It’s amazing the sheer number of well to do very young recent migrant men and women with more money than you’ll ever know who decide NO.

No, I won’t buy that Ferrari, white BMW, or Mercedes to drive up and down Robson with and opt instead for a bike and translink pa… sorry I tried, I can’t pull off that level of gullible idealistic insincerity off as crafty and as convincingly as some here are obviously so well acquainted to.

@spartikus #47

“It was an era where there was an almost universal consensus society had to be as efficient as possible. And in that, public transportation was chosen over private automobiles”

There was a general consensus in society that they did not want to learn to speak German or Japanese so they chose tanks and airplanes over cars. Public transportation was a consequence of that reality and not the reason.

@ J3 #51, you’re making my point in #55. The Pacific Rim ain’t cheap and not the average person could afford to live there, let alone purchase a parking spot.

We’re number 56!!
Vancouver falls down best cities list
MoneySense Magazine ranks YVR 56th on annual list
by Mike Lloyd Mar 20, 2012 07:59:23 AM CKWX
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Vancouver consistently ranks among the most livable cities in the world, so why are we dropping so fast down a list of the best places to live in Canada?
MoneySense Magazine is out with its rankings of Canada’s Best Places to Live and we’re nowhere near the top. In fact, Vancouver doesn’t even crack the top 50.
Number One for the third year in a row is Ottawa, while Vancouver falls from 29th to 56th, hit hard in the housing, weather and crime categories. But it’s certainly not all bad in Lotus Land.
“The good news is 56th is still very high in the rankings, overall, out of 190,” says senior MoneySense editor David Hodges, almost apologetically. “In Vancouver, 16 per cent of the population bikes or walks to work, that ranks you at #6; Vancouver has great air quality, ranked at #7; Vancouver is ranked #5 for transit and you’re #1 in culture, sports and the arts.”
The biggest detractor, according to MoneySense, is the cost of housing.
“You certainly did come dead last when it came to the average cost of a home at $857,000. You are also fairly high in crime, the amount of precipitation and the unemployment rate is a little higher than average, too.” [ more ]

@ Bill Lee, #58

MoneySense Magazine is out with its rankings of Canada’s Best Places to Live

I could go into how the methodology is flawed (e.g., how can the modal share of walking, biking and transit be considered a positive thing at the same time as the rate of new cars?), as it is for most of these lists, but instead I’ll just resort to a poor attempt at humour.

Burlington, Kingston, Regina, Red Deer, Brandon are in Canada’s top 10 places to live? More like top 10 places to die – amirite?

/rimshot

“The provincial minister responsible for making changes to civic election rules says spending limits for campaigns will be in place for the 2014 vote.
But Ida Chong, the minister of community, sport and development, said she couldn’t say how much candidates in Vancouver and the rest of the province can spend until a formula is finalized.
….Vision Vancouver spent $2.2 million, the NPA shelled out $2.5 million and COPE, which ran a coordinated campaign with Vision, spent $360,969.
The spending by the three parties is almost $2 million more than was poured into the 2008 campaign. That amount, however, is a calculation of what each of the parties’ central campaigns collected.
The totals don’t include money directed at individual campaigns—NPA mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton, for example, spent $70,924—or money raised by organizations such as the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers’ Association, which spent $100,869 to support COPE and Vision.”

Read more: http://www.vancourier.com/life/Minister+promises+civic+campaign+finance+reform+Vancouver/6330548/story.html

She’s the result of the inane party system we have. Ridiculous as she comes across, her steadfast beliefs mirror many others on these blogs…

@guest #46 I am thinking of southbound, i.e. Cornwall and Burrard to cambie and sixth. Call me lazy but I don’t see how twenty blocks away is servicing. reminds me if the cancellation of the 98 b line with the assumption that the Canada line would make it redundant, even though cambie and Granville are by no means the same street, especially if you are elderly, or handicapped, or have young kids in tow.

boohoo #59 how about the Canadian dream – a small spot to play, a little patch of garden to grow basil or tulips, a tiny little hobby corner and a place where each kid can have a little privacy.

Is that too much to ask? Is that so extravagant?

