In East Van you don't have to deal with C-lais drivings their CRV's going into the opposite lane, takes 20misn to park their in a mall. However, in richmond you get all the cheap night snack places to go to, close to the casnio.

Up to you

I have never seen a c-lai driving in opposite lane in Richmond all my life...but I have seen plenty truck driving rednecks tail-gating and road raging all over gvrd...I rather have slow drivers over dangerous drivers anyday.

OP, I never thought of my future children at all. That makes a large difference.
I agree that schools in richmond will be less likely to send your kids in the wrong direction.
In Vancouver there are too many schools with gangsters and with actual siblings of real gangsters... so this may influence some
If I would have to chose a school for my children, it would be either churchill, magee, point grey. This is based soley on reputation so ymmv...
In regards to Killarney, DT, Brit, Van Tech, etc.. I know there are a lot of dangerous people in these schools.

Well, the infrastructure they build is never thought through. either their roads or transit system.
And according to Macleans, based on the contributions of the city government. this is independent of quality of life.

Burnaby is no. 1, surrey is no. 3, Vancouver is no 4. <-- this is in ALL of Canada
But, then again Richmond is no. 14 on this list... So that's pretty good.
In comparison to the other cities in the GVR it is definitely not top 3 run at all.

and personal bias as well.

Lots of Filipinos are moving into the Guildford area of Surrey. My complex has seen four filipino families move in in the last three months.

The commute to a west-side school really isn't bad from anywhere in East Van. I did it for high school and now I commute to UBC (I live at Marine and Boundary-ish). It's even easier if you live close to 49th or 41st (which I don't).

thanks guys. :) wife and i drove around today in east van in the downpour to check out the different neighbourhoods. not an accurate picture i suppose since any bums wouldn't have been out and about. :p

saw some nice neighbourhoods... went to a few open houses... some of the houses had pretty weird layouts. we'll be driving around richmond next weekend to show the wife the different richmond neighbourhoods...

east van. i live in richmond, and im chinese and i still hate it. lived there for like... 11 years now and now i live on the other side of the tunnel but i drive to richmond everyday to work/see my parents etc. and i don't miss this place one bit. i live in tsawassen of all places and all i have to deal with is skater bums not using cross walks. i don't have to worry about getting t-boned by a c-lai in a sienna or a cayenne either!

There are way more Gang members in Richmond schools than there are in East Van schools. And there's kids whos parents are gang members in West Van schools too.

slow driving doesnt necessarily equate to safe driving.
drifting into other lanes, not shoulder checking, being the 2nd, 3rd, 4th car that turns left on a yellow (and red), are not safe practices. i could go on..

fililpinos living in guildford is not a new thing... johnston heights, guildford park, north surrey..... have all had lots of filipino kids for quite a while now.

East Van if you work in Vancouver, it's so much better commuting over no bridges during rush hour

richmond sucks.

-knight st bridge is always bottle necked.
-too many cop cars at night.
-too strict with VI's.
-lots of red light runners.
-lots of high risk accident traffic areas
-no good drinking area night hot spots
-no good clubs
-most hot chicks are under 5 feet tall
-too many annoying N drivers with luxury cars
-theres only one gas station opened 24hrs
-no strip clubs
-no swimmable beaches or lakes
-no 24 hr gym
-riverport silvercity is always busy- no seats
-mall food court food sucks
-planes near airport is too loud
-no place to cheer when canucks win

TBH, there are gangsters in every school, you just gotta set your kid straight and make sure he doesnt f**k around too much.

I was adding to cressydrift's post, but I suppose 10 years makes a difference. I used to live near JH, and moved to the GP area in 1998 (I was going into 2nd grade). Up until 2005, I never really noticed THAT many Filipinos in the neighborhood when I remember back to it, and now the feeder schools are taking in more ESL students. Even GP was predominantly white/brown when I started grade 8 in 05. Now it seems more balanced out culturally but there are a lot more Filipino kids in the school (including myself, even though I can't speak tagalog for shit), than there were five years ago, plus a lot more ESL students from the Middle East coming in this year.

i didn`t go to richmond schools so i can`t really comment on that..
but, i think we can all agree that if op sent his children to a west side school the influence of gang related friends would be less than both of east van and richmond..

