Protecting Views

 I was talking to someone recently and they brought up the golf course that used to be in what is now extremely prime real estate by the river in Chicago.

My friend's claim was that this happened because people wanted to protect their views of the lake, and that building tall towers there (which is eventually what happened, of course) would impact others' views. 

I'm not here to litigate whether this is actually the reason (though it seems plausible to me). Rather, I want to talk a little bit about this concept of protected views--both why it can make sense, and when it can go too far.

1. A View Is A Genuine Amenity

Let me start with the most important point: I do think that there are levels at which a view is, legitimately, part of the value of a place, and something to be protected. 

We can think of this in a reductio ad absurdum: if my neighbors put up tall buildings on every side of my lot and across the street that mean I can see literally nothing but the street straight down and their blank walls on each side, I think it's pretty clear that my quality of life and the value of my living space have been impacted.

The brick building doesn't have much view to the right, does it?

But we can go beyond that. There are good reasons for not just the ability to see out the window in general but for views of certain buildings or sights to be protected.

St. Paul's is genuinely the centerpiece of the City of London: being able to see it is valuable.

As this downtown Vancouver logo suggests, the mountains are an important thing to be able to see in that city.

We could say the same about Lake Michigan in Chicago (not that you'd have any trouble from the height this photo was taken).

So there are genuine reasons to protect views.

2. How Much Protection?

But the counterpoint is that not every scrap of visibility needs to be equally protected. Once we've hoisted ourselves over the "completely blocked by all surrounding buildings" bar, we enter into a more complicated space where countervailing interests need to be accommodated. 

We can imagine this with the opposite reductio ad absurdum: if we don't allow any building at all that might enter into the sightline of an existing building, we can't build anywhere anytime; we can't accommodate the density we'd need in a functional city; and we're imposing just as much cost on our neighbors (now unable to build) as they were on us in the first hypothetical (unable to see). 

So the question becomes: how much of a view needs protection?

Certainly, we can't expect everyone everywhere in Chicago to see the lake, or in Vancouver to see the mountains--the cities are too big, and sheer distance plus the existence of height variation in the land is going to mean not everyone can see everything all the time.

That goes double with St. Paul's, which is, after all, itself a building built into what would have been a different view before it was built (and indeed there was a different St. Paul's there before the Great Fire). 

This is what the concept of Vancouverism is intended to balance: tall buildings, as above, but also wide pediments that mean that there are gaps in between the buildings so people can see.

The above picture isn't classic Vancouverism, despite being in Vancouver, because the high-rises are fairly wide, instead of thin shards above wider, shorter buildings. But I use it to point out that the style matters less than the substance; it matters less that the buildings be the distinctive narrow towers of downtown Vancouver than that there be space between them to let others peek through.

We can see similar trends, though less of the pediment-tower style, in the Chicago skyline as well. Everyone can see the water (or in this case be seen from the water) and yet we do not have a race to the bottom where everything has to be 1 story.

In other words, there is space to protect views without that meaning that we don't build.

3. Reasonable Accommodation, Not A Veto

The fundamental point here is that protecting a view should be a matter of a reasonable accommodation, where you can't deliberately and significantly block someone else's view of something important, but it should not be a veto where you can block all development simply so you can look across someone else's property. 

Or make them turn it into a golf course because it's shorter.

It can be reasonable, as here in London, to prevent the riverside (or lakeside, or other major point of culturally or environmentally significant views) from becoming clogged with high-rises that block everyone else from seeing it.

But especially as we suffer collectively from a housing crisis across the world, it's not reasonable to say we can't build up at all.

And as St. Paul's shows, you can have consistent density at medium heights without impeding a good view at all.

Views matter--but they're not the be all and the end all. Letting people actually live where they want is another significant good, and one we can't ignore.

Better Buses

 Vancouver is improving their bus network. The key elements are these: more frequent services across more of the city, and particularly filling in the pattern so that there is frequent service pretty evenly spread out across major arteries all across the city (and indeed much of the Metro area). Not all of this (indeed, not even most of this) is Bus Rapid Transit, but it is bus frequent transit in a way that matters a lot to making a city's transit operate more effectively.

