This is the first article I have ever read that represents Vancouver as I experience it living here.
I congratulate the author on the non-fluffy prose, the depth of the story, the breadth of the portrait, and his personal best on the Grind.
I want to know more about Bob the Builder.
Just thought this was a fine article on a city I've heard so much about but never been to. I studied in Toronto for over 5 years and sadly I never made it to Vancouver.
Enjoyed this article, sets the right tone. Lived in Vancouver much of my life and often describe it as a teenager searching for identity. Like the little sister tagging along on a night out with San Fran and New York. Struggling to fit in with the big kids while asserting her own opinion sometimes a little too loudly.
You mention it in passing, the overvalued real estate, but it is so much the centre of the story. The price run-up has been the defining event of her adolescence, to play along, and the comeuppance will probably end her flirtations with worldliness, at least for another decade. Many people have paid up and speak lovingly of the wine, priced high-enough-to-impress, while the quality and taste can be imputed later (Who cares about the grape, I'll sell my other six bottles for twice this in a year or two (Then what?)). There can be no real arts culture, or even student culture, in a real estate obsessed city. It's not just the incalculable cost, it's the space it takes up in the imagination and conversation.