Really? Did you go to school in Richmond? I can guarantee there are little to no gang members in the high schools here. The only "gang members" here are the losers who love Ed Hardy and True Religions and they pose very little threat to anybody.

that reminds me of a joke.
what's the number 1 car driven in richmond?...


















































...the courtesy car

if you call a bunch of grade 8s and 9s standing around parker place smoking gansters than yup we have them thugs in richmond

competence is not brought about by sheltering

also if you're thinking about your kid's future past highschool. it's gonna be easier to get to sfu, ubc, langara, vcc, capilano, etc. by commuting or driving in east van.

whereas, with richmond only kwantlen is convenient.

I've lived on #5/Williams in Richmond my entire life and find the location great for commuting - very easy highway 99/Knight+Oak street bridge access. In non-rush hour it takes just over 20 mins to get to downtown, and 25 to UBC.

It's a great place to grow up in - good schools, extra-curricular activites, family activities...tonnnnes of places to eat!

I've noticed that the house prices in the more eastern parts of Richmond tend to be a bit lower.

Fraserview if you can afford it. this would be south of 49th to Marine Drive, west of Kerr to Knight.

you are practically 30 mins within everything.
everything i mean
20mins from ubc
25mins from sfu
15mins from DT
10mins from richmond
40mins from skiing
less than 5 from good highschools (david thompson and killnary)

do you really want your kids to grow up in richmond and hang around with jeffield, morganjai, and guccimane?

although this area is going a little downhill because kids are getting dumber in david thompson and thr hobos from kingsway are moving south.
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First thing I would take into consideration is the high school nearby cause you will probably raise your kids in the neighbourhood you move into. If you're looking at eastvan there's no real bad school since the schools are as diverse as the neighbourhood themselves (personally I would stay away from van tech and brit)

I've never lived in richmond but I can see the benefits of living there: it's quiet, crime seems to be lower, lots are bigger, schools are more mellow, if you want to drive everywhere you can.
but i chose not to live there because: i don't want to drive everywhere, i don't need a big place, too far from my favourite places, there's no personality in a suburban neighbourhood.

The thing about east-van is that every part is a mixed bag of everything. One block might be the nicest city block on the eastside and you can walk two blocks down and it can be an absolute dump. That being said, crime isn't that bad, it's more fear than anything, if you consider how densely populated east van is the rate isn't that high.

east van,

rather have your kid grow up a gangster than a nerd.. nerd life sucks trust me

you won't find bums here (except for maybe broadway skytrain) like you will downtown

East Van is mainly working class families who deal with working class issues. It's not rich, but it's not poor enough to fuck kids up. A mixed bag is the right way to describe it. Some families struggle, some not so much. Some places might be rough around the edges. But it's the inner city covering a big area so that's the way it is.

If anything, your kid will grow up less ignorant. But you should find the right fit where you can be good parents cuz Richmond will have its own flavor of good and bad.

i live in richmond and would also agree that it's based on preference.

Though East Van is a huge area, on the whole, i would argue that it has a more downtown-like feel to it than richmond. More concrete, older houses, bigger roads, etc. Richmond on the other hand i would say has a newer, more residential feel to it - more greenery/vegetation and good malls/food within 10 minutes no matter where you are.

So if you're basing it off lifestyle, i guess go with what works better. If you wanna settle down, I think Richmond would be nice - grocery shopping, entertainment, good food and everything else you need within close, easy driving distance with less than ten numbered roads in the whole city. On the other hand, if you frequently like to go eat/drink/club downtown, shop at metrotown, beach it up kits etc. etc., then maybe east van is the better choice, as it seems to be close to everything!

If you're basing it off transportation, i think both are fairly good now with the skytrain in place. Both are also easily driveable (c-lais aside).

If you're basing it off the living conditions itself, i suppose east van is known to be more problem-prone, but i guess that's just the ghetto area of east van. On the whole though, i would argue that richmond "feels" safer, perhaps just by the way the neighbourhoods are arranged, the amount of greenery etc. This is totally my opinion though. In terms of the quality of houses, a lot of richmond's housing seems to have a newer feel. As for house prices, I wouldn't be able to tell u...