Of course it is. I don't even know where to begin, but there are very few other places I would ever live. Period.

If you have never been here, even for a short visit, than you can not know:
- Running along Spanish banks beach in shorts and t-shirts, while the North Shore mountains show off their fresh snow... where you will ski/board later this evening...unless you decide to drive up to Whistler - arguably one of the BEST places to ride in NA.
- The best Chinese food outside of China and more sushi restaurants than coffee shops - and we LOVE our coffee.
- 1 hr drive to pristine wilderness, where you can get lost and eaten by bears if you're not careful.
- Fly fishing for steelhead (think: rainbow trout the size of big-ass salmon) on the Elaho River in January.
- Great schools.
- Liberal environs, very inclusive of all walks of life.
- Pretty good transit - still needs work in a couple areas.
- Lots of good jobs in all sorts of fields.
- 2010 Winter olympics and paralympics!

Some major CONs:
- Poorest postal code in Canada (DT Eastside)
- Same postal code area has 95% HepC and 75% HIV infection rate
- Same postal code area has 75% intravenous drug use
- Cost of living is insane - An east van small Old-timer bungalow hit $500K today.


Love it. Everytime I come home from a biz trip and I see the NS mountains, I nearly cry.

---

------------------------
"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS

Well, I don't live in Vancouver but I have been there and I would certainly agree that it is a wonderful city and area. I myself prefer warmer weather and no rain (or as little as possible) so I live in San Diego, but whatever strokes you in the right place ;-).

Vancouver strikes me as quite a culturally diverse area and that always seems to make a city well rounded. Just look at SF, LA, or New York. They are all melting pots and have great culturally diverse activities, attractions, and museums.

I'm a former Vancouverite, does my opinion count? Well, I won't wait for an answer.

Vancouver is a great city to live in, during the summer. Winters were really getting to me (not a native Vancouverite, so maybe that was part of it). Cost of living, especially rent/mortgage, is extremely high (Vancouver is something like the third most expensive city in North America). Traffic was steadily getting worse over the years of living there, but I biked, so didn't notice the traffic jams as much. The last two are fallouts from being a desirable place to live.

I do miss being able to literally go mountain biking, kayaking, road biking, skiing, etc. outside of my back door (I lived in North Van.).

Chris

---

--
"I do not hurt on the bike, I punish."

I agree - I've only been there once, but it was great. I really liked Vancouver a lot. Of course the same article has Cleveland and Pittsburg as the most liveable U.S. Cities - give me a break. No offense meant (especially since I grew up in NE Ohio), but most liveable in the U.S. - hardly.

---

____________________________________
Fatigue is biochemical, not biomechanical.
- Andrew Coggan, PhD

I hear the smoke is good in BC...

from the article:
"Cleveland and Pittsburgh had the highest American scores"

HUH????

I agree... however I don't know why Victoria isn't up there in the list.. I guess because of the job climate?

I live in Calgary now and wonder why the hell anyone would live here... and yearn to be near Vancouver/Victoria one day... why is Calgary on the list ?? Cuz we have oil? It's a great place to make money (not for me unfortunately) but it's a sucky place to actually live.



Trev

---

Trev Williams
http://www.thedoctrine.ca

Agreed a beautiful place. I spent two weeks on the island (Victoria, Tofino, etc) and in Gulf Islands on honeymoon. Returned via ferry to Vancouver and one hour after arriving my jeep was broken into and all valuables (including camera with all pix) taken. It was in some shopping area called gaslight or gaslamp or something like that. For some reason whenever I think of Vancouver I think of that lone bad incident in an otherwise great trip.

Gastown? Yeah, about 1 block away from the DT Eastside (poor drug and diseased postal code area). Sorry to hear it but not surprised.

---

------------------------
"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS

What the article doesn't say (which they wouldn't know) is that Vancouver has one of the Best Triathlon and Running communities in North America. UBC tri in March gets 3,500 or so athletes...tons of events all year long regardless of weather. Sun Run 54,000. North Shore Tri Club, Pacific Spirit, Tri BC and ITU headquarters...Not to mention Victoria is a ferry boat ride with the National Triathlon Training Center...very cool sports town. And other than San Francisco...one of the very best eating towns. It would take 3 or 4 years to get to all the great international eateries.

I am grateful that I had the opportunity to live there for 10 years( '91 - '01). Indeed, it is a very special place. Not sure if it was sustainable for me. Real-estate was insane, but I missed the boat on that. Should have suffered and got in the game in early 90's. The other weird thing I found was no rec-propoerty like we have in Ontario - you know semi wildernss areas that you can drive to a few hours and have a cabin and feel like you are getting away from it all. Gulf Islands are out - over the top $$$$ and transportation hassles with the ferries. I don't consider Whistler - getting away from it - it's busier than Vancouver. Where else - the Cariboo or the Okanagon both 6 hours plus drive.

