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I live just outside Vancouver, so if anyone has any questions on how much Vancouver sucks, I can help. The answer to all questions about Vancouver is "it sucks".
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Jun 4, 2017 14:53
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 14:27 |
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Earwicker posted:ok I'll bite, I've only visited the city briefly a few times but I found it by far the most enjoyable city in Canada, really beautiful, lots of good food, good weed, amazing mountains all around, the people seemed nice, only bad thing was the prices everywhere. Why does it suck? It's amazing for tourists and visitors, living here is a nightmare. It's one the of the most expensive places to live in the world. And I don't just mean Vancouver proper, you have to get about 2-3 hours outside of Vancouver before prices become not completely insane (but still crazy). Daily costs of living are crazy high too, since taxes are always high, goods and services cost a ton since everything in Canada costs more because of import fees, tariffs, and our lovely dollar. Traffic is poo poo, and only getting worse since more people keep moving here, and yet the entire region is trying to force a "less cars" style of urban development, but the public isn't buying it so you get more and more cars with less and less room to drive. Health care is free, but "you get what you pay for". I work in health care too, and it's pretty drat dire since I get to see the behind the scenes of it all. Homelessness is really bad in Vancouver proper, and only getting worse. The city had the gall to say they were going to eliminate homelessness by 2016 or something equally ridiculous, and when the date came, there were more homeless than ever. Everyone knew this was going to happen, but city hall in Vancouver is run by the most moronic cadre of hard-left dreamers you'll find on the continent. The mayors nickname is "Mayor Moonbeam" fer christ sakes. I'm kind of stuck between a rock and hard place. I'm already a homeowner, and I make decent money, so it would be hard to give that up. I could move elsewhere in Canada, but the nice areas are almost as expensive, and the cheap areas are crap with bad job prospects. If I was young though and just getting of school and entering the job market, I would be out of here so fast. EDIT: And you know, it's not all that great for tourists as well. My sister used to work for the terminal where the cruise ships let off, and the number one piece of feedback from travelers coming back to their ships was along the lines of ".... Vancouver was boring and a waste of time." The first thing tourists are funneled into in Vancouver is Gastown. Historic Gastown! Where it's 1% history and 99% shops selling gift bottles of maple syrup, canadian flags, and knockoff native art. Bloody Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Jun 4, 2017 |
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Jun 4, 2017 15:31
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Earwicker posted:Why is it so expensive there, like where do most people there make so much money? That's the thing, people aren't making much money. Vancouver has a real problem with overseas investors buying huge swaths of property, driving up prices. Vancouver is also a haven for overseas money, mostly from China. If you're rich and in China, the safest place to store your money is Vancouver. It's got so bad that the city instituted a tax on home purchasers by foreign buyers, but now the city is rethinking that because of cries of racism. Unless something radically changes, Vancouver proper is literally going to become a city for only the rich. There are already backlashes from regular business who are having issues finding staff for low paying jobs, because there's no one around who can take a low-paying job and live in the city. gently caress, property in Vancouver is so expensive that there is literally one single gas station left in the downtown area. All the others either couldn't pay their property taxes, or saw dollar signs from condo developers who wanted their property. But Vancouver City Hall is mostly inept and powerless, so the current Mayor and his neo-hippy cabinet aren't going to solve anything. Their only answer to anything that comes up are limp-wristed half measures that solve nothing, and if ever an issue gets too big, they bitch that it should be the provinces responsibility to take care of it. This was most recently scene where Vancouver wanted to crack down on drugs, but now that the Fentanyl crisis has gone wildly out of control, the Mayor is constantly distancing himself from the issue and blaming the provincial government for not tackling the issue. People are so fed up with politics in this province that the recent provincial elections were a total gently caress up. 60% turnout, and neither party got enough votes to actually form a majority government. The eternally lame-duck Greens partnered up with the NDP and are saying they are the new coalition government, but the Liberals are all "Nuh-uh, were the government." So we may get some slap-fight grasping for power, the lieutenant governor might declare one party the actual government and tell the other to sit down and shut up, or maybe even another election.
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Jun 4, 2017 16:34
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Kritzkrieg Kop posted:OK everyone likes to say their city/town has the worst drivers.....OBJECTIVELY who really has the worst drivers? And where is it actually the worst place to drive in? I haven't been to every province, but Quebec drivers were the only ones where I was actually scared to be in the car. It was a combo of bad, dangerous driving, and Quebecs really lovely roads.
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Jun 5, 2017 20:20
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It's true that west of the rockies is just different, but really I think it boils down to being the least "Canadian" part of the country. People here aren't all that "rah rah Canada" to begin with, and most of the Canadian stereotypes and mannerisms don't really have a foothold here, at least compared to east of the Rockies. I swear, the US could annex BC, and there would be an uproar for about a week, and then everyone would be fine with it once they got their hands on some decent currency for once. There's very little that ties the hearts and minds of the average British Columbian to the rest of Canada.
