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Also remember, Vancouver only has 2... count 'em... 2 buildings over 500 feet tall. From a frame of reference from like Chicago, as I'm sure you are familiar with their skyline has well over 100 of them. Don't let their pictures fool you, those buildings aren't that tall. You will definitely not get any "imposing" feel walking around.
look at the high rises, now look at all the space in between them, look at the multilane highways between them.. that kills the "urbanity" and bustling. Vancouver uses some weird development planning, for sure.
Now look at SF...
notice the almost no wasted space anywhere.
Vancouver doesn't have any multi-lane highways in that picture--in fact there's no multi-lane highways in downtown at all. You're just looking at a bridge and off-ramps into two lane roads through downtown and Pacific Blvd which is sort like the Embarcadero as a waterfront bouelevard. There's some emptier areas near the stadiums and Expo area though that's sort of a rare example.
San Francisco is denser all together for sure, but it's older in terms of development and had much more population growth earlier on in an even more confined landscape. So Vancouver doesn't feel as urban as San Francisco or Philadelphia or Boston in most places as far as older neighborhoods. And you can see the waves of development in the West End from older single family homes that survived to more 1970s-style residential apartments and condos to the new modern highrises. But there's really not that much wasted space in central Vancouver considering they put in infill wherever they could in the old industrial areas around Yaletown and what land was availble in between and around the older residential areas of the West End. It's just a more modern style of development.
Actually despite all the hype around the shiney new highrises in Vancouver I actually find some parts of the older eastern edge of downtown into Gastown and the eastside to be more interesting(despite the fact that much of the downtown eastside is a Tenderloin/Skid Row-style down-and-out district)--but it feels like the most traditional old urban area of Vancouver. Stanley Park is beautiful and Denman Street has some great restaurants, but the West End seems like just a fairly quiet resdential area for the most part.
Also remember, Vancouver only has 2... count 'em... 2 buildings over 500 feet tall. From a frame of reference from like Chicago, as I'm sure you are familiar with their skyline has well over 100 of them. Don't let their pictures fool you, those buildings aren't that tall. You will definitely not get any "imposing" feel walking around.
DC has 1, so what. Comparing the cities mentioned bldgs 300' and above, San Francisco has 80+, Vanvouver 70+, Montreal, Boston and Philadelphia are all in the low 50s. Still Vancouver can easily hold its own in urbanity, built up enviornment, walkability, shopping, amenities and people in the streets. San Francisco is the most densly packed and urban of them all imo.
DC has 1, so what. Comparing the cities mentioned bldgs 300' and above, San Francisco has 80+, Vanvouver 70+, Montreal, Boston and Philadelphia are all in the low 50s. Still Vancouver can easily hold its own in urbanity, built up enviornment, walkability, shopping, amenities and people in the streets. San Francisco is the most densly packed and urban of them all imo.
Vancouver would rank last out of all those cities. Everybody knows it. If not, please tell me which one Vancouver is better than hmm?
10 yrs ago, i had a cousin moving to the east coast from vancouver
i asked him why, dude said...."its vacouver"
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