Which US City is Comparable to Vancouver

[lucknow]

The other posters are right, Vancouver is very much a mix between Portland and Seattle. I have two of my kids and one sister that live in Van. My one son is in law school and his wife is completing her chartered accountantcy. Basically they are both students and their income is not that much. They have a real nice 3 bedroom flat in Burnaby at $1200 a month and both drive nice cars. My other son and his wife are both Drs. so they don't worry about jobs or income. They have a nice new house on Lulu island and paid around $550,000 for it.
The thing that I noticed about living there is that you can save a lot of money if you know where to shop. I always buy all my produce and seafood at Asian food markets and it's probably no more than half the price of the regular food stores.Find all the wholesale places and clearence shops and buy just about everything there and you will save thousands every year. I find the transit system excellent and I usually use it when I'm there even though I have the use of a car.
In Canada you do get a tax deduction for your children but more importantly you get a "child tax credit" which is a cheque in the mail every month. The amount of this depends on your income. I have one daughter that has a low income and she gets $700 a month. You also get a GST rebate depending on your income. Rent is tax deductable to a certain extent. Your electric bills will be way less as BC has about the lowest rate in North America. If you are renting your heating is almost always included in the rent.
Canada is very different than the USA in a lot of respects. I dont see a lot of differences in the lifestyles of my two sons even though they have such different incomes. They both love fishing when they have some time off and that is very affordable for everyone. They love to camp and they go up in the mountains near whistler and camp for nothing out on the crown land.
I think you and your children will really love living there. I know that I will never get my kids to move back here to Toronto, thats for sure.

[AAPI]

Either San Francisco or Seattle.

[Robynator]

Having been to San Francisco and Portland and Seattle, there's a certain vibe to San Francisco that feels more "Vancouver-like" than what I get when I'm in either Portland and Seattle, just based on the way it's set up in terms of pedestrian traffic, the type neighbourhoods and how locals interact with them, the population density, the geography and natural setting, the city's demographics, its history, and overall subcultures. Vancouver, of course, draws parallels to all three cities, but for me Vancouver and San Francisco draw the most parallels. It's like Vancouver "with architecture".

[ionlife]

Vancouver is less foggy to me than San Francisco. Also, there are more flat lands in the city suburbs, especially near the airport in Van. San Fran is in the middle of the city.

To me, neither Van or Toronto really show what Canada is like to the newbie trying to figure out what the area is like as a whole. That's like saying Paris is like the rest of France. To me, the only way to truly know Canada is to see the real Canadian wilds.... go to northern Manitoba or any of the great lakes up north. Hit those areas... discover Saskatoon, Winterpeg, Calgary or Edmonton. For the east, what about Hamilton, the northern areas of Ontario, the wonderful and bizarre half an hour difference in Newfoundland (oh, the jokes I could tell). If a person moves to Canada, he/she better be prepared for LONG cold winters, winds in the prairies that rival the midwest/Chicago, tundra, frozen lakes, perma frost, and a blue collar, resource driven country.