The truth about Vancouver
 

Friendly Canadians and Vancouverites are a myth. I now live in the US after 30 years in BC and the people here are so much better. When I lived in vancouver there wasn't a day that goes by about how unfriendly the people are it's in the media constantly. the standoffish nature of BC is astounding. Vancouver is literally the most alienating city I've ever experienced, plus the scenery is not as great as it's supposed reputation.

If you're skilled worker Vancouver is where you DON'T go for work. It's good for ski vacation and that's it, then you go back to a real city and get a real job. Never have I seen as huge a discrepency between what a city is like and how it's marketed.

There were days honest to god, I was going to commit suicide if I was trapped in vancouver any longer. I would have jumped off the Granville street bridge. I have lived in 7 cities, Vancouver is literally the worst.

Anyone that I know that is successful has left that town long ago and like me they are WAY happier, the only people remain are the naive underachievers that are afraid of the big bad world so they hide behind mommy's skirt doing nothing with their lives

I cashed out my 750k mortgage free condo to some foreigner and never looked back.

Vancouver is not worth it. Vancouver is a bland overpriced sham with limited career options.

Vancouver is antisocial. It's non debatable. The culture is hockey and marijauna and the NDP and non talking to others and avoiding eye contact. It's where underachievers go.

That's the real truth.




From
http://www.city-data.com/forum/vanco...-my-story.html

It seems its turning that way. Where the rich don't work, and the common folk can't afford the housing. I can't imagine a culture 20 years from now where people in their early 20's like myself currently can't afford a home in the future.

sorry but most of your posting was being rather condescending to everyone here... at first i was expecting someone who just found it good in another city and was thinking "oh good for you"

but then by the end of the post it just seemed like someone who was butt hurt over living in vancouver because they were unpopular and unable to get ahead and now just wants to bitch at the city where they lived.... and its kind of like :seriously:


as for being anti-social i think thats more of an issue with the age of living through your mobile/computer that is noticeable globally and not something specific to vancouver but it really doesnt seem like a problem

I thought you were banned.

Vancouver does suck, it's true.

:rolleyes: The points are more or less true. Though the end of the post was unnecessary...

He mad bro. Don't blame him though. I only moved back because of family and friends, I don't work in BC though.

its this shit ass weather
granted its beautiful here for a couple months
other than that its terrible

strong S.A.D. effect

and now you link the original topic/forum that this is from.... ??? and its not even the op it was just some random posting where everyone disagreed with him

and the person you quoted? (is it you?) has been unemployed for over a year in the utopia he found abroad.... lol
http://www.city-data.com/forum/22933339-post37.html

:fulloffuck: niu-troll

Vancouver has no big employers. No shit. Why did it take this guy 30 years to figure this out? If he wanted to achieve something big with his career without starting his own business, maybe the joke's on him.

its the weather that sucks

Where did you move out to?

lol if I have a chance im moving to HK or shanghai. maybe taipei.

vancouver does suck.

well, it has its good points. i mean 3-6 months a year in the summer is nice to come back here and chill out and do nothing, and literally chill the fuck out.

but thats about it.

Well, I moved here from Alberta about 4 years ago... This is how I see it:

- Awesome weather compared to most of Canada, you think the weather sucks here.. check out the prairies. Sure the rain is pretty gay at times, but when you consider it can be +10 and rainy here.. and in Alberta the very same day in Januray it's -30 and snowing... not sure that the rain really is that bad.

- Scenery, yest it's true, there is a lot of natural beauty, but only if you live in coastal Vanocuver, North Van (IMO), or West Van, the majority of Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Langley, POCO, is IMO not very attractive... I would even say the houses lack character and they seem to be run down in many areas.

- Location, it's close to the US border and as such there is some super cheap flights to Cali and a short drive to WA, honorable menton for the short flight to Hawaii or Asia. On the flip side if you fly to Eastern Canada or USA on a regular basis, the eastbound flight can basically rob you of an entire day due to the flight duration and timezones.

- Jobs, or the most part are not bad and have comparable pay to the rest of Canada, luckily people here are stupid enough to take out 40 year mortgages at teaser rates on speculation of a never ending appreciating market and have basically made housing unafordable for the majority of the population. So the pay may seem low, but in fact it is failry consistent with the rest of Canada.. it's the cost of living that sucks.

- Work ethic, people here work less, and less hard. Living in an apartment in Edmonton, i would go down to the underground parking and it would basically clear out everyday between 6-7:30am and they wouldn't return until 5-6pm... here in BC, the underground parking remains full until about 10am and the cars are all back by 4-5pm... many of the people I know here hate working, bitch about it non stop, and work as little as possible.. where as in other parts of Canada, people love their jobs, and work extra all the time.

- Housing, 100% retarded, why I didn't buy a house here. Young people in this city signing up for mortgages, or even paying the high rental rates are making a mistake, you would be better off moving to one of Canada's "Less desirable" city's where the pay is high in contrast to the cost of living. There you can land a great job to build experience, the sort of job/position you would likely not be able to get in the lower mainland due to a more competitive job market compared to some of these cities. Pay off your "small" mortgage in a hurry (And likely in an appreciating market as it will be supported by fundementals, though Canada as a whole right now is overpriced in terms of housing.) and wind up years ahead of anyone who stayed in Vancouver to work in a lesser position (due to a more competitive job market) and burned all their income up on interest payments to bank or high rental rates to a landlord on his property that is also probably costing the landlord money every month cause he is probably carrying a huge mortgage on the place lol. You will have more opportunity to "climb the ladder" in less competitive cities, so start off there, and return to Van once you have established yourself career wise and financially if you're so inclined.

