The Economist recently ranked Vancouver the third most liveable city on earth. While it certainly is a lovely city with many nearby amenities, it is also the second least affordable city in the English speaking world (surpassed only by Hong Kong). Vancouver is a very liveable city–if you’re wealthy. But for the middle class, it is a completely different story. Most people would love to have a luxury condo in Downtown Vancouver. However, even an ordinary two bedroom home in the city is well beyond the financial reach of ordinary citizens. Cities like Edmonton and Regina have far more to offer for middle class families than luxury cities like Vancouver.
Here is an article I wrote a few years ago on why Vancouver is so extremely unaffordable, and a more recent article on what to do about it.
Vancouver is certainly a livable city if one is independently wealthy or just visiting.
When I lived there, the ability to walk out of my then reasonable affordable apartment and be on First Beech and the Seawall in 3 minutes was priceless. The density of housing meant grocery shopping could be done around the corner and work was a 5 minute walk away. Eating out was a treat with 100′s of choices within a 10 minute walk and weather that made that walk enjoyable. All in all, quite livable.
The crazy thing is that I was commuting to work in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario in order to afford that lifestyle. Indeed, most professionals that I knew in the technology / ICT sector commuted to distant places to earn a living, some in Canada, many in the USA and a lot more internationally. They could not earn enough income within the BC economy to afford to live there. In some respects, Vancouver was one of the first cities in Canada to crack the code of how to export services and people who have set up there make a good living at that business model. The downside is the work involves a large amount of travel and time spent away from home.
So if Vancouver affordable? The answer is no if you expect to be able to afford a home based on income you can generate within BC. On the other hand, if you are a global knowledge worker and citizen of the world, it is a pretty good place to call home. If I was still working as an international road warrior and consulting in international development, I would definitely consider making Vancouver my home base because of the business ecosystem the city has created for that type of enterprise.