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Of course these are all on the edges of "downtown" as in where the main cluster of skyscrapers are.
the actual dead center of most American downtowns are basically all big corporate offices without much street life... the people who do go there all drive in from the suburbs and park in parking garages... the only street life is people walking from the parking garage to their office
Was built as the main street 100 years ago for a paper mill town created by the International Paper Company. That explains the street name and the utilitarian (read=ugly) architecture.
The mill's owners and bosses were mostly New Englanders. They built their houses just down the road, here:
Main street in Vancouver is about 9 K long. It used to be called Westminster Avenue but changed to Main Street in 1910. Most likely because then that area was pretty much the centre. That has changed over the years.
Main Street goes through several changes of personality along it's route. At the northern end, by the harbour, you have a park amongst the industry of the harbour. It is slowly being joined up to an area called Railtown, which is at the eastern end of Gastown.
Just a few blocks away is Vancouver's Hastings and Main. Also known as the Downtown Eastside, where many addicts and whatnots hang out. This is apparently the poorest postal code in Canada. Not sure if that is actually true, but you do see the down and out around.
After passing through some very nondescript semi-industrial looking buildings, it changes again. The area starting to change over 15 years ago, with second hand type stores, but now has many restaurants, shops and craft brew pubs
After 25th ave ( King Edward Boulevard ) it becomes mainly residential. You hit Little India at around 49th ave. It is going under some changes lately as well it seems. Like Chinatown in Vancouver who's new Chinatown is in Richmond, Little India seems underwhelming compared to some of the shops in Surrey.
Vancouver's downtown isn't really an example of gentrification. Part of its have gotten richer and more developed for sure, but it never really declined.
The only part that's really run-down, the Downtown East Side, is a relatively small area and it hasn't really even gentrified yet.
The rest of central Vancouver has always been fine.
Serious actually, just take away those wires and you have the nicest looking big city around.
aren't most power lines in European cities underground? that is a big advantage they have over us.
and yes i know those wires in the Vancouver shots are used for buses
We have an underbelly like a lot of places. Many tourists assume when they wander out of Gastown and onto Hastings and Main, that it is unsafe. It isn't.
Where Vancouver shines in my opinion is the lack of a freeway cutting through downtown and what we have done with the waterfront.
As for hydro wires and telephone cables , yes. I would prefer them to be underground and in some Canadian cities with harsher winters than Victoria and Vancouver that would just makes sense.
Of course, it's the costs that prevents this. In some of the suburbs though, they are underground. Like this.
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