Welcome to the final matchup in this summer's CityBracket 2025: the showdown between two international cities I love to visit, would totally love to live in, and no one can actually afford: London and Vancouver!
Before we begin, let's remember how these cities got here. Vancouver faced down arguably the single hardest path to the final, certainly harder than London's, taking out its fellow Canadian city, Toronto, the American giant New York, and then the US capital itself, Washington DC in a series of close matchups. London, on the other hand, faced its toughest matchup (yet?) in the first round, where feisty Oxford struggled to a 4-8 loss--after which London wiped the floor with both Baltimore and even the mighty Boston (which had itself ousted Seattle and Chicago, both serious contenders in their own right). Who will win? Which city will get the completely unrecognized honor of being our CityBracket 2025 champion? Let's find out!
Category 1: Visiting Without A Car
a) How can you get to the city?
Vancouver does well in terms of connecting its main airport to the main metro line, and having a fairly close to downtown terminus for its primary intercity rail, Amtrak Cascades. It also has an active ferry system to the rest of the most heavily populated parts of British Columbia.
London has Eurostar and major intercity services to all of the UK, along with multiple airports all connected by rail, and especially the new Elizabeth Line to Heathrow.
VERDICT: London 1, Vancouver 0
b) How do you get around?
Vancouver's main tourist areas are heavily concentrated downtown, or close to it, and the main downtown area is both compact and walkable.
c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?
In Vancouver, it's only whether you can get to UBC and its museums via bus--can you navigate the system to do that?
In London, it's similarly about navigating the system: the whole network is impressive, but also neither the easiest nor the cheapest to find your way around in. And the area to cover (because of how much London has to offer) is much larger.
VERDICT: London 2, Vancouver 1
Category 2: Living Without A Car
a) Can you expect to get to work?
We've run these numbers before: London runs at about a quarter car commuters, while Vancouver is about half. That is reflected in the nature of the transit and active mobility systems: Vancouver's is strong for a fairly simple system, but London's complexity (see above) lends itself to a much easier time getting wherever you work from wherever you live.
Especially if you're willing to take the bus.
VERDICT: London 3, Vancouver 1
b) Can you live the rest of your life?
Here is where we pour one out for how ridiculously expensive the US as a whole is, since two straight US cities have failed to take this from insanely expensive London.
Vancouver is also insanely expensive, famously so. And yet...
The cost of living difference here is, on balance, in favor of Vancouver.
Yes, despite all that: living in London is somehow on average more expensive than living in Vancouver by enough that all the calculators that were showing it close to US cities show it worse than Vancouver.
Cost of living isn't everything, of course (this is why Baltimore still lost this to London). But Vancouver does have the other things you'll need (groceries, schools, hospitals) accessible without a car--so this goes with the cost.
VERDICT: London 3, Vancouver 2
c) How are the basic amenities?
New Yorkers may want to look away, because although I gave Vancouver the victory here over NYC, I find London more in line with Washington for this: the city just has too many museums, parks, and other amenities (and good enough sidewalks and other basics) for Vancouver to make it up.
Vancouver is great to cycle in, especially along the seawall. It has great views and nature.
Even the built up parts look good to me, as a Pacific Northwestern by birth.
But, well...
London isn't ugly either, and that's without talking about the free museums.
Greece may want the Elgin Marbles back, but until they are repatriated, they are still visible in London
VERDICT: London 4, Vancouver 2
Category 3: Miscellaneous
a) Are there people on the street?
As always, the answer here is yes, but we're going to have to make some tight distinctions.
It's probably not fair to use Chinese New Year as a barometer.
Vancouver is built to put people on the street level:
London is just old, and so people are still there:
Given that one of these is downtown and one is 11 miles out of downtown in Croydon, I'm going to give this to London though.
VERDICT: London 5, Vancouver 2
b) Where is the city's urbanism going?
I am very impressed with both of these cities' trajectories for urbanism. London has completed the Elizabeth Line, modernized cyclepaths, and expanded the emissions zone for cars. I keep reemphasizing the BC upzone for Vancouver, because it is indeed a big deal, and the cycling and other urban infrastructure there also keeps improving.
For me, it comes down to this, which may be a bit simplistic but there you go: the cancellation of HS2--I'm sorry, "rescoping" to remove the point of it--and the current lack of plans to actually get it to Euston station make me doubt the political will in the UK to really make another major step for London's transport. Is it already better than Vancouver's? Yes. But trajectory-wise, this goes to Vancouver.
VERDICT: London 5, Vancouver 3
c) Is it functionally diverse?
I think this one is predictable from last round's results: if London is somewhat more segregated than the UK national average, with a white majority, whereas Vancouver doesn't have a single majority ethnic group, with lower segregation than similar cities, Vancouver tips this category. We do have the confounding variable that most studies of both these cities compare them to the US, not to each other--but I do think that Vancouver pulls slightly ahead in this category.
VERDICT: London 5, Vancouver 4
d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?
It's appropriate that this is the category where London wins, because its congestion zone--and the fact that it reduces car use and car ownership so low, alongside options like public transit--is really a crowning jewel of its urbanism. Vancouverites would, based on averages, expect about a car per person or a car per two people; car ownership in London is maybe half of that.
Of course there are cars--people just don't expect you to actually own one.
VERDICT: London 6, Vancouver 4
e) How do people react to people living close together?
Well, Metro Vancouver has its iconic towers, and that has led to high density--for Canada.
There's no denying that a lot of people can live in towers like that.
London is just denser though: denser in the core, and denser overall.
It has towers too.
And walkable, street-level density as well.
I love Vancouver, and I think it's utterly appropriate that it came closest of all these cities to knocking off London. But this category and the overall matchup have to go to London: the winner of CityBracket 2025!
VERDICT: London 7, Vancouver 4
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