That’s a pretty picture Julia and something to aspire to, but in looking at our neighbourhoods one suspects that the Canadian Dream is a big house with a garage full of little-used sports gear, a room especially for the TV, and an expanse of grass addicted to water, fertilizer, and mowing. And a big ass boat or RV taking up driveway space.

@ Julia #68, I’d like to chime in here too and reiterate some comments from the previous post on affordable housing — that we’re now talking about land prices exceeding $200 / square foot in single family areas. This is a 400+% increase over the past decade.

I’m the last person to ask where the absolute affordability ceiling is, but I have a gut feeling we’re getting close.

If ya got the cash for space, then sure, it’d be nice to accommodate whatever you can afford. Otherwise, you’re forced to start ranking your priorities and dropping amenities you value off the list. That can be a painful exercise.

There is a lot of wasted land, too, that needs to be placed on the table. Often one of every two or three sideyards is relegated to outdoor blue-tarped storage, for example. Or that 792 ft2 front yard is discovered to be largely a high-maintenance visual amenity hardly used for anything more than delivering mail.

One side yard desn’t make a big difference, but 200,000 … that is a huge amount of underutilized but increasingly valuable land. This is why the city needs to look at its own zoning bylaws and deeper neighbourhood consultation to address these issues adequately.

Geez, what lousy typing on my part. My apologies, people.

@Agustin67-Why do I doubt that your in favour of your elected government’s plan to get the Northern Gateway pipeline built. But then, they do know best, right?

it has “stagnated” at the highest standard on the planet.

Which is nice except costs have risen relative to those stagnating wages. And just because we are better off than most people on the planet (and we are) doesn’t mean we can’t rethink the way we do things.

Via Gordon Price, this from the NY Times is timely:

The suburban poor also face the geographic challenges of decentralized living. Car ownership is a costly, brittle lifeline in suburbs with weak public transport networks. Budget cuts often target public transportation first, hindering access to jobs, as well as services. Suburban poverty also throws into bold relief the environmental burden of the suburbs; poor people are faced with the challenge of heating and lighting spacious but energy-inefficient single-family homes.

@Agustin 77-Not avoiding your question. I believe in the primacy of the will of the people. Fascism is fascism, whether its military or eco.

Richard @ 50

“Pretty much anything is better than the empty lot that is there now. That certainly is not good housing for anyone”

Excuse me? its not an empty lot but rather a housing developement with over 40 apts that was designed from the get go for those with disabilities, not sure what piece of property you have in mind but its not this one.

And how can you say it has little to no impact…..so what are you saying? that kicking a bunch of disabled seniors who have been living there for over 20yrs to the curb is just a blip on the radar screen that we should just ignore!

Everything starts from the ground up, we abuse this situation and have no alternate game plan to back it up with then we have failed our citizens.

Seriously? did you really mean what you wrote, if so I truly hope you don’t find yourself in their situation one day though I think it would be a good lesson for you to learn after making that unbelievable comment.

Sad attitude to have amongst so many postive voices out there.

uhh brilliant, that was the NY Times. Try understanding before mocking–makes you look kinda silly.

“I believe in the primacy of the will of the people.”

Smacks of anarch0-syndicalism.

brilliant,

Who cares who re-blogged it? If you have a point to make about the content of the NYT article, make it.

From a AAA study released late last year:

“Based on FHWA estimates, in 2009 dollars, the average cost of a fatality is $6,000,000 and the average cost of an injury is $126,000.”

http://newsroom.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2011_AAA_CrashvCongUpd.pdf

No reason to suspect Canada is materially different.

Last year, Ken Dryden pegged annual costs for daycare for the average Cdn family at $8000.

Clearly we have the money to afford things such as a national day care policy, if we are willing to ‘rethink the way we do things”, such as abandoning silly ideas such as categorizing people in binary Maker/Taker codswallop and taking a long, hard, realistic look at where our money is really going.

A park at the corner of Kingsway and Broadway wouldn’t be used. An intersection where twelve lanes of traffic converge isn’t the right place for such an amenity.

Bill Lee:

Many of your posts are informative and add much to the debate. Sadly #93 isn’t an example of same. Do you think a park at that corner is a good use of urban space? If so, why?