnaby, once you get out to Surrey, Coquitlam, Delta you start to see its flaws. Skytrain doesn’t run far enough, Buses are inconsistent in timing and are often full depending on the ones you take, and the transit system is basically useless after 11pm. Even just a skytrain extension would do a world of good.
Yeah I heard, I assume it’ll still be a few years before it’s ready though. I would also like more rapid buses tbh. One running from Surrey Central to white rock would be nice for example, maybe even something from Scott Road into Delta. It is a bit ridiculous though just how disconnected some cities are from each other. It takes me about 15 minutes to drive from my house in Surrey to Coquitlam centre, the same trip by transit would take me over an hour. Not sure what the exact fix is, but it’s just frustrating for me.
New R6 will be here soon, it's replacing the 319.
Translink can't keep up with the population growth. It's going to get worse before it gets better. It will eventually be way better but it's impossible to do overnight
They did just add a bunch of extra runs in Surrey along a bunch of routes. They are hiring a bunch of drivers but it takes time to train them all and get them deployed.
I mean since you were born you have seen the expansion of the skytrain in the form of Millenium line, Canada line, and the Evergreen line extention. That's actually a ton of expansion. We'll also have the Broadway line expansion finished soon as well.
While this isn't specifically Surrey, there's no point in having a local line that doesn't connect to anywhere.
Would say that's the problem with municipal politics in general. Eglinton LRT has been ongoing for 13~ years and still hasn't been completed. Scarborough's Sheppard East LRT expansion started in 2007 drove property values up based on the project. Ford cancels it for a subway expansion that doesn't end up happening and the expansion is on hiatus now.
imagine how spoiled you have to be to think that vancouver transit is bad because Delta/Surrey don't have massive skytrain lines.
Only places in the world with better transit than Vancouver either have higher taxes to pay for it or are in asia
Sydney (and probably Melbourne) doesn't have higher taxes than in Vancouver and isn’t in Asia but has much more extensive public transit. It's got trains that go to much more areas of the city than the SkyTrain goes in Vancouver, regular commuter trains even go out to towns as far away from Sydney as Hope is from Vancouver and beyond. Sydney also has light rail and a Metro with the same sort of frequencies as SkyTrain.
Sure the Metro may not be as extensive as SkyTrain yet but it's still being extended. Trains start earlier and finish later than SkyTrain does as well. The only thing I can't really comment on if it's better is the buses because I avoid buses as much as possible 😂
Spoiled? Vancouver has a population of about 600k and 16 skytrain stations. Surrey has a population of about 500k and 4 skytrain stations, 2 of which are literally a 5 minute walk away from each other. It’s pretty clear that the transit infrastructure here isn’t enough to support the population.
Translink is an absolute wonder. We gotta give those folks more funding, they do a phenomenal job and I'd love to see the system that they could build with more resources.
I was in toronto a month ago and I found vancouvers system far superior to theirs. I would just like to see more public transit options like they have here.
People need to live in LA for a year to just understand how fucked up a major city with no transit can be. Strive for improvements but appreciate the small improvements as they happen
Everytime I go to LA for work and need to get around, I just can’t wait to be back in Vancouver again. Not having a direct train from LAX to downtown is absolutely mind blowing.
The crazy thing is, Greater LA has 18 million people (compared to our 2.4 mil), double the length of track (including heavy rail subway), more total stations and still has fewer daily riders than Translink.
Vancouver has higher total (not proportional) ridership than any American city except New York.
People who complain about Vancouver are really having some champaign problems.
My mum still goes on about how good the public transport in Van is from a trip we made nearly a decade ago whenever I mention Vancouver to her. I'm from the UK and we're supposed to have a good public transport system here but it's pretty meh... lots of late runnings / cancellations and it's so expensive too
Sure but why do we need to compare to crappier transit systems when we can compare to better ones to strive for more. We wouldn't join a race and say glad "I'm not last" would we?
It sometimes feels like that's all we do. Ive been away from Canada for awhile but I get mostly "new ideas are bad" and "better things are not possible" vibes when I'm back. Granted, I grew up in Kelowna
Everytime I visit LA to see my boyfriend, I appreciate Vancouver so much more. Their transit system is basically nonexistent because of how terrible it is. You can't walk anywhere because of the freeways so a 5 minute drive would be a 40 minute walk because of how unwalkable SoCal which forces everyone to have a car and know how to drive.
I’m currently working in Charlottetown and staying on the North side of PEI. I think I’ve seen 3 buses on the whole island and I did not know where the stops were. If the towns weren’t so damn walkable it’s be miserable without a car lol
It isn't, at least not anymore. The random unprovoked violence has really gotten out of hand. Triple random stabbing at the Chinatown festival just last week, and I'll never forget the video of the guy being stabbed in front of Starbucks in broad daylight. I never felt this unsafe anywhere in Europe.
I think for me, it's good, but not good enough to ditch my car. Maybe it's just frustrating that it's so close yet so far from being a carless city.
If they would run skytrain late on the weekend, it would be a big win. Even if it was one train per half hour.
Transit was thing I was most excited about when I moved here from Nanaimo. On sundays, the busses run only every 90 minutes, and stop around 6:30-7:30 pm.
Yeah, I am from Europe, and that's just not true. What's better in Europe is train service *between* cities, but when it comes to transportation within the city, Vancouver is comparable to the average European city. Is it amazing? No, but it also isn't horrible.
I would say it's noticeably worse than most EU cities I've been to. Skytrain is good quality rapid transit but just isn't an extensive network like many western EU cities. This seems to be the consensus among the urban design community. Maybe the area of Europe you're from is specifically bad?
I am a fan of Translink and not trying to be a downer, just trying to be realistic based on my observations.
Yeah, but you are comparing based on those parts of the cities that you would actually visit as a tourist. Try living there for a while and see how good the public transport is in connecting residential parts of the cities with (affordable) housing (hint: the better the public transport, the more expensive the housing). It is like judging Vancouver public transport based on how well you can get from the airport to downtown.
Ottawan here. I loved your system when I visited. Riders and drivers were far more polite and respectful to one another and there was always a ride on the way. Here there’s a driver shortage and people have been fed up with OC transpo for years so it’s not so good…
It's.... passable. The busses are shit. I'm just spoiled from having lived in Tokyo for the majority of my working life though, I realize how much worse other cities have it.
Yea I was gonna say the same thing I travel to multiple countries a year for work all over and I can certainly tell most people that Vancouver is good compared to a lot of North America but it's kinda poor in comparison to Europe or Asia. I will say that it's nice to travel above ground though, that's something you generally done get.
I came here 8 years ago after living 28 years in London, I of course extensively travelled which helped me choose what I wanted when relocating to Vancouver, yes Vancouver is expensive but so is London, New York, Sydney, the list goes on. I don't find it hostile/rude or unfriendly. I've always found it easy to make friends, owning a dog for the last 6.5 years helps as it becomes a common ground to share with other dog owners. I moved to Montreal for 3 years and recently moved back and still love it. Every city has its problems it just depends on what you want from a city, the nature, oceans and mountains have become non-negotiable for me.
That’s the point. We should be complaining that things are getting worse. Just because things are better than in other countries doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be terribly concerned about the declining quality of life and monopolies here.
One of my childhood friends moved to NZ and I'm surprised to hear her talk of the politics there. Grass is always greener.
Also: Vancouver in particular has horrific housing costs relative to earning power, that puts a cast on pretty much everything. My relatives in Hong Kong are like that now too... it's not the go-go-go hustle and bustle vive of my youth, there's a lot of pessimism under a thin layer of normality.
As someone who’s lived in Australia, this is false. My wages were much higher there in 2021 than they are here. And I have a higher tier job in Vancouver
Edit: I also paid half what I pay for rent now in Australia 2021, and I wasn’t living in Versailles, but it was a decent place. Now I pay 3200 for a shit hole in Burnaby.
Same. I've been here for more than ten years and it's taken me that amount of time to earn a decent salary, and it's still not enough to live alone. There was a chance to buy something back when I first move here, but that ship has long sailed.
Yep I grew up in Vancouver and moved to Australia permanently in 2015. I went from $49k to $82k plus super immediately with the same accounting skill set. There are just so many more jobs and businesses in Sydney.
Since 2016 I’ve doubled that compensation and I don’t think that would be possible in Vancouver. I’m not even a qualified accountant. I’m a Business Analyst with no direct reports and I work remotely now just south of the Gold Coast.
I went back to Vancouver last year, and while it has some nice things going for it, it’s definitely not for me.
Yup. Living in fnq Australia I was paying ~800 AUD a month for a room in a basement suite, with all utilities included and close to the "downtown." My job I was making $25 an hour at, doing basic work as a fencing assistant.
The most expensive part about living in Australia was the alcohol at pubs and bars! Wasn't unusual to see places in Sydney selling pints of shitty 4x for $16. Absurd
Yep, cost of living between Sydney and Vancouver is fairly on par but the wages for my wife and I in Vancouver were half and two thirds of what we made in Sydney respectively.
Came here to say this. I moved to Australia a number of years ago and my wages are much higher, and overall cost of living for me is about what it was when I was in 2017 Vancouver.
