
Millennials Flee Vancouver for More Affordable Cities - bvanvugt
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-14/millennials-flee-vancouver-for-cities-with-more-affordable-homes
======
lewisl9029
As someone who's lived in Vancouver for more than 10 years, then went to
Waterloo for school (and lived in Toronto for most of my co-ops/internships),
I think we Canadians should be more worried about highly educated millennials
fleeing Canada entirely. Everybody I know from school who were offered the
option to work in the US have picked up their Canadian degrees and left.

To the Canadian tech industry: How are you ever going to become competitive
with the US if you keep offering these humiliatingly low salaries and letting
the best and brightest of our own talent get leeched away?

~~~
peanut_merchant
We have a similar problem in Scotland, I know a lot of people would love to
have continued living in Scotland but can make >2 times the salary as a
developer by making the move down to London. The cost of living in London is
higher, but the increase in pay more than makes up for this. Granted, this is
a move within the UK so it's not really a drain on the UK's economy but it
leads to a more London-centric economy and, with an increasingly devolved
Scottish parliament, is not good for Scotland.

~~~
mikekchar
What's really crazy is that salaries in London aren't that high (unless you
are in the financial sector). I am constantly astonished by the low salaries
(for qualified programmers) offered in most parts of Britain. I suspect that
you could actually get away with building a consulting firm in the country
side and getting companies to offshore work from the US.

~~~
zeemonkee3
In the UK you get ahead by going into management. Tech (or sales, or
accounting, or whatever) is just a short term thing you do for a few years
until you get promoted into management. We don't like to reward people for
being clever; we like to reward people who tell others what to do.

~~~
bpyne
It's really difficult to generalize the situation in the US due to the size
and diversity, in terms of industry and business scales, of the country. In
general, I would say that you hit a ceiling in career development within 10
years on a technical track. (Of course, there are exceptions in industry
sectors and a small number of geographic locations. But, I'm looking at the
aggregate.)

However, management is no panacea. The pay is higher, but you can easily be
stuck in mid-level management limbo with no say on budget or technical
direction. Of course, you are "empowered" (read the remainder of the sentence
with an abundance of sarcasm) to do reviews, deal with resource allocation
issues for projects, operations, support work, and not to mention the coveted
verification that your team does mandatory training on sexual harassment and
the like. My manager is a prime example. He sits in many meetings. Ostensibly,
he has a voice at the table with the "big wigs". In reality, he controls
nothing and has the boring administrivia to handle. Mid-level management is
also the first layer to be cut in a down-sizing.

If you stay on the technical track past 10 years, it really has to be because
you love the ability to create something and see it used. I've been on the
technical side for 25 years. Much of my job I find boring and intellectually
vacuous. But, the times when I can actually create something still thrill me
like the first time I wrote a program and saw it run.

~~~
branchless
Also IMHO management is risky because you become specialised to your companies
systems.

One downsizing later you find yourself with 10 years of experience in working
around limitations in the stationary ordering system at NowBustCompany.
Welcome to the scrap heap.

By contrast in IT you can stay fresh more easily and be in demand should you
need to move on.

~~~
taurath
The same thing can certainly happen in IT. How many IBM folks specializing in
lotus notes are being laid off as we speak? Its one of the bigger problems
working at BigCo's - you can end up only knowing internal people and internal
systems. The only place you can conceivably jump to is companies nearby
founded by other ex-BigCo people (in many cases nowadays, the primary
competitors are overseas - capital has free trade to move freely but humans do
not).

If you don't maintain some semblance of connection with the outside world you
can get stuck. The scariest thing in the world to me is a job that is only
internal facing.

~~~
branchless
Agreed. I think this is easier to do in middle management but agree with your
general fear!

------
tallanvor
I see this as a problem all over the world. - San Francisco, Seattle, New
York, Vancouver, London, Oslo... Really the list could go on for quite a
while.

So many of these cities feel like they have to retain their "identity" or the
"feel" of the town, so they set restrictions that make it very hard to develop
properties that can hold more people. The result is always the same:
continually increasing prices in the center of the city whether you want to
rent or buy, so you have to go further and further out to find something
affordable, especially if you are young or if your parents can't help you
finance a purchase.

This is going to continue until planning commissions start allowing the
construction of higher density housing.

~~~
jakobegger
I'm not sure if a fix would be so easy. Housing prices have been rising
everywhere, even in small cities like my home town, where a decent amount of
construction is going on.

I think that the biggest reason for growing housing prices are the currently
low interest rates.

There are two factors that cause rising prices (due to low interest rates):

1) It's more affordable than ever to borrow money, so people are willing to
pay higher prices, and even people with little savings can afford to buy a
home. At 8% interest rates nobody would be able to afford current prices. This
means that sellers can ask much higher prices.

2) Since interest rates are so low, people are increasingly looking at the
housing market as an investment opportunity. Aspiring homeowners now have to
compete with deep-pocketed investors leading to a further increase in prices.

So I think that housing prices would naturally fall if interest rates went up.
(Of course, for young people without savings this makes little difference;
they would likely end up paying just as much due to higher financing costs.)

~~~
pjc50
_So I think that housing prices would naturally fall if interest rates went
up._

The problem is that falling house prices put people "underwater", and rising
interest rates put people on variable rate mortgages in arrears. This inflicts
a huge amount of pain on middle class floating voters.

~~~
jakobegger
Yes, I think this is a huge problem -- if interest rates rise again, a lot of
people will suffer. Therefore policy makers have a big incentive to keep
interest rates low.