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Jun 7, 2017 08:13
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There will be big parties and celebrations and stuff, but on a general national level, it's mostly "Huh, 150? 150 what?" People will use it more as an excuse to party than to celebrate some historical milestone. And again, on a general national level, people don't really care about any negative sentiment about it because of treatment of natives. I honestly feel that native sentiment has gotten worse over time in this country. 30 years ago at worst it was a non-issue because no one thought about it, now people hear and see it more, but people are all "Oh, you had it tough? That sucks. How's your free everything treating you these days? Suck it up, buttercup." It only looks progressive on the surface because politicians are handing out apologies like candy, and various studies and inquiries are constantly going on into those issues. The general populace wears their forced smiles and tolerance hats, but won't hesitate to bitch about native canadians in private company. That's probably the blackest mark on this country right now, that people still generally don't give a poo poo about native rights, and are actively not trying to get any better about it either.
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Jun 13, 2017 21:28
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Native identity is a weird thing too, especially in BC. Whenever a large event or new building is built, there are native images and symbols everywhere. It certainly looks nice, and it honors the native ancestry of Canada, but the general populace feels weird about it because it doesn't represent them in any way. I'm sure people remember the Vancouver Olympics, and native art was everywhere. But for the average joe, the vast majority of which have probably never even met a native canadian or interacted with one in any way, they have to wonder why the provincial identity is so intertwined with a people they don't know anything about and often feel no kinship with. It would be sort of like the UK using a ton of Roman imagery in their national identity, or Russia using a ton of southeast asian art and imagery to represent themselves. People do generally love pacific coast native art and imagery, but you combine that with the overall ambivalence to native canadians themselves, and you end up with this weird mish-mash of conflicting feelings about the native populations and a sort of "Well... what do we even do with them?" type of attitude.
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Jun 13, 2017 22:22
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Earwicker posted:thats kind of an absurd stretch considering that native Canadian populations still actually exist today whereas the Romans left Britain in the 5th century (and openly considered themselves invaders/colonizers in the first place) Those native populations do still exist, yes, but good look finding many Canadians who've ever actually met a native canadian in their entire lives. Native peoples REALLY keep to the reservations in Canada, and there are not many of them to begin with, so most people have never interacted with them at all.
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Jun 13, 2017 22:47
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impossiboobs posted:I live in Ontario and last census data I saw, 10% of my city's population put down First Nations as their race/heritage. Walk around town here and you'll see indigenous people everywhere. Hell, our post-secondary schools and municipal buildings often have trilingual signs. Well, it's good that you live in one the more integrated cities as far as native canadians go, but it's hardly the national experience. Indigenous peoples make up about 4% of the total canadian population. But that's not 4% living in cities, that's more like 2% living on a res, 1% who are mixed race heritage who may not even look aboriginal, and about 1% who live off res. So 1% of native populations distributed among only 35 million people in one of the largest countries in the world, then yeah, most people here have never really interacted with a native canadian ever, or maybe once in their lives in a very limited capacity. You certainly have a better chance in a major population center like Vancouver, but literally step one foot outside the border of Vancouver and you'll likely never see a native canadian.
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Jun 14, 2017 02:22
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Add to that the startlingly large number of corrupt band leaders that funnel the bands government funds to line their own pockets and those of friends and family members, it's no wonder so many bands are on the skids. They're getting hosed from outside and inside. There's a lot of infighting between bands behind the scenes as well, as poorer bands resent the more prosperous and successful bands, seeing them as having some sort of backroom dealings with the government, or some such other collusion that would explain their success. On the flipside, many of the more prosperous bands look down on the less successful ones, viewing them as shiftless or lazy, and bringing down the larger country-wide community as a whole, so it can be tough for native canadians to band together for their own greater good. Some of the most successful here in BC have done so obviously through land deals, extensive business development, and job creation, but largely I find they've transitioned their reservation from being a fenced area of land to just another part of the local city. Many res like Osoyoos Nation, or Westbank, you could drive right through without ever knowing you were on res land. They've made their res into a welcoming place for anyone to come and visit or work, and less like a "this is our land, go away" type of place.