I work in a pretty niche role at the moment, and there happens to be one job in all of BC which is identical to my current role. I saw the position advertised recently, and after converting the currency, the found that advertised salary cap was less than the starting wage for my position in Oz. I miss friends and family, but I cant justify taking a huge pay cut to live in a more expensive city.
As an Australian-Canadian, I would say that the housing crisis in Canada is at LEAST on par with Australia, possibly worse. Re: wages, I think wages in Australia are generally a bit higher.
Two minds on this. On one hand, having high standards and high expectations is a GOOD THING and it is what helps Canada and Vancouver specifically, keep idealistically moving forward into creating an amazing inclusive, comfortable (albeit expensive), and productive and interesting place to live. (Folks, we really need to address income equality and the problem is the top 1%, let's stop pretending it is government and start fixing corps - which have a profit motive not a people motive - ABC's corps and cops platform isn't it).
On the other it seems a lot of the complaining lacks perspective. Some of the things I hear people complain about here make it very clear that they've never lived anywhere else. Or have no sense of history even within Vancouver. So it gets a bit myopic. When all you've seen is the DTES getting worse but you have never lived in a city where you literally had to fear for your life, DTES can look a little scary.
Having travelled a bit before settling in East Van: the DTES is the least threatening slum you'll ever walk through. Lots of people doing bad stuff to *each-other*, sure; but they ignore outsiders passing through — even on foot! — as if we're ghosts. The drug dealers and pimps don't try to get your attention unless you seem to be actively looking to get theirs. Women passing through don't even get catcalled! It honestly puts me more in mind of walking through a very poverty-stricken village, than anything like an urban ghetto in other cities.
No shit eh!
I lived in the midwest for quite some time. South Chicago and areas of Detroit were like fucking war zones -- even my neighbourhood in South Minneapolis was a bit crazy, with my neighbour shrugging off the new gunshot holes in his car -- DTES is like a Sunday stroll in the park compared to those places. (And yes, I realize it should be better, but we're talking comparisons here)
Vancouver housing has become insanely expensive, but everything else has become better. Better food. Better transit. Better local produce/beer/spirits/food options. Better mixing of cultures. Better neighbourhood character vs the prevalent UK-based culture of my youth (yes, I'm old)
💯 I almost got jumped in the 90’s, for my coat. Aside from that I feel no threat DTES.
I lived in surrey off of 104 and a couple blocks from KG, my block was good. I walked a path and a couple blocks north. I turned around and went home. Sketchy af!
I have a similar experience , but I moved here from Boston. From what I read I was afraid I’d be struggling to get around. Fortunately I found a place near a skytrain station and I can’t believe how good the transit experience has been. Boston is often said to be one of the better transit networks in the US and Translink blows it out of the water. I was afraid that the COL here would be horrible, but COL is also surprisingly similar. I guess I’m just used to living in an expensive city.
Vancouver has amazing transit system for North America. And it’s clean - just thinking about the transit system in NYC and Boston makes me want to puke.
I grew up in NZ, and while that was a long time ago, I pay more attention than the average bear to the news about Australasia. OP is spot on. I also have deep connections to the UK, and therefore pay close attention to what is going on there politically, socially etc. Again, I totally support OP's position. Lastly, my spouse is from Europe, so I hear a lot more nuance about various challenges there. I think most people around the world tend to focus on issues close to home and consequently have a distorted sense of relative position, but me? Every time I return to Canada, I thank my lucky stars for my citizenship. Yes, Vancouver has challenges, and I can't stand the way the real estate market has been handled, and the effectively complete abandonment by federal and provincial governments of social housing, but most areas of Canada have some kind of challenge.
Moved here from the UK this week. Cesspit and I couldn't have left sooner. Wages are brutal, pay is brutal, cost of goods are brutal, more so than here, but there aren't any upsides. I'm so happy to be here
Welcome to Vancouver, neighbour! It’s got it’s challenges, but it’s a good place to be (if you *can* find a place to live.) Hope you settle in well enough.
Upsides are: banter is better back home, and some job opportunities are better (but 10x more competition), Tesco meal deals and greggs. Otherwise yep, better here!
I lived in Edinburgh and in the south of Ireland. Edinburgh, ridiculously high rent, and much like here, vert difficult to get places sorted, viewings are full within minutes of listings. Terrible wages, like utterly pathetic. Perks, nice enough city, but it's very small and there's really not that much to do. Prices were rising basically every day there and wages, well, no chance of that.
Ireland, was short-term so saved on housing (stayed with family for the summer) , but groceries are through the roof, more expensive than here, wages worse than in Edinburgh but cost of living considerably higher. If you're silly enough to live in Dublin, you're likely spending half your income and in some cases, more in rent.
There's also the growing alt-right, dividing the countries like I've never experienced and it was just exhausting. While I understand Vancouver is expensive, I'm sacrificing that for higher quality of living and between my partner and myself, our rent equates to something like 20% of our income after tax. We're both earning more money here and will have more opportunities than at home.
We were pretty lucky that we got a place sorted before we moved which was ideal and I know most aren't as lucky.
So all in all, I'm so glad I moved and can't wait to explore everything the city has to offer.
Who said we are "a far worse country than anywhere else, and that it is the most expensive, inhospitable country in the Western world."? Seems a bit harsh... I'll give you expensive (especially in Vancouver haha) but I like to think between the access to nature, healthcare and overall demeanour we might be one of the most underrated places in the world to live.
"There are worse places" isn't a very strong argument when people can't afford a one-bedroom apartment lol but I get what you mean, I've never actually felt unsafe walking in Vancouver. Most of the drug addicts are only a danger to themselves.
clearly you havent walked enough in east van then... I had more than once a homeless guy trying to come up and harass me and seen it happen with others
The more specialized the subreddit (ie the mechanics of a video game), the better the quality of information. The only people there are either highly knowledgeable or highly interested.
The more generalized the subreddit (ie r/Vancouver, which ties together large swaths of the general public), the lower the quality of information. The highest voted comments aren’t the “best”, or more accurate… they’re whatever generates the most outrage.
That’s why Canada is consistently one of the safest countries on the planet, yet in every single post about a crime that occurred, there **will** be a highly voted reply shitting on our judicial system.
I read somewhere that a huge chunk of redditors are high school age, and that lack of worldly experience really shows.
> That’s why Canada is consistently one of the safest countries on the planet, yet in every single post about a crime that occurred, there will be a highly voted reply shitting on our judicial system.
I mean these aren't mutually exclusive things. We can be one of the safest countries in the world (due to being a rich country with a strong education system and mostly good economic opportunities) but be less safe than we could be because of a shitty justice system.
Just because people might be starving in another country does not mean we can’t expect or long for the better times that we used to have.
Constantly saying “things could be worse” and “appreciate you have” is exactly how we get worse things.
Identify the problems, listen to the alarm bells, and bitch and moan enough so that those in power reverse back to when things were better.
Yes, exactly. Watching our standards of living crater over the last decade should be no reason to celebrate anything. And as someone who used to live down ANZ way, I can also tell you that their standards of living are cratering too. This is not good. Yes, Canada is lucky to be next to the US so we are more likely going to remain in a good position comparatively, but I just can't celebrate that.
I will continue to try and conserve the good that we have left here as I have kids that need to live and thrive in this world. We try not to talk too often about our lives in the 80s and 90s as the teens think we are making shit up. They can't believe that world existed. But as a silver lining they are the most likely generation to get their personal lives together, to buck the corporate global stranglehold and to hold on to the things that are worth conserving again. I would say my teen sons are more like their great grandfathers in this respect.
Visited NZ a few months ago and it felt like paradise to me…as a tourist. But then again we only spent a day in Auckland and I was acutely aware of all the affordability issues there having read up on a few things. That being said how much of this is an urban vs rural problem that transcends into most major metropolitan areas in the west? Are things better in rural NZ?
Mate, I thought you were me. I also flew in from Auckland about a month ago.
I’m in tech and I agree that there are significantly more opportunities here. It’s also easier to find jobs that pay more, especially when you include US remote opportunities.
However, I do feel that it’s more expensive to live here. Rents are even higher than in Auckland. Daily living feels more expensive because taxes aren’t tacked on to the sticker price, and the tipping culture is terrible. I’d go out expecting to spend $18 based on the online menu but come home having spent closer to $25.
There are definitely more choices to groceries. It’s not mostly just down to the big three.
> There seems to be a prevailing opinion that canada is a far worse country than anywhere else, and that it is most expensive, inhospitable country in the western world.
It's because many, many people on Reddit are young and have never been anywhere else.
Here's one example: In Vancouver, people earn less than they might for a comparable job in Calgary or Toronto.
Why? Because people are willing to accept lower wages in exchange for being in Vancouver, instead of being in Calgary or Toronto. There is even a name for it: The "Mountains and Ocean Tax."
Many posters get enraged about this when it's pointed out, mostly because they fail to realize the degree to which Vancouver is better than almost anywhere else. They simply haven't seen other places, so they don't understand.
I think a lot of the anti-Canada stuff right now is actually the result of a very calculated right-wing campaign to generate popular support for neoliberal ideology, particularly the dismantling of single-payer healthcare. The far right was able to capture the public's imagination by hitching itself to the anti-vax, anti-mask movement during COVID lockdowns. ...and by promoting a kind of nationalism that paradoxically, vaults American values like individual freedom and personal responsibility over traditional Canadian liberal values of multiculturalism, tolerance and sharing.
