The decline of Vancouver

Born in Hong Kong, raised in Vancouver and graduated from UBC, now working in Seattle and regularly commute to SF (once a month) and almost twice a month to Vancouver. I've been observing this for quite a while and try to put my finger on where the problem is for Vancouver. Have been trying to talk to people up and down the coast who are similar as well to understand more.

It's a complex comparison because:

- SF has crazy amount of capital flowing around, people are earning crazy $, but there's also high cost of living and tax rate

- Seattle is not as crazy as SF, but still has plenty of high paying engineers. Cost of living is quickly rising. Locally, it's starting to become a problem in some areas like Capitol Hill, like SF's Mission area. However, WA don't have personal income tax. So while on paper we don't make more than we do in SF. The general consensus from those that made the move north from SF says they end up keeping more.

- Vancouver doesn't have crazy tech capital. But it's got a really nice environment. Has public health care whereas in the States we have to account for health care cost. Generally American tech jobs provide health care with co-pay/deductible options but it's still thousands out of pocket before the 100% insurance coverage kicks in.

The Canadian brain drain thing has always happened since early 2000. I think the biggest problem with Vancouver is that there isn't enough venture capital flowing in. In many places where there doesn't exist an already established tech scene, like Detroit, the government has a lot of subsidies for companies to move there. However, there doesn't seem to be enough or any for companies that want to move to Vancouver. In fact, many of our subsidies are starting to expire, and that's why many gaming and SFX studios are shutting down. Without the much needed capitals, start-ups have harder time competing with Seattle and SF which offer comparable/better climate and surrounding with much better pay. Often time when I hear a Vancouver company pitch it's by saying how nice and active the city is. Sure, the city is nice but is it worth the difference in pay? To me, at least not at this point. Not at least with the money I am making I can afford to come back whenever, or fly down to SF for a few days. Especially not with the pay I am making after tax in BC, and have to pay for housing and transportation.

It's worth noting that in Vancouver and the suburbs of Metro Vancouver developers are constantly building lots of buildings all the time. It's completely unlike SF. There's cranes everywhere.

I think there's more to the issue than it simply being a very basic supply and demand problem. The sort of supply desired (the cheap sort!) isn't arriving. It seems that even the experts and academics struggle to arrive at a coherent explanation of the problem, let alone a solution so I certainly don't have one.

However other contributing factors that are frequently brought up that seem like they could have an effect are:

* Difficult to build "cheap" buildings in Vancouver deriving from various city hall rules and low flexibility in what forms of housing one can build.

* No Federal tax support for low income housing or apartments results in developers only building luxury condo towers.

* No political interest from both Province or City in any changes in legislation or city zoning which could possibly lower people's property values.

As well the most incredibly expensive real estate is in single family detached housing, which Vancouver (city proper) can never make more of.

". Vancouver has experienced no commensurate economic or income boom"

Then it's not a boom, it's a bubble. It's that simple

Big companies coming in with their money does help. Vancouver loses out on loads of people to SF and Seattle.

I used to live around Vancouver, I really like it there. I'm not going to choose that over Seattle where I can make more money.

With TN visas being a pretty painless path towards working in the states why not move down?

Of course if I can work for good money at a good company in Vancovuer then I'd stay. Didn't really seem like an option.

Yeah, but you make 50-100% more in SF.