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Jun 14, 2017 09:29
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GREAT WHITE NORTH posted:Greetings, my northern neighbors, from Alaska, the Great White North(west)! Your descriptions of the rural provinces remind me a lot of traveling through the road system of Alaska, which can become a seemingly endless range of black spruce, birch trees, and near-identical rivers, lakes, and streams. That said, I enjoyed everything about my motorcycle jaunts except having my wallet stolen in Dease Lake, BC. The rest of the trips were golden though. I've traveled through the Yukon, BC, and bits of Alberta on the way to the States, and I have a few questions: 1.) It happened in 1970, so you're probably not going to get any responses from anyone that was old enough to know a change was happening, let alone be alive at the time. 2.) Tim Hortons blows because the donuts used to be good, made fresh in-store. Now they're shipped out pre-made from factories. Plus they got rid of all the best-tasting flavors when they changed over to factory distribution, to cut costs and save time. Plus their coffee is mediocre, and the rest of the menu is bad to meh. Canadians who don't like it, and there are precious few, really hate it more than other chains because Tims is so loving desperate to ingratiate itself as part of the fabric of Canadian culture and society. And gently caress it, their stupid campaign works. I've met more than a few people that act like if you don't like Tims, you're practically a traitor. Related, I've met more than a few people here that straight up say YOU ARE a traitor if you don't like hockey. Like, chill out dumbasses. Maybe don't form you entire cultural identity over coffee and donuts and men hitting a puck around. 3.) Canada never shuts up about our "claim" to the arctic, but we have nothing to back that up with. The reason no one has made a serious challenge to our claim is because there simply wasn't a need to before now. The government can blather on all they want, but the US or Russia could stroll in and take it whenever they want and there's nothing we could do to stop it. 4.) Trudeau doesn't have a huge presence here. Weird to say since he's the Prime Minister, but there you go. Unlike Trump, Trudeau stays well, WELL out of the spotlight. You never really hear anything about him other than "Truedeau, pictured here, at X ceremony to celebrate Y event." Hell, you hear more about Trudeau from American media than you do Canadian. At worst, peeople say "Oh, he so young. Can his policies be good. And remember his father!". At best you get a generic "... yeah, I guess he's fine." response. 5.) Yep, been there. It's a historic site where native canadians used to heard buffalo off a cliff, to kill them en masse without the need to waste arrows or bullets, and was generally safer than charging into the middle of them to kill them one by one. The visitor center has a life-size diorama inside of buffalo leaping to their deaths. Windy as poo poo there too; I lost my favorite hat over the cliffside when it got blown off my head. It's fairly close to the Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum as well, so most people visiting that will go to the buffalo jump as well. Bloody Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 09:26 on Jun 30, 2017 |
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Jun 30, 2017 06:58
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quote is not edit.
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Jun 30, 2017 09:26
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GREAT WHITE NORTH posted:Also, I really want to visit that Bison Jump. You had me at "The visitor center has a life-size diorama inside of buffalo leaping to their deaths." That sounds as It's very cool, but still a little small. If you ever heading to that part of Alberta, go for the dinosaur museum, which is one of the best in the world, and make the buffalo jump a side trip.
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Jun 30, 2017 09:30
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as all get-out.
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:but if you grew up with a fondness for both goofy expensive lattes and awful gas station coffee/cocoa What a horrible way to grow up.
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Jul 6, 2017 08:55
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Baronjutter posted:I'm paying like $600 something in BC, finally hit the max discount. At $600 though it sounds like you have the absolute bare minimum insurance. Sucks to pay more, but you should up your coverage amount a bit, get collision and all that. Bare minimum coverage in BC doesn't cover much, and if something does happen, the bare minimum deductibles are pretty onerous.
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Jul 19, 2017 20:11
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The best thing to eat in Vancouver is the cost of moving to a better city.
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Dec 19, 2017 01:30
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PT6A posted:our tourism/discretionary money People stopped having that 20 years ago.
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Mar 6, 2018 21:16
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What's your price range for housing? Just asking, since if your considering Vancouver or it's outskirts, you'll have to pay house prices for a small condo, and mansion prices for a mediocre house. Even if you go out to Chilliwack, starter house prices are still going to be 300k+.
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Mar 7, 2018 18:08
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WhatEvil posted:Chilliwack was a total guess and just an example for proximity to Vancouver. Van and outskirts are under consideration but so are other places like Toronto. Chilliwack is about limit though you'd want to live if you want relatively sane travel times into Vancouver. Commute times in the lower mainland are really insane. You could be in Vancouver proper, and still be an hour away from another spot also within Vancouver. There are certain times of the day in certain areas where I just won't even bother going out, because a 5 minute trip has become an hour long trip due to rush hour traffic. Traffic only truly abates from about 10pm to 6am, anytime else is pretty jam packed, with rush hour only getting worse.
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Mar 7, 2018 18:40
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Had To Sell My Third Jetski And Still No Oil Money? How Come, Ralph Klein? Burma-Shave
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Mar 8, 2018 03:54
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 14:27 |
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I think despite being a go-nowhere shithole town, Hamilton has become one of those towns that people have heard of around the world for no apparent reason. So when people are thinking of moving to Canada, they're all "Where should we live there? Uhhh... Ham...Hamilton? That's a place I've heard of."
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Mar 22, 2018 16:32
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