- Traffic, it's similar to other major Canadian citites, if I had to sit in it everyday i would probably blow my brains out... or change my work/home location to avoid the traffic.

- Taxes, provincial income tax rates are lower than many other provinces until you get waaay up there in the tax brackets, PST sucks, you immediately pay a 7% premium to live in BC compared to Alberta... just saying.

- Insurance, ICBC is expensive compared to the prairies, my insurance basically doubled here even with my perfect history and record, it's not until you hit Ontario that things get expensive again.

- Politics, this is all a matter of opinion, I have met a lot of people in BC that I would consider socialists... not interested in debating this, just saying that a lot of people here (in contrast with Alberta) seem like the cry baby-outreach type that have no idea about economics, all they care about is hugging trees and feeding junkies. (Disclaimer, I am a greedy capitalist and loyal follower of Mr. Harper in all his conservative goodness) So when people here cry for more services and hand outs, all I see is us dumping more debt on future generations... and I see that as a bigger problem than crack heads having to share their crack pipes.

- People, um... they seem like "good people" to me, whatever that means? lol I do think that some people in Van (especially the ones who havent "got out much") can easily come off as snobs... but maybe thats just my perception. Women are hotter, and sluttier in the prairies, I'm not joking.. but hey, maybe you're not into hot sluts, maybe your taste in women is a little more "meat and potatoes". Guys here seem pretty cool, haven't slept with any of them yet so not sure how slutty they are... maybe someone else can chime in on that? lol

That's it, nothing more than my opinion and observations, I live here so that's saying something isn't it lol. But I don't work in BC, and if I had to I would probably move, and with that statement I am strongly considering a move to the US in the near future since I travel for work and can basically settle where I please. The only other options for me in Canada is the interior but the logistics are a PITA, Calgary but the weather is shit in winter, or possibly GTA... though I haven't spent enough time there to really know if this would be a good idea.

Mehhh, it's Canada, it's geographically nature leads to a shitty climate no matter what province you call home, what can you do?

And if you think that people in BC work less becuse they are smart enough to take the time to enjoy their lives, I agree.. but you could work even less in cities where the avergage home doesn't cost 10x median household income.

EDIT: Just wanted to say I was forced to use the prairies for most of this as a means of comparison as that is where I have spent the majority of my life, I have lived in Alberta, BC, NWT, SK, MB, PEI, and have spent time all over Canada and the USA working or visiting family.

I'm a huge slut

it was at all like this.. and you should know well since you been in Vancouver for 30 years..

only within the 5 years or so, its taking a turn for the worse but a lot of other countries are facing this crisis...

Why are you guys replying to the OP as if he wrote the article? Isn't it obvious he copy and pasted it with a link from another site?

Sounds good enough to me.

Regarding the weather, compared to the rest of the country, yes we do have "better weather"
compared to places like california, our weather is fucking GARBAGE. for a place thats ranked with the most expensive property prices in north america, you would expect it to be sunny 9 months out of the year, not rain. we got maybe 1 and a half months of decent summer last year, all of july was RAIN. on a side note, ive been fairly happy with the weather for the first half of april.

Second point, we have a ridiculous highway and road system. Traffic jams in a city with this size population, :seriously:
vancouver has a relatively small population compared to other major cities, and the idiots that plan infrastructure (past & present) here have the brain capacity of an autistic toddler. theyre FINALLY expanding highway 1, but you really think the expansions theyre doing now are gonna be relevant in 10 years? nope.
theres not even a main highway that gets you to downtown.

our taxes are as close to rape as taxes can get as well.

the thing i find most annoying about people in this city with money is, majority of them got it from mom and dad, which is fine because i would be nowhere without my parents support and help... but i HATE when these self indulgent wieners flaunt like theyre self made. you got money, thats nice, be humble about it.

if it wasnt for the fact that i have a crazy big family and large group of friends i would leave. infact im still considering heading down to norcal. nice thing about a career in aviation is i have the luxury to fly home pretty much for free whenever i want, which makes leaving for somewhere warm very appealing to me personally.
i could go on but ill stop... my main point, beautiful city? yes.
deserving to be the most expensive city in canada, yeah probably... but in north america? :fuckthatshit:

Where did the OP move to?

Whinerville

"The culture is hockey and marijauna" - Whats up Vansterdam!

is a highway really necessary in downtown? when i went to seattle for the first time, i was surprised on how their downtown was so different compared to ours. Thoughts?

having no freeway to downtown was a frequent complaint i hear from US visitors
i kind of like that we dont have one going to downtown...it'll just make it look ugly.

not necessary IN downtown, but something closer to downtown coming from the east to bypass all the lights on 1st ave and have on/off ramps into downtown and then heading south to bypass granville and oak connecting to 99 and to get people to the airport. you really like being in stop and go traffic on oak on a fucking SUNDAY AFTERNOON?

im no city planner and i know a majority of tree huggers would hate this and alot of people are opposed to a highway through the city, but had it been done 50 - 60 years ago they could have easily designed a simple 4 lane non stop highway, planned communities around it and planned it for noise abatement/not to look so ugly and all the necessary stuff needed to deal with a highway in a populated area.
not to mention the millions of small details im over looking, but this is just my take on things.

obviously way too late now and were permanently fucked for traffic. couple a decent highway in with the skytrain that does a decent job of bringing people working downtown into the core, congestion wouldnt be as bad.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...19/highway.png