Acknowledging the value of this kind of work has actually been somewhat difficult for me, personally, in the past, because for me it has always formed a kind of assumed baseline in a major city's transit mix. I grew up in Seattle, visited Vancouver often, and have particularly distinct memories of visiting Toronto in the early 2000s and feeling like all these cities did this well: wherever you wanted to go in the city, you could take a fairly easy to figure out set of bus routes (or in Toronto's case, also trams in some areas) to use the general city grid to find your way around.

As the above link indicates, I wasn't actually right about that: Vancouver is only filling in that grid now, and Greater Toronto and Metro Seattle both have serious gaps in such systems as well. But it always seemed just like what a city does, to me--which has made it hard to acknowledge how important actually doing it well is.

So today I want to talk very briefly about why this is important, and what it brings to the table.

1. Clarity 

As I said above, I have distinct memories of visiting Toronto and noticing that my family could get around very effectively, even without knowing the city well, because of how clear it was to move from place to place. Yes, you could use the subway, and we did, but if the subway didn't go where you wanted or you didn't want to (or couldn't efficiently) get to it, you could just take a bus up and a bus over (or a bus over and a bus down, or whatever combination) to get where you wanted to be.

Or, as mentioned above, on some of those streets you could take streetcars/trams. I think that the trams are probably why it stuck in my mind so much more than Seattle, where I still had the same assumptions. This kind of system provides clarity for those who may not learn a system well or want to memorize or consult maps. If you know you just need to go up one street until you hit the right cross-street and then over that street to the place you want to be, your path is clear. It may not be optimal, but it doesn't have to be: it will get you there and it frees up mental space for considering other factors rather than trying to compute how to get from point to point.

2. Equity

When this system is extended as fully as Vancouver is doing it now, it also provides real improvements in equity. Yes, there are still areas where there is better or worse service: frequency matters, quality and age of vehicles matter, speed matters, the existence of other transit modes like rail matters. But when you have a baseline provision of quality, clearly intelligible transit options everywhere, it means that nowhere gets completely left behind. Yes, parts of Vancouver have SkyTrain. And it's awesome!

But buses feed SkyTrain stations, and even if SkyTrain doesn't come anywhere near you an effective bus system nevertheless means you still have mobility even if it's not identical.

I lived for a summer at the University of British Columbia, and it's not on SkyTrain but let me tell you that we still got out and around the city. And did I mention I wasn't even an adult yet? That's another key kind of equity that a good bus network provides: not only does it create equity between people who live in different areas, it provides equity between those who can drive and those who can't, whether the reason for that is age, cost, or something else.

3. Virtuous Cycles

You knew this was coming, right? I mentioned that buses feed trains. Good baseline bus systems across a whole city provide a matrix in which all kinds of good transit, density, and general urbanist outcomes can grow like crystals. 

I believe firmly that Seattle's Sound Transit Link light rail is only as effective as it is (especially since in a lot of places it really should be heavy rail) because it is embedded in a good bus system. Similarly, the TTC has gotten away with a relatively small metro in Toronto because of good bus coverage, though thank goodness they're expanding it finally.

And this is bus coverage which of course usually interacts with the subway.

A solid bus system is unexciting in the way that pasta is unexciting. We talk about sauces a lot more than noodles because the same noodles can work with a lot of sauces--but you don't want to be eating straight alfredo sauce no matter how much you like fettucine alfredo.

I love a subway but it needs to be part of a whole system--and a better bus network like Vancouver is putting in is perhaps the key element in that.

Ideals

I was recently watching the National Theatre production of The Importance of Being Earnest (on YouTube) and was reminded of one of my favorite lines: "we live, as I hope you know Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals; the fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has reached the provincial pulpits." Now, Gwendolyn Fairfax is telling us that she has always wanted to marry someone named Ernest, which I think of as a somewhat silly ideal. But it got me to thinking of my ideals about cities, and what I would take from different cities if I could.

Now, it would be easy to do that by taking stereotypically acknowledged excellent bits of cities--Amsterdam's bike paths, for instance--and just imagining a city that somehow combines all of the best parts of everything. I might enjoy doing that at some point. But today, I want to think about some less-appreciated ideal elements in cities that I'd like to have in my ideal city (though since these are ideals, I know others will have observed them before--originality is only so possible).

1. Seattle's Whimsy

Perhaps it's because I know it so well, but I love the way Seattle pops out public art that feels whimsical and placebound. Some of it is probably the 1% for art requirement for major works, but a lot if it isn't, too. 

