Immigration and Vancouver

Toronto is, of course, hardly the only Canadian city that draws American interest and immigrants. Vancouver famously has extremely high cost of living but also ranks quite high on quality of life; personally, I've already revealed my pro-Vancouver bias in CityBracket 2025.

But while it may be a good, even great city, is it a good place to actually immigrate to? Let's talk!

1. Proximity and Geography

As with much of Canada, at least the parts people live in, Vancouver has the benefit for US immigrants of being close to the US, both in the sense of easy travel to the US (love that train! Accept that bus!) but also in the sense that the geography/climate/etc. are America-like in some sense.

This is less true in places like Calgary and Winnipeg and more true in places like Vancouver because of the Pacific Coast climate.

Geographically, Vancouver has it all, from mountains (literally in the city up in North Van) to forests, plains, rivers, estuaries, and the ocean. Unless you're from central Nebraska or really far down South, you should be able to find a part of Metro Vancouver that reminds you in some way of home--only embedded in an urbanist landscape you probably didn't have there.

Beach, mountain, forest, water.

And that's the urbanist angle here: Vancouver connects all this varied geography efficiently and effectively so that you can go from place to place without taking the amount of time you might expect from a US context, and also so you can live anywhere in the metro region and still access either whatever you wanted to visit or wherever you wanted to or needed to work (or both).

Come from the Quad Cities? Well, there's plenty of river here, and you can also pretend (as the original explorers did!) that False Creek is just a big wide river like the mighty Mississippi.

Complete with paddleboat!

2. Vancouverism

Look, Vancouver's distinctive urban landscape and design has its detractors. But while I'll admit some critiques have some validity, overall I am a big fan of Vancouverism and I think most urbanist-interested immigrants will too.

Tall, thinnish buildings that are designed to still preserve the ability to see nature around them. Shops and services in the broader pediments of those big structures, so that ground level is attractive and busy, not a deep cavern from which one can never emerge. Transit-oriented and bike-oriented development, with urban green space and pedestrian access. 

Like this urban garden on Davie.

All the things that put Vancouver in the CityBracket final, in other words.

For immigrants in particular I'll suggest that (prices aside and that is a big aside) that kind of urban density and design is ideal for developing a sense of belonging in place. You have a lot of neighbors (or neighbours) but also a lot of neighborhood (or neighbourhood) spaces to meet them and mingle. If making acquaintances is a goal, and it likely is for an immigrant, I've found Vancouver an easy place to encounter people and a less chilly place than, say, nearby Seattle on the US side (sorry, hometown).

Vancouverism isn't perfect, but the urban society it is trying to produce is one that integrates people into community exactly how you might need if you're moving here from elsewhere.

3. Multicentrality

I keep coming back to this (hi Golden Horseshoe and Randstad!) but I think one of the biggest advantages for immigrants is coming to an effectively integrated region rather than a city, sprawl, and suburbs. Sure, Vancouver has those, but they're much more transit-integrated than in most US cities and they have their own individual downtown areas that have TOD. 

Welcome to North Vancouver!

That means that Vancouver (Metro Vancouver that is) has the same advantages, or similar ones, as we've discussed previously: the ability to live in multiple options for places and get to jobs and services, and the ability to find a community where you want or need to, alongside the flexibility that comes with both. And those are big for an immigrant who might know only a few people, or have to find a job wherever and hope that a spouse or partner can do the same in a different wherever--and need to afford it as well.

Which is admittedly hard in Vancouver.

And that's the biggest element here, in some ways. I think Vancouver is amazing. Given winning the lottery, I might well choose it as a place to immigrate, especially coming from the US (London won CityBracket but it's much further). But while its urbanist immigration qualifications are great, you have to be able to afford it.