Is Vancouver a destination for visitors, rather than a community for residents?

Vancouver is surrounded by beautiful sights that attract tourists from around the world, from snow-capped mountains to beaches on a sunny day.

But some housing experts say the city is becoming more of a destination for visitors and less of a thriving community to live in.

“We find certain patches of metropolitan Vancouver through which you wonder, is it more about its visitors as opposed to for its residents?” said Andy Yan, Simon Fraser University’s director of The City Program.

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Yan says it’s a trend among cities that have become unaffordable.

“Venice; you certainly see it in Manhattan, in New York. You find it in parts of San Francisco. You find it, really, in cities through which I think housing has become so out of wack in terms of what low- and middle-income households can afford,” he told CityNews.

Penny Gurstein, the co-director of the University of British Columbia’s Housing Research Collaborative, says the city has been morphing into less of a community for a “number of years.”

She says it’s making it harder to hire people at local cafes, keep tills fully staffed at grocery stores, and have first responders nearby to quickly get to an emergency.

“The service workers, first responders, teachers, nurses, emergency technicians, they can’t live in Vancouver,” she said.

Gurstein says large employers in Vancouver, and other cities that are facing similar challenges, need to start thinking about how to house the employees that keep their communities functioning.

She stresses cities should use their land in ways that can keep communities in pace for a long time.

“There’s more apt terms to call Vancouver — a hedge city; a resort for the few!”

“It’s not just a destination, because it really isn’t a destination for people that can’t afford to live here,” she said.