The Fremont district does a particularly good job with it, with the Fremont Troll above (viewed from Troll Avenue, naturally) and the Waiting for the Interurban statue below.

There's also a big statue of Lenin bought from a former Soviet town and a giant rocket, which I believe has similar provenance.

It's all highly noticeable at the street level, and gives a real sense of place. You couldn't be anywhere but Fremont (and Seattle) with this stuff, and my ideal city would have a similarly distinctive vibe of whimsy (though of course not a copy, since that's the point of whimsy).

2. Paris's Commitment to the Bit

This is cheating perhaps, since many of the things I'm going to mention are considered iconically excellent about Paris. But they all come from something that I'm not sure is, which is Paris's commitment to seeing things through fully--to the bit, in comedy parlance.

Some of this is the legacy of Haussmann's Parisian renovations, which were of course massively classist and problematic. But they also produced a city that has a consistent feel on the street through much of its urban core, and a distinctive look.

This isn't the only expression of this commitment though. Paris is also one of the few major cities that have a legacy metro and yet are doing large-scale expansion of their system. The Grand Paris Express is another version of this same commitment to the bit: if the city (and the region) is to have a metro, it shall have a metro. 

The same goes for other urbanist elements: the transformations of Anne Hidalgo around bikes and cars, which were carried through with a full commitment to doing the thing are a classic example as well.

My ideal city, therefore, is not just interested in being a city, but committed to following through on the principles it sees as valuable in that connection, consistently and in a thorough-going manner.

3. Vancouver's Embrace of Its Natural Setting

Vancouver is known for its natural setting, and its probably unfair to ask another city to have the same setting. But I admire its willingness to accept--no, to embrace--that setting as a part of the city. Too many cities overtame their natural surroundings, or obliterate them, making them a homogenous whole (this is most common in the US in my experience). Vancouver certainly hasn't avoided making a mark on the surrounding land, but it has certainly accepted and embraced more parts of its natural setting than some cities do.

How many cities would have the end of the downtown peninsula terminate in a big park with old growth, rather than more houses?

How many cities would have taken on the existence of the sea and rivers around it as an integral part of the transportation of the city, rather than covering them with innumerable bridges?

And while there are bridges (hello Lion's Gate!) I would also note the willingness to let the mountains behind the city remain mountains and a key part of the city's physical setting, rather than either turning one's back on them entirely or trying to level them or build beyond them.

And heck, it has beaches too--and again, they are developed but not overwhelmed.

This, too, is Vancouver: and while I don't think a city has to be in this kind of physical setting, the fact that the natural landscape is this present within and around the city is something to celebrate, whatever the natural setting might be.

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.

CityBracket 2025: FINAL! London vs. Vancouver

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. 

Stanley Park is a delight, and incredibly easy to get to.

London has a much wider area to cover for tourists, but a more comprehensive transit system for it as well. 

It's hard to avoid the tourist areas sometimes on a London bus.

VERDICT: London 2, Vancouver 0

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

CityBracket 2025, Round 3, Matchup 2 (Semifinal 2): Vancouver, BC vs. Washington, DC

On this side of the bracket, two of my favorite cities to visit have emerged victorious: Vancouver surprisingly besting both Toronto and New York on the bracket of pure tourism and Washington, DC coming out much less surprisingly from what may have been the easiest bracket, given my family's tendency to live in less urbanist cities.

Let's see who gets to go up against the European giant in the final! Will it be a battle of national capitals, or will the US be excluded entirely?

Category 1: Visiting Without A Car

a) How can you get to the city? 

Both cities sit at the end of an Amtrak corridor that is the primary train option, have fairly robust intercity bus/coach service, and connected their airports to their subway lines.

Unfortunately for Vancouver, DC has two airports, both on the Metro, and the Acela corridor is a stronger rail link than Amtrak Cascades or anything VIA Rail currently offers.

The SeaBus is a personal favorite (and I love that building), and BC Ferries is nice, but they can't tip the scales against that.

VERDICT: Vancouver 0, DC 1

b) How do you get around?

The Washington Metro is a nice system, and DC is a very walkable area in general. Tourists have no problem getting around the city.

SkyTrain is also pretty straightforward, and Vancouver downtown is just as walkable. 

Ultimately, I think the visitor-oriented parts of Vancouver are more compact, and SkyTrain is a simpler system to navigate.