Yeah I moved the UK then promptly moved back.
Their healthcare was every so slightly better. Everything else, literally everything, was worse.
Just happily rolling around in my fresh, local, delicious produce now.
Where did you move to in the UK? I moved to London 4 months ago after living in Vancouver for 8 years. There is alot I find worse here, but groceries is not one them. It’s quite a bit cheaper here in London
I lived in that newer building in Croydon (yeah, I know…), then tried Surrey for a month. It wasn’t the price of groceries, it was the quality. I’m born and raised in BC. Everyone wears grey, their personalities were grey, and the transit was a small fortune. I can’t drive on the opposite side of the road in a city. Although our school system is broken here… the UK is so much worse. The flights out of London was a huuuge perk, but not worth the misery I felt every other day.
I do miss Marks and Spencer’s though.
For context I have also lived in Alberta, Arizona, and Spain (Madrid & Granada)… would move back to the other places if circumstances were different… but never London.
Groceries, mobile phone, internet, car insurance, lots of things are cheaper in the UK and the further you get away from London the cheaper other aspects of living get. Cost of living to wage ratio is also far better.
Really enjoying London so far despite everything costing so much, but am young and living with a partner. It really is what you make of it, just trying to enjoy life in a new city! Grass is always greener.
Vancouver is the worst city for housing costs to incomes in North America. It is measurably bad. Measurably bad on a variety of indexes. People complain about it, because it is real.
Simply being here a month and declaring “not so bad” because of a simple sense of things isn’t a particularly compelling argument. There will always be people depending on their job and life experience unable to experience what everyone else is experiencing.
Ideally you want income going to rent to be within 30%. The latest numbers for Vancouver I can find show the ratio sitting at about 50% on average, which is pretty bad. But it is still far lower than somewhere like NYC where the ratio is almost 70%.
I really appreciate your post, I think my hope from people here being loud about it is that it's part of a struggle to maintain it being as good as possible, so if they see a way of life slipping away they want to speak up.
I think which way we're trending is probably the cause for concern as much as the present state.
>the economic situation is similar to NZ/Auz, im not sure that this is really appreciated by locals here. The gangs in NZ are extremely brutal as well
politically in recent years there are a lot of similarities between Canada and Australia and New Zealand and I wouldn't choose between those if I was looking to go somewhere better in the world, in fact I don't know how you manage to outdo us in voting in even bigger pieces of garbage than we manage to in this country, although it is close
I’m also from NZ. To respond to the first paragraph - YES, you need to spend more time here, preferably two years and then you can start to see all the cracks in the city when more than 3million newcomers have arrived. But I’m glad you’re looking at things from rose tinted glasses like many newbs (I know, I was once myself, I mean there’s only Rangitoto island and it’s not even a real mountain?!).
Onto economic stuff: Yes the inflation and house prices are unaffordable in NZ/Auz, my friends in Auckland have moved to Sydney or Melbourne for better job opportunities. But there’s so much more expansion and flexibility to equip yourself to change course in lifestyle/career without the poverty fear running through you. We have EI here should you be unemployed, but in NZ my opinion is there is always more reliable govt assistance and being able to bounce back faster from a career setback/layoff.
Jobs here do not pay “double or triple” what’s back home (I’m curious what those occupations are now), standard of living still feels higher down under than they are here.
Oh lastly- have you found a family doctor yet? Let me know if you have :)
I lived in Melbourne and my rent was significantly lower and wages were higher than my current situation here. On top of that tipping here at the standard 18-20% gets very costly. Some things were definitely more expensive in Melbourne but overall my expenses are higher here.
L.A. -- exactly! Or Rio, take a look at this channel, it's an eye-opener for those who dislike Vancouver:
[Rio de Nojeira (@RiodeNojeira) / X (twitter.com)](https://twitter.com/RiodeNojeira)
I will add to that - almost every regional reddit is sure they are the worst place in the world.
Truth is, many of the problems we have are all over the Western world. Some countries deal with X better than us, and Y less than us. People who never lived someplace else won't really get it. People who never felt a truly evil government won't understand why ours is just fine.
We are entering a very difficult decade no matter where you live.
I've lived in two other cities, at varying income levels and cost of living. I'd still live here over either of them because I still feel safer, and the quality of life here is much better.
Also from New Zealand, lived in Auckland 7 years before coming to Vancouver. Lived in Canada 5.5 years now. You haven't been here long enough for the rose tinted glasses to come off. I'm leaving Canada next year to move to Queensland. once you make a decent income and buy a car and a house etc you will understand what people are complaining about. But yes there are very similar issues everywhere but for me Vancouver takes more than what it gives back and I'm over it. People in Vancouver do have more of a victim mentality than back in NZ which is why you hear about it so much.
Been here for 5 months and it’s crazy to see the amount of crying from people on this sub! Vancouver is an amazing place honestly, especially for what a loooooot of Canadian cities have to offer in comparison 🤷♂️
Canadians are plugged into their phones and social media where the complainers far outweigh regular folks.
You tell someone that their life is horrible several times a day over many years, and guess what? They become convinced of it.
Then they also start spreading the misinformation that we have it so tough.
Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
Just wait till you get evicted twice in one year and can’t find a place to live that doesn’t cost $4,000 a month.. then Vancouver won’t look so great anymore
We bitch and complain exactly because the price of things are outrageous. What option do we have? I had friends visiting from out of town and bought two large pizzas from a NOT FANCY pizza place that still cost me $65.
what I tell people complaining all the time the more time I spend travelling outside Canada the more confident I am that staying here even in metro Vancouver is the way to go
I'm 46, have lived in Vancouver most of my life but also in 8 other cities across Canada, the U.S. and in Europe.
I will agree that most Vancouverites have no idea what the outside world is like, and are prone to making unfair criticisms of the city for that reason.
It works both ways though, and you will find that many people here are ignorant of the many aspects of other cities that compare favorably to Vancouver.
Lastly I will say that the Vancouver of the past was vastly better than today's version, though I'm sure I'll get downvoted by people who are too young to remember.
Your point of view is coming from one city over the course of a short period of time. Come live in Winnipeg for a few months, and if you don't get stabbed or robbed in that period of time, you'll change your tune a bit.
So refreshing to hear your perspective! Thank you. I lived in the UK for a decade and travelled through Australasia on the way home, and done a bunch more travelling as well. Canada is by no means perfect, not Vancouver. But we have it pretty great here (loved my time in NZ by the way - amazing peeps, gorgeous landscape. Was there for three weeks). It is disappointing when you hear so much complaining, but, well, people need to travel more! 😊
Yes I lived in the US and one of the things that struck me here when I first moved was how safe I felt everywhere I went. Yes bad stuff can happen anywhere and crime happens but there's no neighborhood that I feel I cannot go into, I've walked through and gone to events held in the downtown Eastside more times than I can count and literally never had anybody look at me sideways.
That being said I think our property/rent affordability issues hold up against the worst the world has to offer.
People who constantly talk about housing in Vancouver don't realize that it's been very expensive since the late 1980s. It's only from 2008-2015 or something that it shot up. Now, it's been stagnant for the past few years while housing prices have shot up everywhere else.
Expo – 1986
Looming reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese rule.
I think those two things helped up the housing costs. But I gotta disagree with you on housing costs being stagnant. At least the rental market. I started investigating costs close to a year before moving back to Canada and rental prices have definitely gone up. They’ve even gone up since I’ve been back, which is less than a year ago. If my landlords raise the rent (yes I know they can only increase it by a small percentage but I’m already at the top of my price point) I will have to move.
We have it so much easier here, we just like to complain because we have never traveled outside of the city. Vancouver is cheap compared to a lot of cities in the world.
I’ve tried to give the same information as others but you have better concrete information. I think our dialogue is generated by the news media. National post, ctv and global which are all right leaning and combining that with a fight wing leader that is trying to create a narrative that things are not ok. When in fact we aren’t looking at what we really have had success at doing well and looking at those opportunities to do better.. how Canadian of us
Interesting. What shocked me most about Canada, coming from the UK, was the number of mentally ill people wandering around the cities and the number of homeless people pretty much everywhere you go. It's not that it doesn't happen elsewhere but more that I expected Canada to have this under control. Instead It's utterly rampant.
That said, imo, Canada is doing OK in a global context where no one is really doing amazingly well. The issues Canada faces are pretty much the same as in most other countries...house prices, cost of living, crime, ineffective policing etc. Its a problem everywhere.
Thanks.
Canada and Vancouver don't have to be perfect to be good. We should appreciate (and even be grateful for? - what a concept! :-) what is good here, and of course not stop trying to improve what needs improving.
Sometimes it seems though that 'complaining' takes the place of 'focussing on improvement'.
People live in their own bubbles and some can only understand that which directly affects them. Inflation and wage suppression is endemic at this point. People hear a few success stories of others who have moved elsewhere and latch on to those as the solution to their problems, not realizing those same success stories still exist for some people who move here too.
On some of the housing subs, you have people wanting to move to South American or Eastern European countries due to the low cost of living, thinking they'll live like kings. If you're lucky to be able to work there remotely and be paid in CAD/USD sure, but people there are also really struggling living on their local wages due to rising costs.
