Before you can really nail down what Vancouver is like, you have to remember it's a frontier port city. It's where it is for a reason, and I read that it exports more goods than any other port in North America. And there are a bunch of big industrial port facilities like the one above visible across the waterfront: timber, minerals, petroleum are headed to the far east from here. And don't just stop at industrial goods, people too are being passed through the airports and cruise ports, and citizenship offices in Vancouver too.
So as a frontier port, it has had its share of speculation. Whistler is a purpose built real estate venture like I've never seen before. I kept seeing Disneyland when I walked the main shopping district at the base of the slopes.
And Vancouver seems to have a spectulative apartment boom as well. There are blocks after blocks of just-finished apartment buildings all over downtown. I mean all over.
It's all leading from Expo '86 to the 2010 Olympics. Boomtowns never learn.
All that being said, it's a hell of a nice town. With downtown and west Vancouver and east Vancouver, I see a lot of the same relationships that connect Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. And like New York, it's highly walkable. My recommendation, buy that extra condo in Summer 2012, when you can pick it up for a steal.
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