sure, you can't buy a house in Vancouver anymore on a normal salary, but nothing prevents you from living in Surrey, there are plenty of towers going up around the skytrain at Surrey central and King George where you can get an apartment for less than 200k
Yes, it's not Vancouver city, and yes, it's not a house, however via skytrain you can be downtown in a little over 40 minutes and get work done on your laptop in the meantime.
You don't need a house to survive, it is nice, yes, but many many many millions of people live and bring up families in apartments in Europe, so it is definitely doable.
Of course it's annoying to think that 12 years ago you could get a nice house in kits for 400k, or a 1000+ sqf condo downtown for 200k, but what can you do, same deal as buying a lottery ticket or joining a startup that makes it vs one that doesn't. The mountains and nature and weather are available whether you live in vancouver or in one of the suburbs
Metro Vancouver is over 2m people, Surrey is the largest city in the metro area actually, even if Vancouver proper becomes a "haven for the rich" there's plenty of other areas where one can live, the problem is that a lot of tech companies can't seem to see beyond "gastown is trendy" or "let's go to yaletown" or "downtown is where it's at", when they could easily set up in other skytrain-served area and attract more folks that don't like the commute downtown.
It is true, what you could do 10-15 years ago, buy a house within 30 minutes of downtown on a normal salary is not possible anymore (just like it wasn't possible back then to do that for a house in Point Grey) but it is still quite possible to live here, given the amount of immigration that the area is still getting.
Townhouses and condos in Surrey or Langley are still very affordable, the commute is annoying, but from what I hear from friends in the valley it's not like traffic there is that great either, at least up here you can sit on the skytrain and get things done or read a book rather than be stuck in traffic and have no alternatives because there's no decent public transit.
This sort of thing is true broadly. It's a bit more complicated in California because the South Bay is also very popular and very expensive, but the trendy areas of many downtowns have, over a relatively short period, become very popular with, among others, a certain young & educated demographic that really has turned them into luxury goods.
This has arguably long been the case in some places like Manhattan. Going back decades, living in a crappy tiny apartment in Manhattan rather than, heaven forbid, Queens was a thing for recent graduates. But, at the same time, tech was generally moving out of metropolitan Boston and the computer companies were mostly out on the 128 and 495 corridors.
That 495 tech belt thing was because office park space was so cheap and having 75,000 sqft was required back during the Sun and Digital days. No one really chose to live out there after graduating for college, and if they did move out there it was either reluctantly for a shorter commute or because employees were further on in life (e.g. 30-somethings then would consider suburbia ideal; in my late 20s, early 30s now very few people want to live outside of major cities, opt for public transportation over having cars, etc). Now Central Square is gentrified enough to the point where a heroin junkie won't rob you at at 9PM, and at least amongst my friends, the young & educated (both in the sciences and the liberal arts) either chose to stay in the city post-college (or move out to a comparable city).
>No one really chose to live out there after graduating for college
Sure they did. I knew relatively few people who chose to live in Boston/Cambridge after graduation in the 80s. Yes, some of this was because of the commute to their jobs in Metro-West. But I knew lots of people (including myself) who never seriously considered living in the city post-graduation.
As you say, places like Kendall and Central Square weren't exactly desirable locales. Both the state of much of Boston/Cambridge (and even Somerville) and the general attitude toward urban living among certain demographics has obviously shifted.
The Bay Area has been really bad about building, but some of the huge explosions in housing, for example the big towers going up in Redwood City, might finally help alleviate a bit of pressure.
Of course, that won't help the folks who don't want to own a car and do want to live in SF and be part of the urban scene but there are probably a lot more opportunities for adding housing south of SF--where most of the tech employment is anyway.
Well, it won't help folks who want to live in SF, of course, but it's right on the Caltrain line. I would definitely say you could get by in downtown RWC and commute to SF if you desire without a car.
Yes, it's not Vancouver city, and yes, it's not a house, however via skytrain you can be downtown in a little over 40 minutes and get work done on your laptop in the meantime.
You don't need a house to survive, it is nice, yes, but many many many millions of people live and bring up families in apartments in Europe, so it is definitely doable.
Of course it's annoying to think that 12 years ago you could get a nice house in kits for 400k, or a 1000+ sqf condo downtown for 200k, but what can you do, same deal as buying a lottery ticket or joining a startup that makes it vs one that doesn't. The mountains and nature and weather are available whether you live in vancouver or in one of the suburbs
Metro Vancouver is over 2m people, Surrey is the largest city in the metro area actually, even if Vancouver proper becomes a "haven for the rich" there's plenty of other areas where one can live, the problem is that a lot of tech companies can't seem to see beyond "gastown is trendy" or "let's go to yaletown" or "downtown is where it's at", when they could easily set up in other skytrain-served area and attract more folks that don't like the commute downtown.
It is true, what you could do 10-15 years ago, buy a house within 30 minutes of downtown on a normal salary is not possible anymore (just like it wasn't possible back then to do that for a house in Point Grey) but it is still quite possible to live here, given the amount of immigration that the area is still getting.
Townhouses and condos in Surrey or Langley are still very affordable, the commute is annoying, but from what I hear from friends in the valley it's not like traffic there is that great either, at least up here you can sit on the skytrain and get things done or read a book rather than be stuck in traffic and have no alternatives because there's no decent public transit.