Price is also a concern--except the costs of their transit systems to ride are pretty much parallel. But note that Vancouver works on a zone system, while DC is distance-based--this means that again, it's just easier to get around on the TransLink system.

VERDICT: Vancouver 1, DC 1

c) What are the limits on a visitor without a car?

On the one hand, it's pretty easy to get everywhere a tourist might be interested in in both cities.

Everyone's Chinatown is easy to get to.

But overall, here I think DC really shines: UBC is on a good bus line and going to be on SkyTrain, but pretty much everything in DC that a tourist needs is right there on Metro.

This meerkat, however, might disagree, since he's kinda stuck in the zoo.

VERDICT: Vancouver 1, DC 2 (unless you're a meerkat)

Category 2: Living Without A Car

a) Can you expect to get to work?

In DC, about 2/3 of commuters use non-auto modes for their commute, compared to a bit over half in Vancouver.  That's not quite as true for the overall metro area, though, which flips the percentage around in DC, and by a little bit it's even worse in Vancouver.

Basically, the answer is yes, but you'll want to live in the main city--and there, DC wins.

VERDICT: Vancouver 1, DC 3

b) Can you live the rest of your life?

Overall, about half of metro Vancouver trips are by transit or active modes. That is not the case in DC; commutes are heavily out of the car, but that does not appear to translate to the rest of life (at least, not in the wider metro area; DC residents may be another matter).

This is reflected in car ownership. Metro DC is at 1.67 cars per capita, and no single part of the Vancouver metro, let alone the overall, is that high.

VERDICT: Vancouver 2, DC 3

c) How are the basic amenities?

I love Vancouver's amenities (witness how I gave it this category last time against NYC). But DC has it all: the Smithsonian (even if they cave to presidential pressure), walkable streets, gorgeous architecture.

VERDICT: Vancouver 2, DC 4

Category 3: Miscellaneous

a) Are there people on the street?

Yes, in both cases. In my experience outside the most downtowny parts of the city, though, DC has fewer eyes on the street than Vancouver. 

That's a subjective measure, of course. There's people here, even if I tend to avoid taking pictures of too many strangers:

Just like there are in this random Vancouver park:

But I can't help my subjective reading--and that is, Vancouver has this more.

VERDICT: Vancouver 3, DC 4

b) Where is the city's urbanism going?

This is a place where DC is doing well--just extended Metro, has plans for more--but Vancouver is just doing better, with the BC upzone, SkyTrain extensions, and the lack of a federal government that wants to take over the city and undo its work.

VERDICT: Vancouver 4, DC 4

c) Is it functionally diverse?

DC and Vancouver are both highly diverse cities, although DC metro is likely more segregated by race, especially given the city/suburb divide. Canada just tends towards lower segregation, even if it's still a potential issue. As is often the case with US cities, racial diversity in DC is more about a Black/White divide, where the city is plurality Black and the metro area is not, whereas there is much more Asian population in Vancouver.

Again, both highly diverse--but I think this goes to Vancouver.

VERDICT: Vancouver 5, DC 4

d) How do people there react to knowing you're not using a car?

I don't think either city would treat that as odd (which is a theme this late in the bracket) but there are still noticeable differences. It really depends whether you were in the inner city, in which case I think DC is less concerned about you than Vancouver is, or in the outer suburbs, where DC residents will actually start looking at you oddly (as US people do on this topic).

But in the land of fine distinctions, I think that matters.

VERDICT: Vancouver 6, DC 4

e) How do people react to people living close together?

DC is a dense city overall, but it has a lot more mid-level and low density, especially in the suburbs. Vancouver has its Vancouverism, pushing people close together even with a visual streetscape that's lower-density-looking. In neither city would you be thought of as odd for being in a dense area, but it's more central to Vancouver culture than DC

North Vancouver is still pretty dense. 

Of course, so is random urban DC:

But the overall population is denser in Vancouver: the metro area by about 3 times compared to the entire DC metro, while the cities themselves are closer but Vancouver is still a bit denser. 

FINAL VERDICT: Vancouver 7, DC 4

Well, this was a much closer matchup, but Vancouver has seen off the last US city in the competition. Next up: the final, a matchup of two of my absolute favorite cities (no surprise there) and the best of Canada against the best of the UK. May the best Commonwealth city win!