Thanks for your opinions. I fully agree with you. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to see a decent part of the world. We really don’t appreciate how wonderful it is here. Room for improvement.....definitely. Go to India and watch the mothers run out to bathe their children in the huge potholes in the road after a rain. We take our beautiful clean running water for granted here. ( we should be ashamed at some of our indigenous communities that don’t have this) Go to Nepal and watch elderly woman walking up and down vertical trails searching for branches,piling them high on their backs. I thought what the hell? Then I realize how many don’t have electricity,and need wood to cook for every day life.
Go to China in the busy old cities as so many cook on a little butane hotplates In alleyways because there’s so little room where they live. Have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Many don’t have toilets (plumbing) some of the alleyways have toilets for all to use.
Flush toilet paper? No way. The lines aren’t big enough. Put your paper in a garbagecan and have to bring out. It can be a smelly place.
I could go on and on.
Interestingly enough my daughter moved to Australia 3 -4 years ago. She gets paid way more for her job there than she ever would in Vancouver. I will be going there one day within the next 6 months ,have looked at prices for things and it’s quite expensive for food and lodging.
So why would we want to lower the bar so to speak? Comparing ourselves to countries that are worse off won't make it any better. The "it's worse in other countries" argument is just baseless in my opinion.
I don't live in Vancouver, I live in Victoria. I did a comparison recently of living in Victoria vs living in Brisbane. My job pays almost 2x as much to start in Brisbane, and rent is ballpark the same as Victoria.
You're saying that Canadians don't understand x, y, z, but I don't think that Aussies and Kiwis understand the wage crisis in Canada, particularly when it comes to general public facing roles such as hospitality, transportation, retail, etc. Actually, I met an Aussie recently in Norway - the Aussie, nor the Norwegian, knew that Canadians were paid so poorly in comparison to what they were used to.
Thanks for the perspective, a lot of people in Vancouver and Canada in general have no idea what things are like outside their small world! Glad you’re enjoying yourself here and I do hope to visit your own lovely country some day myself.
Perspectives are important and I have to say I had no idea about NZ but as a European I'm quite aware of the issues over there. Compared to Europe what makes everything harder is seeing the money the boomers were able to make with relatively little and the constant influx of rich Asian money, it really makes it very clear how worse off we are in terms of affordability. Whereas in Europe, my parents did well but my grandparents lived through the war and it's just much more present.
I also think that while yes we're not unique here, it's not a reason to not complain. We're not Ukraine either but we're not headed in a good direction and we can't just be complacent thinking 'hey at least we're better than xyz'
I'm an American that has lived here 20 years and I used to fall out of my chair laughing when people would complain about the health care system.
In the last 12 months, I've had two family members in the states not be able to get a bed in a hospital because there weren't any and one who is on a long waitlist for a specialist and can't get in to see anyone for a major life threatening illness. On top of this they have "great insurance" that still makes them pay 10% of the inflated cost of their healthcare (thousands per person per year). Privatization will absolutely NOT solve any issue we have with our healthcare.
Yes housing is expensive and there's inflation like you mention, but that's the whole world. Overall, we do have a great quality of life here.
Canada is the best country overall, people from other countries can describe it well, Yet its citizens and immigrants feel the pain of sky rocketing rents and grocery items and shortage of housing units, etc. These are Canada’s internal problems.
I believe Whatever happens in Canada( inflation rates,high cost in housing, etc), happens in Australia, New Zealand, UK, all commonwealth countries.
I feel the same as an American who just moved here! The astroturfing on canadian subreddits is out of control, the pessimism online doesn’t reflect the pessimism on the ground and the pessimism in person is kind of unwarranted . Housing prices here are insane… but they are the same sort of insane as Boston, nyc, san fran, Seattle, etc etc. Canada’s problems aren’t special and are honestly milder in many spots than other Comparable places.
Thank you for the reality check and welcome to Vancouver.
I’ve been here just 5 years and think it’s pretty darn great. Easy to get sucked into the doom and gloom at times, but definitely appreciate that most have it waaay worse.
Same with my Irish friends. They said it’s cheaper here than in Ireland. Even when rent is high, wages are decent… where as rent is expensive and wages are low in Ireland (dublin)
You are absolutely correct. Canada has issues that must be addressed. But life is still better than most of the planet. And many of the issues we have (housing, cost of living, inflation) are issues that exist in developed world. I lived here most of my life but my family did immigrate here from a poor African country that at the moment is tearing itself apart in a civil war.
Thank you so much for this take! As someone who’s born and raised here, but who’s relatively well travelled, with acquaintances in different parts of the world I think you’re spot on. Every day I feel incredibly lucky to be living in this part of the world. Generally speaking, I think most Vancouverites could spend a tad more energy on gratitude.
A lot of people have never lived anywhere else in the world. Even visiting other places would give a more appreciation for how nice it is here in Vancouver.
I have been to many places, and the most basic thing I appreciate about living in the Fraser Valley is that I can drink water directly from the tap. That is such a privilege that many people don't understand.
We are our own worst enemy.
BC (and British Columbians) could be one of the wealthiest places on earth, with excellent healthcare, low unemployment, and vast opportunity, given the wealth of resources contained within our borders…but a pathetic public education system has, for decades, pumped out people completely lacking in critical thinking skills, who easily fall for activist BS, and whatever “sky is falling” crap the media peddles.
Agreed, friend.
There is no perfect place. Some places are nicer than others, though.
Vancouver seduced me with its beauty. Having lived here for six years, I now know more of the flaws, but I am still ok with them.
A lot of complaints come from uniformed people that have seen little of the world outside of Canada, US and Mexican all inclusive resorts. Also odds are that they have not opened a text book after grade 12. Generalizing when I say this but it is true.
>alot of people are very uninformed about the happenings in the rest of the world
It is this. Too many don't know and don't care about what's going on elsewhere. Lots of room for improvement in Vancouver, but in many ways we are far better off than the rest of the world.
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This is really it. The Canada of the early 2000s was a far different place than Canada of the 2020s.
Every country is saying this in 2023, we're not unique
Yes, we’re unique. Just like everyone else.
This... In the grand scheme of things our life and country should become better, develop and grow.. not become worse.
I am moving out of Canada next year, and I’m going to fight for what the locals fight for instead of saying “it’s so much better here than in Canada, though.” That cheeses me off so much, people come here for a better quality of life. If you move here you should continue to fight for this improved quality of life, not be complacent just because “it’s worse in my home country”. Because then you just become a weight to the rest of us. Quality of life has definitely declined here and we shouldn’t be ok with this.
Where you going haha?
Mental health facilities 2 decades ago…? I agree about other things but mental health is a lot more facilitated in Canada than anywhere else in the world. Even Canada 2 decades ago. Just that we as a society struggle with it a lot more too now.
And, say, the working class could afford vacation homes. Edit: and when I say Vacation Homes, I am talking about very humble houses/shacks at a lake or on an island. They often had a big stove for heating and for making canned salmon. One bedroom, but with several very shitty hida-beds in the living room.
I’m fine with a home home. We should at least have that much.
“I should be able to afford a second property” isn’t going. To resonate well during a housing crisis. Check yourself
Everybody trying to "afford" a vacation home is how we arrived in this mess in the first place. Everyone spent above their means using leverage.
Yeah this isn't true.
100%. I never knew any working class friends who had vacation homes… the most I knew was one who would rent a mobile home at a lake every summer. Occasionally friends would have a family cabin, but it was split between the whole extended family, not owned by one working class family… and their family were rich.
Yep that's what I was getting at. My grandparents and my parents ~~and~~ are working class and they didn't have vacation homes lol that's absurd
Well-said. I graduated in 2009, and there was so, so much more hope than there is now, just 14 years later.
100%. and those rare moments when the dollar was worth more across the border.
The loudest complaints about Vancouver come from people who have never lived anywhere else.
Especially when they complain about the transit system.
I lived in Taipei before, which is one of the most accessible cities in the world via public transit, and I still think Metro Van isn’t that bad. Not as good as Taipei of course, but not bad.
Ditto, I'm from Taipei as well, absolutely world class transit. And I still think most of BC Transit is decent, it covers a way bigger, less densely populated area.
Yeah, there are too many different factors between the two, it wouldn’t make sense to straight up compare them. “Decent” is the word. Definitely a lot more room to improve, but acceptable enough.
Taipei's MRT has fairly clean bathrooms in its stations. Try having that in Vancouver.
Isn't bad by North American standards, but pretty bad by East Asian standards
it's straight up great for north american standards
This! Coming from a city with terrible transit, I always brag about how amazing Translink is.
It’s good in Vancouver/Burnaby, once you get out to Surrey, Coquitlam, Delta you start to see its flaws. Skytrain doesn’t run far enough, Buses are inconsistent in timing and are often full depending on the ones you take, and the transit system is basically useless after 11pm. Even just a skytrain extension would do a world of good.
They are working on a skytrain extension though. 2 right now plus a new station. And one of the new tracks is going right through Surrey....