I did not mind the rain, but people do need to know that it can rain almost every day from early November through until March!! It is kinda neat to know that in January there is this tiny little patch of all of Canada in the Lower Mainland that is not under 2 feet of snow and suffering through -20C weather!

Traffic - all big cities in North America have terrible traffic, but Vancouver - that's just ridiculous. It's a good thing that I walked, biked or bused around when I was there. Driving a car would have sent me around the bend.

Government - Unfortunately during my time there the province was being run by the biggest bunch of buffoons that I have ever seen. Things are a bit better now that I am told, but it does say something when a city like Vancouver, as cool as it is and as great a place as it is, has so few corporate offices.

I travelled quite a bit for work when I lived there and I to also enjoyed "coming home" to Vancouver when I had been away. Indeed, those North Shore Mountains looked pretty nice . . if you can see them through the clouds and the fog!

Fleck

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

You could always pick out the tourists in Gastown, they were wandering towards the downtown eastside without knowing any better. Seriously, you don't think of this tourist area being right next to a serious crime infested area, but it is. They needed a sign warning people or something!

The Gastown Criterium was fun to watch. Glad they brought it back, as some big names won it in the past. Did it run again this year?

Chris

---

--
"I do not hurt on the bike, I punish."

Yep, great place. I'm from Seattle, and traveled to Vancouver several times. Very cool vibe up there, much like Seattle. If I'm not mistaken, Victoria is in a rain shadow, and thus gets significantly less than Vancouver. That's the place to live, in my opinion.

I was there once to talk at a conference, and I stayed in a UBC dorm. Mountains and water, both from my window. Can't beat that.

-Colin (hoping to get back west as soon as possible)

---

------------------------------------------------------------
Any run that doesn't include pooping in someone's front yard is a win.

More Vancouver negatives - highest B & E rate in Canada. It's straight forward - people need money for drugs, so they resort to petty crime. The only place that I have even been broken into was the time I lived in Vancouver. House was broken into twice and the car stolen once in 10 years. Compare to living in Toronto for the other 35 years of my life and this has never happened.

Fleck

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

that is a deal breaker right there for me. Beautiful place but that is way too much clouds and rain

I know that there are folks who NEED to see the sun for sustained periods of time. If that's the case, Vancouver in the winter may be a bit of a challenge. Never bothered me.

Fleck

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Coming from Southern England, the property prices seem reasonable to me (a 2 bed flat on the coast where I am cost $500k cdn 3 years ago and 8 miles from here a 4 bed house can go for $4 million cdn). But here it rains less than 1/2 as much as in Vancouver and the temperatures are similar for 9 months of the year. The rain seems to be the major downer for me. I have the sea to swim in, trails to run and forest and hills to ride, but no mountains.

That said I do like Victoria, for the lack of rain, not too sure what the sea swimming is like though.

---

"How bad can it be?" - SimpleS

Get a job.

---

Kyle Marcotte
Team Timex Multisport
http://teamtimex.timexblogs.com/ - http://calgarytriandbike.blogspot.com/ - http://twitter.com/dukyle/

Only theft I have ever had was in Kelowna (lived there for 3 years in early 90's). But never had any theft in Vancouver. Been here 30 years.

---

------------------------
"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS

Poor luck on my part then. Thankfully when they did break in, both times the bozos left all the sports gear( thousands of dollars worth of bikes, wheels, xc-skis and other gear) and took the usual - the computor, the CD's, the TV and the stereo. I guess they were entertainment deprived!! No, I know those are the things that they can pawn fastest and easiest for cash to buy more drugs and round and round the cycle goes!

Fleck

---

---

Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Visitors seem to get hit waaaaaay more often than the locals. And if you have ever walked or driven through the DT eastside and seen the human misery there, it makes one sad to see that such conditions could exist in a country like Canada. Truly sad situation.

---

------------------------
"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS

The only thing that really bothered me is that this was at the end of our honeymoon and all our photos were lost. They also got a case of very good California wine (how they carried all that stuff is beyond me). I imagined the bums on the street drinking a nice Alexander Valley Cabernet out of a dirty plastic cup...hope they enjoyed it.

Bastards. Yeah they'll often take wierd shit, that has no real $ value. Maybe next time you come visit, I can take you down there and we can steal shit out of their shopping carts (ha!)

---

------------------------
"How bad could it be?" - SimpleS

Out of curiosity, can I ask where else you've lived? I run into very few people who don't think Calgary is one of the best places to live. It's not without it's share of problems but all are fairly manageable.

Personally, I've lived in Ottawa, Waterloo, Toronto, Edmonton & Sudbury. Of those choices, the only ones I'd ever give any thought to living permanently are Calgary & Ottawa. There are no jobs for me in Ottawa, so Calgary it is. Vancouver is nice, but from what I understand real estate is prohibitively expensive, especially for young, single people like me.