Vancouver’s low-ranked liveability no surprise: expert

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Maclean’s has put out their annual list of Canada’s Best Communities to live in and Vancouver comes in at 112th, which doesn’t surprise one liveability expert.

Assistant Professor Milena Droumeva from Simon Fraser University says that’s to be expected considering the standard of living in the city.

“It has become really quite impossible to live here, especially since the standard of living that people are making, the kind of money that people are making are far disproportionate to the cost of living,” she says, adding it goes beyond the struggle to find affordable housing.

“That kills community life,” she says. “It really has far-lasting repercussions both on people’s mental and physical health, but also their willingness to form and invest into buying into community life.”

She notes a trend in how this is affecting liveability in Vancouver.

“Over the last decade it has created a situation where a lot of people are actually fleeing the city and moving out into suburbia or farther communities that are not as well served structurally by transport,” she says.

City regulations and planning has a lot to do with liveability in Vancouver, but Droumeva says the initiatives put forward aren’t cohesive and surround current property developments.

“They’re under-serving communities where property developers aren’t as interested in being,” she says. “Strategies are quite tied into big property developer money that are pouring into very particular communities.”

She says the issues with gentrification and pushing residents out of up-and-coming neighbourhoods isn’t new for Vancouver.

Other major Canadian cities that scored higher on the list include Ottawa at third, Toronto at 19th and Calgary at 33rd.