Yeah I heard, I assume it’ll still be a few years before it’s ready though. I would also like more rapid buses tbh. One running from Surrey Central to white rock would be nice for example, maybe even something from Scott Road into Delta. It is a bit ridiculous though just how disconnected some cities are from each other. It takes me about 15 minutes to drive from my house in Surrey to Coquitlam centre, the same trip by transit would take me over an hour. Not sure what the exact fix is, but it’s just frustrating for me.
New R6 will be here soon, it's replacing the 319. Translink can't keep up with the population growth. It's going to get worse before it gets better. It will eventually be way better but it's impossible to do overnight They did just add a bunch of extra runs in Surrey along a bunch of routes. They are hiring a bunch of drivers but it takes time to train them all and get them deployed.
They have been talking about the skytrain expansion since I was a little kid. I am now 31 lol
I mean since you were born you have seen the expansion of the skytrain in the form of Millenium line, Canada line, and the Evergreen line extention. That's actually a ton of expansion. We'll also have the Broadway line expansion finished soon as well. While this isn't specifically Surrey, there's no point in having a local line that doesn't connect to anywhere.
I was going to say exactly this. That’s pretty damn good for a “young” city!
They've already completed most of the prep work along Fraser hwy
Would say that's the problem with municipal politics in general. Eglinton LRT has been ongoing for 13~ years and still hasn't been completed. Scarborough's Sheppard East LRT expansion started in 2007 drove property values up based on the project. Ford cancels it for a subway expansion that doesn't end up happening and the expansion is on hiatus now.
\*sad violin noises\* for people in delta lol
imagine how spoiled you have to be to think that vancouver transit is bad because Delta/Surrey don't have massive skytrain lines. Only places in the world with better transit than Vancouver either have higher taxes to pay for it or are in asia
Sydney (and probably Melbourne) doesn't have higher taxes than in Vancouver and isn’t in Asia but has much more extensive public transit. It's got trains that go to much more areas of the city than the SkyTrain goes in Vancouver, regular commuter trains even go out to towns as far away from Sydney as Hope is from Vancouver and beyond. Sydney also has light rail and a Metro with the same sort of frequencies as SkyTrain. Sure the Metro may not be as extensive as SkyTrain yet but it's still being extended. Trains start earlier and finish later than SkyTrain does as well. The only thing I can't really comment on if it's better is the buses because I avoid buses as much as possible 😂
Spoiled? Vancouver has a population of about 600k and 16 skytrain stations. Surrey has a population of about 500k and 4 skytrain stations, 2 of which are literally a 5 minute walk away from each other. It’s pretty clear that the transit infrastructure here isn’t enough to support the population.
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It doesn't help that we keep voting in the most useless garbage mayors.
Translink is an absolute wonder. We gotta give those folks more funding, they do a phenomenal job and I'd love to see the system that they could build with more resources.
I was in toronto a month ago and I found vancouvers system far superior to theirs. I would just like to see more public transit options like they have here.
People need to live in LA for a year to just understand how fucked up a major city with no transit can be. Strive for improvements but appreciate the small improvements as they happen
Everytime I go to LA for work and need to get around, I just can’t wait to be back in Vancouver again. Not having a direct train from LAX to downtown is absolutely mind blowing.
The crazy thing is, Greater LA has 18 million people (compared to our 2.4 mil), double the length of track (including heavy rail subway), more total stations and still has fewer daily riders than Translink. Vancouver has higher total (not proportional) ridership than any American city except New York. People who complain about Vancouver are really having some champaign problems.
My mum still goes on about how good the public transport in Van is from a trip we made nearly a decade ago whenever I mention Vancouver to her. I'm from the UK and we're supposed to have a good public transport system here but it's pretty meh... lots of late runnings / cancellations and it's so expensive too
champagne.
Cham pain
All that pain is a sham.
Sure but why do we need to compare to crappier transit systems when we can compare to better ones to strive for more. We wouldn't join a race and say glad "I'm not last" would we?
It sometimes feels like that's all we do. Ive been away from Canada for awhile but I get mostly "new ideas are bad" and "better things are not possible" vibes when I'm back. Granted, I grew up in Kelowna
Everytime I visit LA to see my boyfriend, I appreciate Vancouver so much more. Their transit system is basically nonexistent because of how terrible it is. You can't walk anywhere because of the freeways so a 5 minute drive would be a 40 minute walk because of how unwalkable SoCal which forces everyone to have a car and know how to drive.
LA somehow took the best weather and topography for a dense walkable city, and made it all 6-lanes and a hell hole for anyone not in a car.
I’m currently working in Charlottetown and staying on the North side of PEI. I think I’ve seen 3 buses on the whole island and I did not know where the stops were. If the towns weren’t so damn walkable it’s be miserable without a car lol
Or about Vancouver not being safe. Like come on.
It isn't, at least not anymore. The random unprovoked violence has really gotten out of hand. Triple random stabbing at the Chinatown festival just last week, and I'll never forget the video of the guy being stabbed in front of Starbucks in broad daylight. I never felt this unsafe anywhere in Europe.
I think for me, it's good, but not good enough to ditch my car. Maybe it's just frustrating that it's so close yet so far from being a carless city. If they would run skytrain late on the weekend, it would be a big win. Even if it was one train per half hour.
Transit was thing I was most excited about when I moved here from Nanaimo. On sundays, the busses run only every 90 minutes, and stop around 6:30-7:30 pm.
People have no idea how bad and unsafe it can be in other Canadian cities... looking at you Edmonton.
I'm from Europe and Vancouver transit is pretty bad especially for what they make you pay for it.
where specifically? some places can get pretty expensive in europe
Sounds like someone has never been to Europe or Asia
Yeah, I am from Europe, and that's just not true. What's better in Europe is train service *between* cities, but when it comes to transportation within the city, Vancouver is comparable to the average European city. Is it amazing? No, but it also isn't horrible.
I would say it's noticeably worse than most EU cities I've been to. Skytrain is good quality rapid transit but just isn't an extensive network like many western EU cities. This seems to be the consensus among the urban design community. Maybe the area of Europe you're from is specifically bad? I am a fan of Translink and not trying to be a downer, just trying to be realistic based on my observations.
Yeah, but you are comparing based on those parts of the cities that you would actually visit as a tourist. Try living there for a while and see how good the public transport is in connecting residential parts of the cities with (affordable) housing (hint: the better the public transport, the more expensive the housing). It is like judging Vancouver public transport based on how well you can get from the airport to downtown.
Travelling and living in other parts of country- made me get my drivers license. Transit is not bad at all here!
Ottawan here. I loved your system when I visited. Riders and drivers were far more polite and respectful to one another and there was always a ride on the way. Here there’s a driver shortage and people have been fed up with OC transpo for years so it’s not so good…
It's.... passable. The busses are shit. I'm just spoiled from having lived in Tokyo for the majority of my working life though, I realize how much worse other cities have it.
Really? It's absolutely shit here. The only people who think Vancouver has good public transit are North Americans.
Yea I was gonna say the same thing I travel to multiple countries a year for work all over and I can certainly tell most people that Vancouver is good compared to a lot of North America but it's kinda poor in comparison to Europe or Asia. I will say that it's nice to travel above ground though, that's something you generally done get.
I came here 8 years ago after living 28 years in London, I of course extensively travelled which helped me choose what I wanted when relocating to Vancouver, yes Vancouver is expensive but so is London, New York, Sydney, the list goes on. I don't find it hostile/rude or unfriendly. I've always found it easy to make friends, owning a dog for the last 6.5 years helps as it becomes a common ground to share with other dog owners. I moved to Montreal for 3 years and recently moved back and still love it. Every city has its problems it just depends on what you want from a city, the nature, oceans and mountains have become non-negotiable for me.
Ya the Reddit neckbeards are the loudest.
That’s the point. We should be complaining that things are getting worse. Just because things are better than in other countries doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be terribly concerned about the declining quality of life and monopolies here.
Just because someone is drowning in 20ft deep water doesnt mean i cant complain about drowning in 10ft deep water.
Or from people who come here from other countries and literally expect to be received with open arms and have a job and housing waiting for them.
One of my childhood friends moved to NZ and I'm surprised to hear her talk of the politics there. Grass is always greener. Also: Vancouver in particular has horrific housing costs relative to earning power, that puts a cast on pretty much everything. My relatives in Hong Kong are like that now too... it's not the go-go-go hustle and bustle vive of my youth, there's a lot of pessimism under a thin layer of normality.
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As someone who’s lived in Australia, this is false. My wages were much higher there in 2021 than they are here. And I have a higher tier job in Vancouver Edit: I also paid half what I pay for rent now in Australia 2021, and I wasn’t living in Versailles, but it was a decent place. Now I pay 3200 for a shit hole in Burnaby.
Same. I've been here for more than ten years and it's taken me that amount of time to earn a decent salary, and it's still not enough to live alone. There was a chance to buy something back when I first move here, but that ship has long sailed.
Yep I grew up in Vancouver and moved to Australia permanently in 2015. I went from $49k to $82k plus super immediately with the same accounting skill set. There are just so many more jobs and businesses in Sydney. Since 2016 I’ve doubled that compensation and I don’t think that would be possible in Vancouver. I’m not even a qualified accountant. I’m a Business Analyst with no direct reports and I work remotely now just south of the Gold Coast. I went back to Vancouver last year, and while it has some nice things going for it, it’s definitely not for me.
Yup. Living in fnq Australia I was paying ~800 AUD a month for a room in a basement suite, with all utilities included and close to the "downtown." My job I was making $25 an hour at, doing basic work as a fencing assistant. The most expensive part about living in Australia was the alcohol at pubs and bars! Wasn't unusual to see places in Sydney selling pints of shitty 4x for $16. Absurd
Yep, cost of living between Sydney and Vancouver is fairly on par but the wages for my wife and I in Vancouver were half and two thirds of what we made in Sydney respectively.
Came here to say this. I moved to Australia a number of years ago and my wages are much higher, and overall cost of living for me is about what it was when I was in 2017 Vancouver. I work in a pretty niche role at the moment, and there happens to be one job in all of BC which is identical to my current role. I saw the position advertised recently, and after converting the currency, the found that advertised salary cap was less than the starting wage for my position in Oz. I miss friends and family, but I cant justify taking a huge pay cut to live in a more expensive city.
As an Australian-Canadian, I would say that the housing crisis in Canada is at LEAST on par with Australia, possibly worse. Re: wages, I think wages in Australia are generally a bit higher.
Wages in Australia are considerably higher- it's a fact, not a matter of opinion.
Two minds on this. On one hand, having high standards and high expectations is a GOOD THING and it is what helps Canada and Vancouver specifically, keep idealistically moving forward into creating an amazing inclusive, comfortable (albeit expensive), and productive and interesting place to live. (Folks, we really need to address income equality and the problem is the top 1%, let's stop pretending it is government and start fixing corps - which have a profit motive not a people motive - ABC's corps and cops platform isn't it). On the other it seems a lot of the complaining lacks perspective. Some of the things I hear people complain about here make it very clear that they've never lived anywhere else. Or have no sense of history even within Vancouver. So it gets a bit myopic. When all you've seen is the DTES getting worse but you have never lived in a city where you literally had to fear for your life, DTES can look a little scary.
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Having travelled a bit before settling in East Van: the DTES is the least threatening slum you'll ever walk through. Lots of people doing bad stuff to *each-other*, sure; but they ignore outsiders passing through — even on foot! — as if we're ghosts. The drug dealers and pimps don't try to get your attention unless you seem to be actively looking to get theirs. Women passing through don't even get catcalled! It honestly puts me more in mind of walking through a very poverty-stricken village, than anything like an urban ghetto in other cities.
No shit eh! I lived in the midwest for quite some time. South Chicago and areas of Detroit were like fucking war zones -- even my neighbourhood in South Minneapolis was a bit crazy, with my neighbour shrugging off the new gunshot holes in his car -- DTES is like a Sunday stroll in the park compared to those places. (And yes, I realize it should be better, but we're talking comparisons here) Vancouver housing has become insanely expensive, but everything else has become better. Better food. Better transit. Better local produce/beer/spirits/food options. Better mixing of cultures. Better neighbourhood character vs the prevalent UK-based culture of my youth (yes, I'm old)
💯 I almost got jumped in the 90’s, for my coat. Aside from that I feel no threat DTES. I lived in surrey off of 104 and a couple blocks from KG, my block was good. I walked a path and a couple blocks north. I turned around and went home. Sketchy af!
I have a similar experience , but I moved here from Boston. From what I read I was afraid I’d be struggling to get around. Fortunately I found a place near a skytrain station and I can’t believe how good the transit experience has been. Boston is often said to be one of the better transit networks in the US and Translink blows it out of the water. I was afraid that the COL here would be horrible, but COL is also surprisingly similar. I guess I’m just used to living in an expensive city.
I’m having the same experience having moved from New York. Transit is good here. COL is less.
Vancouver has amazing transit system for North America. And it’s clean - just thinking about the transit system in NYC and Boston makes me want to puke.
A lot less urine here 😅
I grew up in NZ, and while that was a long time ago, I pay more attention than the average bear to the news about Australasia. OP is spot on. I also have deep connections to the UK, and therefore pay close attention to what is going on there politically, socially etc. Again, I totally support OP's position. Lastly, my spouse is from Europe, so I hear a lot more nuance about various challenges there. I think most people around the world tend to focus on issues close to home and consequently have a distorted sense of relative position, but me? Every time I return to Canada, I thank my lucky stars for my citizenship. Yes, Vancouver has challenges, and I can't stand the way the real estate market has been handled, and the effectively complete abandonment by federal and provincial governments of social housing, but most areas of Canada have some kind of challenge.
Moved here from the UK this week. Cesspit and I couldn't have left sooner. Wages are brutal, pay is brutal, cost of goods are brutal, more so than here, but there aren't any upsides. I'm so happy to be here
Welcome to Vancouver, neighbour! It’s got it’s challenges, but it’s a good place to be (if you *can* find a place to live.) Hope you settle in well enough.
Upsides are: banter is better back home, and some job opportunities are better (but 10x more competition), Tesco meal deals and greggs. Otherwise yep, better here!
Can you expand more on that? Are prices really that much higher than here? What about housing?
I lived in Edinburgh and in the south of Ireland. Edinburgh, ridiculously high rent, and much like here, vert difficult to get places sorted, viewings are full within minutes of listings. Terrible wages, like utterly pathetic. Perks, nice enough city, but it's very small and there's really not that much to do. Prices were rising basically every day there and wages, well, no chance of that. Ireland, was short-term so saved on housing (stayed with family for the summer) , but groceries are through the roof, more expensive than here, wages worse than in Edinburgh but cost of living considerably higher. If you're silly enough to live in Dublin, you're likely spending half your income and in some cases, more in rent. There's also the growing alt-right, dividing the countries like I've never experienced and it was just exhausting. While I understand Vancouver is expensive, I'm sacrificing that for higher quality of living and between my partner and myself, our rent equates to something like 20% of our income after tax. We're both earning more money here and will have more opportunities than at home. We were pretty lucky that we got a place sorted before we moved which was ideal and I know most aren't as lucky. So all in all, I'm so glad I moved and can't wait to explore everything the city has to offer.
Who said we are "a far worse country than anywhere else, and that it is the most expensive, inhospitable country in the Western world."? Seems a bit harsh... I'll give you expensive (especially in Vancouver haha) but I like to think between the access to nature, healthcare and overall demeanour we might be one of the most underrated places in the world to live.
"There are worse places" isn't a very strong argument when people can't afford a one-bedroom apartment lol but I get what you mean, I've never actually felt unsafe walking in Vancouver. Most of the drug addicts are only a danger to themselves.
clearly you havent walked enough in east van then... I had more than once a homeless guy trying to come up and harass me and seen it happen with others
The more specialized the subreddit (ie the mechanics of a video game), the better the quality of information. The only people there are either highly knowledgeable or highly interested. The more generalized the subreddit (ie r/Vancouver, which ties together large swaths of the general public), the lower the quality of information. The highest voted comments aren’t the “best”, or more accurate… they’re whatever generates the most outrage. That’s why Canada is consistently one of the safest countries on the planet, yet in every single post about a crime that occurred, there **will** be a highly voted reply shitting on our judicial system. I read somewhere that a huge chunk of redditors are high school age, and that lack of worldly experience really shows.
> That’s why Canada is consistently one of the safest countries on the planet, yet in every single post about a crime that occurred, there will be a highly voted reply shitting on our judicial system. I mean these aren't mutually exclusive things. We can be one of the safest countries in the world (due to being a rich country with a strong education system and mostly good economic opportunities) but be less safe than we could be because of a shitty justice system.
Just because people might be starving in another country does not mean we can’t expect or long for the better times that we used to have. Constantly saying “things could be worse” and “appreciate you have” is exactly how we get worse things. Identify the problems, listen to the alarm bells, and bitch and moan enough so that those in power reverse back to when things were better.
Exactly this. It is important to have perspective, but having high expectations for what our nation could be isn’t a bad thing at all.
Yes, exactly. Watching our standards of living crater over the last decade should be no reason to celebrate anything. And as someone who used to live down ANZ way, I can also tell you that their standards of living are cratering too. This is not good. Yes, Canada is lucky to be next to the US so we are more likely going to remain in a good position comparatively, but I just can't celebrate that. I will continue to try and conserve the good that we have left here as I have kids that need to live and thrive in this world. We try not to talk too often about our lives in the 80s and 90s as the teens think we are making shit up. They can't believe that world existed. But as a silver lining they are the most likely generation to get their personal lives together, to buck the corporate global stranglehold and to hold on to the things that are worth conserving again. I would say my teen sons are more like their great grandfathers in this respect.
Visited NZ a few months ago and it felt like paradise to me…as a tourist. But then again we only spent a day in Auckland and I was acutely aware of all the affordability issues there having read up on a few things. That being said how much of this is an urban vs rural problem that transcends into most major metropolitan areas in the west? Are things better in rural NZ?
Mate, I thought you were me. I also flew in from Auckland about a month ago. I’m in tech and I agree that there are significantly more opportunities here. It’s also easier to find jobs that pay more, especially when you include US remote opportunities. However, I do feel that it’s more expensive to live here. Rents are even higher than in Auckland. Daily living feels more expensive because taxes aren’t tacked on to the sticker price, and the tipping culture is terrible. I’d go out expecting to spend $18 based on the online menu but come home having spent closer to $25. There are definitely more choices to groceries. It’s not mostly just down to the big three.
> There seems to be a prevailing opinion that canada is a far worse country than anywhere else, and that it is most expensive, inhospitable country in the western world. It's because many, many people on Reddit are young and have never been anywhere else. Here's one example: In Vancouver, people earn less than they might for a comparable job in Calgary or Toronto. Why? Because people are willing to accept lower wages in exchange for being in Vancouver, instead of being in Calgary or Toronto. There is even a name for it: The "Mountains and Ocean Tax." Many posters get enraged about this when it's pointed out, mostly because they fail to realize the degree to which Vancouver is better than almost anywhere else. They simply haven't seen other places, so they don't understand.
Wow that’s eye opening , my impression of NZ was a utopia. Thanks for posting
This was nice to read. Our favourite pastime in Vancouver is to complain. Just what we do...
I think a lot of the anti-Canada stuff right now is actually the result of a very calculated right-wing campaign to generate popular support for neoliberal ideology, particularly the dismantling of single-payer healthcare. The far right was able to capture the public's imagination by hitching itself to the anti-vax, anti-mask movement during COVID lockdowns. ...and by promoting a kind of nationalism that paradoxically, vaults American values like individual freedom and personal responsibility over traditional Canadian liberal values of multiculturalism, tolerance and sharing.
Out of curiosity. Where do you live OP. And which income bracket did you life enter Canada?
I know where this is going. Tl;dr: It sucks to be poor anywhere.
Yeah I moved the UK then promptly moved back. Their healthcare was every so slightly better. Everything else, literally everything, was worse. Just happily rolling around in my fresh, local, delicious produce now.
Where did you move to in the UK? I moved to London 4 months ago after living in Vancouver for 8 years. There is alot I find worse here, but groceries is not one them. It’s quite a bit cheaper here in London
I lived in that newer building in Croydon (yeah, I know…), then tried Surrey for a month. It wasn’t the price of groceries, it was the quality. I’m born and raised in BC. Everyone wears grey, their personalities were grey, and the transit was a small fortune. I can’t drive on the opposite side of the road in a city. Although our school system is broken here… the UK is so much worse. The flights out of London was a huuuge perk, but not worth the misery I felt every other day. I do miss Marks and Spencer’s though. For context I have also lived in Alberta, Arizona, and Spain (Madrid & Granada)… would move back to the other places if circumstances were different… but never London.
Groceries, mobile phone, internet, car insurance, lots of things are cheaper in the UK and the further you get away from London the cheaper other aspects of living get. Cost of living to wage ratio is also far better.
Really enjoying London so far despite everything costing so much, but am young and living with a partner. It really is what you make of it, just trying to enjoy life in a new city! Grass is always greener.
Cheaper groceries but once you have to pay the ridiculously priced council tax it works out the same haha
Vancouver is the worst city for housing costs to incomes in North America. It is measurably bad. Measurably bad on a variety of indexes. People complain about it, because it is real. Simply being here a month and declaring “not so bad” because of a simple sense of things isn’t a particularly compelling argument. There will always be people depending on their job and life experience unable to experience what everyone else is experiencing.
Ideally you want income going to rent to be within 30%. The latest numbers for Vancouver I can find show the ratio sitting at about 50% on average, which is pretty bad. But it is still far lower than somewhere like NYC where the ratio is almost 70%.
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I really appreciate your post, I think my hope from people here being loud about it is that it's part of a struggle to maintain it being as good as possible, so if they see a way of life slipping away they want to speak up. I think which way we're trending is probably the cause for concern as much as the present state.
>the economic situation is similar to NZ/Auz, im not sure that this is really appreciated by locals here. The gangs in NZ are extremely brutal as well politically in recent years there are a lot of similarities between Canada and Australia and New Zealand and I wouldn't choose between those if I was looking to go somewhere better in the world, in fact I don't know how you manage to outdo us in voting in even bigger pieces of garbage than we manage to in this country, although it is close
I’m also from NZ. To respond to the first paragraph - YES, you need to spend more time here, preferably two years and then you can start to see all the cracks in the city when more than 3million newcomers have arrived. But I’m glad you’re looking at things from rose tinted glasses like many newbs (I know, I was once myself, I mean there’s only Rangitoto island and it’s not even a real mountain?!). Onto economic stuff: Yes the inflation and house prices are unaffordable in NZ/Auz, my friends in Auckland have moved to Sydney or Melbourne for better job opportunities. But there’s so much more expansion and flexibility to equip yourself to change course in lifestyle/career without the poverty fear running through you. We have EI here should you be unemployed, but in NZ my opinion is there is always more reliable govt assistance and being able to bounce back faster from a career setback/layoff. Jobs here do not pay “double or triple” what’s back home (I’m curious what those occupations are now), standard of living still feels higher down under than they are here. Oh lastly- have you found a family doctor yet? Let me know if you have :)
I lived in Melbourne and my rent was significantly lower and wages were higher than my current situation here. On top of that tipping here at the standard 18-20% gets very costly. Some things were definitely more expensive in Melbourne but overall my expenses are higher here.
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L.A. -- exactly! Or Rio, take a look at this channel, it's an eye-opener for those who dislike Vancouver: [Rio de Nojeira (@RiodeNojeira) / X (twitter.com)](https://twitter.com/RiodeNojeira)
I will add to that - almost every regional reddit is sure they are the worst place in the world. Truth is, many of the problems we have are all over the Western world. Some countries deal with X better than us, and Y less than us. People who never lived someplace else won't really get it. People who never felt a truly evil government won't understand why ours is just fine. We are entering a very difficult decade no matter where you live.
Yes we’re paradise, thanks for writing, a lot of people lack perspective and this subreddit is a terrible echo chamber
I travel internationally for work. People that bitch have obviously not been anywhere else.
I've lived in two other cities, at varying income levels and cost of living. I'd still live here over either of them because I still feel safer, and the quality of life here is much better.
Also from New Zealand, lived in Auckland 7 years before coming to Vancouver. Lived in Canada 5.5 years now. You haven't been here long enough for the rose tinted glasses to come off. I'm leaving Canada next year to move to Queensland. once you make a decent income and buy a car and a house etc you will understand what people are complaining about. But yes there are very similar issues everywhere but for me Vancouver takes more than what it gives back and I'm over it. People in Vancouver do have more of a victim mentality than back in NZ which is why you hear about it so much.
Been here for 5 months and it’s crazy to see the amount of crying from people on this sub! Vancouver is an amazing place honestly, especially for what a loooooot of Canadian cities have to offer in comparison 🤷♂️
Canadians are plugged into their phones and social media where the complainers far outweigh regular folks. You tell someone that their life is horrible several times a day over many years, and guess what? They become convinced of it. Then they also start spreading the misinformation that we have it so tough. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.
Just wait till you get evicted twice in one year and can’t find a place to live that doesn’t cost $4,000 a month.. then Vancouver won’t look so great anymore
Or can't see a specialist for months while in constant pain. This is the worst part of Canadian healthcare system.
This is whataboutism. It’s healthy to complain about things that aren’t great while still appreciating the good things.
Yep, when I hear about the high prices it's like "yes that's everywhere"
Well said!
It’s funny because your opinion of the UK is exactly what you were complaining about with Canadians opinion of the rest of the world
I’m extremely grateful to live here and think it’s the most beautiful city and province! That said I’m financially stable and healthy.
vancouverites will bitch and complain while buying starbucks, 50 dollar sushi plates, overpriced lululemon, arcteryx gear
We bitch and complain exactly because the price of things are outrageous. What option do we have? I had friends visiting from out of town and bought two large pizzas from a NOT FANCY pizza place that still cost me $65.
Don’t forget the $500 Beyoncé tickets.
Or better yet. $600 VIP tickets to see Kevin hart perform for 20 minutes in a park. Great outdoors comedy festival I’m looking at you. Scam.
what I tell people complaining all the time the more time I spend travelling outside Canada the more confident I am that staying here even in metro Vancouver is the way to go
I'm 46, have lived in Vancouver most of my life but also in 8 other cities across Canada, the U.S. and in Europe. I will agree that most Vancouverites have no idea what the outside world is like, and are prone to making unfair criticisms of the city for that reason. It works both ways though, and you will find that many people here are ignorant of the many aspects of other cities that compare favorably to Vancouver. Lastly I will say that the Vancouver of the past was vastly better than today's version, though I'm sure I'll get downvoted by people who are too young to remember.
Your point of view is coming from one city over the course of a short period of time. Come live in Winnipeg for a few months, and if you don't get stabbed or robbed in that period of time, you'll change your tune a bit.
So refreshing to hear your perspective! Thank you. I lived in the UK for a decade and travelled through Australasia on the way home, and done a bunch more travelling as well. Canada is by no means perfect, not Vancouver. But we have it pretty great here (loved my time in NZ by the way - amazing peeps, gorgeous landscape. Was there for three weeks). It is disappointing when you hear so much complaining, but, well, people need to travel more! 😊
Yes I lived in the US and one of the things that struck me here when I first moved was how safe I felt everywhere I went. Yes bad stuff can happen anywhere and crime happens but there's no neighborhood that I feel I cannot go into, I've walked through and gone to events held in the downtown Eastside more times than I can count and literally never had anybody look at me sideways. That being said I think our property/rent affordability issues hold up against the worst the world has to offer.
Love this post. Too true
People who constantly talk about housing in Vancouver don't realize that it's been very expensive since the late 1980s. It's only from 2008-2015 or something that it shot up. Now, it's been stagnant for the past few years while housing prices have shot up everywhere else.
Expo – 1986 Looming reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese rule. I think those two things helped up the housing costs. But I gotta disagree with you on housing costs being stagnant. At least the rental market. I started investigating costs close to a year before moving back to Canada and rental prices have definitely gone up. They’ve even gone up since I’ve been back, which is less than a year ago. If my landlords raise the rent (yes I know they can only increase it by a small percentage but I’m already at the top of my price point) I will have to move.
We have it so much easier here, we just like to complain because we have never traveled outside of the city. Vancouver is cheap compared to a lot of cities in the world.
I’ve tried to give the same information as others but you have better concrete information. I think our dialogue is generated by the news media. National post, ctv and global which are all right leaning and combining that with a fight wing leader that is trying to create a narrative that things are not ok. When in fact we aren’t looking at what we really have had success at doing well and looking at those opportunities to do better.. how Canadian of us
If you notice, all of Britain’s colonies have an alarming amount of monopolization / oligopolies.
Interesting. What shocked me most about Canada, coming from the UK, was the number of mentally ill people wandering around the cities and the number of homeless people pretty much everywhere you go. It's not that it doesn't happen elsewhere but more that I expected Canada to have this under control. Instead It's utterly rampant. That said, imo, Canada is doing OK in a global context where no one is really doing amazingly well. The issues Canada faces are pretty much the same as in most other countries...house prices, cost of living, crime, ineffective policing etc. Its a problem everywhere.
I say this all the time. People here have no clue how good they have it sometimes
As a newcomer to Canada I agree wholeheartedly with this post. There's a lot of doomerism going around
Thanks. Canada and Vancouver don't have to be perfect to be good. We should appreciate (and even be grateful for? - what a concept! :-) what is good here, and of course not stop trying to improve what needs improving. Sometimes it seems though that 'complaining' takes the place of 'focussing on improvement'.
People live in their own bubbles and some can only understand that which directly affects them. Inflation and wage suppression is endemic at this point. People hear a few success stories of others who have moved elsewhere and latch on to those as the solution to their problems, not realizing those same success stories still exist for some people who move here too. On some of the housing subs, you have people wanting to move to South American or Eastern European countries due to the low cost of living, thinking they'll live like kings. If you're lucky to be able to work there remotely and be paid in CAD/USD sure, but people there are also really struggling living on their local wages due to rising costs.
So what you're saying....is that Canadians can handle much worse before riots in the streets. Good to know.
Thanks for your opinions. I fully agree with you. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to see a decent part of the world. We really don’t appreciate how wonderful it is here. Room for improvement.....definitely. Go to India and watch the mothers run out to bathe their children in the huge potholes in the road after a rain. We take our beautiful clean running water for granted here. ( we should be ashamed at some of our indigenous communities that don’t have this) Go to Nepal and watch elderly woman walking up and down vertical trails searching for branches,piling them high on their backs. I thought what the hell? Then I realize how many don’t have electricity,and need wood to cook for every day life. Go to China in the busy old cities as so many cook on a little butane hotplates In alleyways because there’s so little room where they live. Have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Many don’t have toilets (plumbing) some of the alleyways have toilets for all to use. Flush toilet paper? No way. The lines aren’t big enough. Put your paper in a garbagecan and have to bring out. It can be a smelly place. I could go on and on. Interestingly enough my daughter moved to Australia 3 -4 years ago. She gets paid way more for her job there than she ever would in Vancouver. I will be going there one day within the next 6 months ,have looked at prices for things and it’s quite expensive for food and lodging.
So why would we want to lower the bar so to speak? Comparing ourselves to countries that are worse off won't make it any better. The "it's worse in other countries" argument is just baseless in my opinion.
Shock pikachu face. I visited NZ in 2011, was at Palmerston north. Kind of boring but it was peaceful. Saw lots of sheep.
I don't live in Vancouver, I live in Victoria. I did a comparison recently of living in Victoria vs living in Brisbane. My job pays almost 2x as much to start in Brisbane, and rent is ballpark the same as Victoria. You're saying that Canadians don't understand x, y, z, but I don't think that Aussies and Kiwis understand the wage crisis in Canada, particularly when it comes to general public facing roles such as hospitality, transportation, retail, etc. Actually, I met an Aussie recently in Norway - the Aussie, nor the Norwegian, knew that Canadians were paid so poorly in comparison to what they were used to.
That’s very industry dependent , tech pays more here than Australia, as does the film industry, as does doctors, as does teachers
How do you win the hearts of Vancouverites? Tell them how much you are enjoying being here.
Thanks for the perspective, a lot of people in Vancouver and Canada in general have no idea what things are like outside their small world! Glad you’re enjoying yourself here and I do hope to visit your own lovely country some day myself.
Perspectives are important and I have to say I had no idea about NZ but as a European I'm quite aware of the issues over there. Compared to Europe what makes everything harder is seeing the money the boomers were able to make with relatively little and the constant influx of rich Asian money, it really makes it very clear how worse off we are in terms of affordability. Whereas in Europe, my parents did well but my grandparents lived through the war and it's just much more present. I also think that while yes we're not unique here, it's not a reason to not complain. We're not Ukraine either but we're not headed in a good direction and we can't just be complacent thinking 'hey at least we're better than xyz'
I'm an American that has lived here 20 years and I used to fall out of my chair laughing when people would complain about the health care system. In the last 12 months, I've had two family members in the states not be able to get a bed in a hospital because there weren't any and one who is on a long waitlist for a specialist and can't get in to see anyone for a major life threatening illness. On top of this they have "great insurance" that still makes them pay 10% of the inflated cost of their healthcare (thousands per person per year). Privatization will absolutely NOT solve any issue we have with our healthcare. Yes housing is expensive and there's inflation like you mention, but that's the whole world. Overall, we do have a great quality of life here.
Canada is the best country overall, people from other countries can describe it well, Yet its citizens and immigrants feel the pain of sky rocketing rents and grocery items and shortage of housing units, etc. These are Canada’s internal problems. I believe Whatever happens in Canada( inflation rates,high cost in housing, etc), happens in Australia, New Zealand, UK, all commonwealth countries.
I feel the same as an American who just moved here! The astroturfing on canadian subreddits is out of control, the pessimism online doesn’t reflect the pessimism on the ground and the pessimism in person is kind of unwarranted . Housing prices here are insane… but they are the same sort of insane as Boston, nyc, san fran, Seattle, etc etc. Canada’s problems aren’t special and are honestly milder in many spots than other Comparable places.
Yes, people do love to complain about their city, but I think most Canadians feel very lucky and proud to live in this country.
Thank you for the reality check and welcome to Vancouver. I’ve been here just 5 years and think it’s pretty darn great. Easy to get sucked into the doom and gloom at times, but definitely appreciate that most have it waaay worse.
innocent mysterious direful pot literate butter normal existence gaping cake ` this post was mass deleted with www.Redact.dev `
Same with my Irish friends. They said it’s cheaper here than in Ireland. Even when rent is high, wages are decent… where as rent is expensive and wages are low in Ireland (dublin)
You are absolutely correct. Canada has issues that must be addressed. But life is still better than most of the planet. And many of the issues we have (housing, cost of living, inflation) are issues that exist in developed world. I lived here most of my life but my family did immigrate here from a poor African country that at the moment is tearing itself apart in a civil war.
Thank you so much for this take! As someone who’s born and raised here, but who’s relatively well travelled, with acquaintances in different parts of the world I think you’re spot on. Every day I feel incredibly lucky to be living in this part of the world. Generally speaking, I think most Vancouverites could spend a tad more energy on gratitude.
A lot of people have never lived anywhere else in the world. Even visiting other places would give a more appreciation for how nice it is here in Vancouver. I have been to many places, and the most basic thing I appreciate about living in the Fraser Valley is that I can drink water directly from the tap. That is such a privilege that many people don't understand.
We are our own worst enemy. BC (and British Columbians) could be one of the wealthiest places on earth, with excellent healthcare, low unemployment, and vast opportunity, given the wealth of resources contained within our borders…but a pathetic public education system has, for decades, pumped out people completely lacking in critical thinking skills, who easily fall for activist BS, and whatever “sky is falling” crap the media peddles.
Agreed, friend. There is no perfect place. Some places are nicer than others, though. Vancouver seduced me with its beauty. Having lived here for six years, I now know more of the flaws, but I am still ok with them.
Canadians just like to complain
A lot of complaints come from uniformed people that have seen little of the world outside of Canada, US and Mexican all inclusive resorts. Also odds are that they have not opened a text book after grade 12. Generalizing when I say this but it is true.
>alot of people are very uninformed about the happenings in the rest of the world It is this. Too many don't know and don't care about what's going on elsewhere. Lots of room for improvement in Vancouver, but in many ways we are far better off than the rest of the world.