I don't know how this will end, but I don't think that the current low
interest situation, which incentivises credit and discourages saving, can be
stable in the long run.

~~~
pjc50
_incentivises credit and discourages saving_

Both of those things encourage economic growth, though. Until we come up with
some better way of meeting our demand-side needs, rates are going to stay low.

------
illumin8
This seems to be a direct result of capital flight from China. Wealthy chinese
who are able to get their money out (through corruption, money laundering, or
otherwise) are looking for somewhere safe to park their money for the
inevitable decline in value of the yuan. China can only artificially peg their
money to the dollar for so long, until they run out of dollars, and they are
drawing down their reserves at a record pace due to the appreciation of the
dollar.

Wealthy chinese know this, and use real estate in markets such as Vancouver,
SF, and NYC, because it's fairly low risk and likely to appreciate. See
[http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/01/13/462994857/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/01/13/462994857/u-s-treasury-cracks-down-on-luxury-home-money-
laundering) and [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/us-will-track-secret-
bu...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/us-will-track-secret-buyers-of-
luxury-real-estate.html)

~~~
pkaler
I'm standing at my desk in my apartment that I pay $1589/month for. An
equivalent apartment in SF or NYC would be $3500 or higher.

The problems are two-fold.

1) Vancouver hasn't created a single-family detached home lot since the 1970s.
There is an ocean to the west, the US border to the south, Burrard Inlet and
mountains to the north. There just isn't any land. The only way to expand is
east into the Fraser Valley.

The single-family detached home is dead. Live in a condo. Everyone gets a
view. Everyone gets sunshine. Everyone gets services. Everyone gets a park a
block away.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouverism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouverism)

2) Vancouver companies pay dick-all for salaries because Vancouver companies
make dick-all for revenue. Everyone that lives here and can afford works or
consults for a company that is not from Vancouver. A tech company that can't
afford to pay an employee to rent a $1589/month apartment is not a tech
company.

~~~
illumin8
If property values were tied directly to incomes, as they are in any normal
market, and what you are saying is true about salaries being low, the
Vancouver market would not be as hot as it is right now.

The market is being artificially inflated by foreign buyers. Don't forget that
Vancouver is a very attractive destination for wealthy Chinese multi-
nationals. This is the same phenomenon that has wealthy Chinese buying $5
million luxury apartments in Manhattan through shell companies to hide their
identity.

~~~
logfromblammo
I saw an answer on _Jeopardy!_ recently that described Vancouver for one of
the daily doubles. Oglethorpe math professor Philip Tiu apparently had a long
enough brain fart before responding correctly that I had time to yell at the
television, "How do you not know Vancouver?! You're Chinese!"

My spouse immediately informed me, "That's racist."

We then had a short discussion about the ways in which the Chinese nouveaux
riches expatriate their assets.

~~~
moron4hire
It's not racist, but it is prejudiced. Racism is basically "prejudice +
power". You don't have any power over the person on the screen, so your
comment is just prejudiced. If, on the other hand, you were using your
hypothetical sway on social media to besmirch him in some way, that would be
racism.

I'm American but I've never read "To Kill a Mocking Bird". "How could you have
never read an iconic piece of American literature that literally every public
school child between the 70s and 90s was forced to read in highschool?!" Easy:
I didn't go to public school, and I wasn't in highschool until the new
millennium.

~~~
logfromblammo
It was a stereotypes-based joke. It's like pushing a boulder rolling downhill
as it passes by. You're not so much using your own power as adding just a
little to the destructive power that is already there. In this case, the
stereotype is "all Chinese people own a house/condo in Vancouver", which is an
abuse of the conditional probability that a property is owned by a Chinese
person given that it is in Vancouver (and also clearly impossible, due to
there being somewhat fewer than a billion residences in Vancouver). Imputed
property ownership is not a derogatory stereotype, so I don't feel
particularly bad about perpetuating it.

I was forced to read __To Kill a Mockingbird__. As a result of the forced
consumption and interminable in-class literary dissection, I don't have a very
high opinion of it, and only a vague recollection of the plot. Nothing could
make me hate a book quite like English class.

But that's actual fact of having a national literary canon shoved down our
throats, and we're looking at non-factual stereotypes here. As an American,
you would have had no chance at all at answering the question, because
Americans don't know where _anything_ is outside the borders of the U.S.,
unless there is a war happening there, and then we can correctly identify the
continent it is on about 80% of the time. To the stereotypical American,
Vancouver might be barely recognizable as a city somewhere in Washington
state, just as Montreal is in Vermont, Toronto is in Ohio, Windsor is a suburb
of Detroit, and Ottawa is an illusion maintained by the Canadian military to
distract its enemies from the real capital in Toronto.

The movie _Canadian Bacon_ is based almost entirely on this national
stereotype, and the Canadian national stereotype.

------
raverbashing
The Chinese are parking their money there, that's what's happening

Hence people paying millions of dollars for a house that's falling apart

But I'm glad to hear about Victoria.

~~~
daemin
That's been a common theme among people talking about the rising house prices
in Australia as well. That Chinese people just buy property to park their
money overseas.

But when someone looked at the numbers the number of houses that were bought
by Chinese people were in the low single digit percentages.

While this could create some upward pressure on prices it cannot be the only
factor. For instance in Australia most of the blame lies of negative gearing
(where any money paid in interest on a property can be claimed against all
income).

~~~
wycx
Prices are set at the margin.

A single digit percentage of actors in the market with the objective of not
losing 100% of their capital by turning it into a hard asset in another
country is sufficient to move the market.

In Australia it is the combination of negative gearing AND the 50% capital
gains tax concession on investment properties. Average rental losses per
negative gearer were reasonably constant and small up until 2001 when the
'sound economic manager' Costello introduced the CGT discount, intially for a
limited time only to make up for the introduction of the GST. From 2001
onwards, claimed net rental losses have blown out significantly, such that the
annual forgone tax is greater than what the federal government spends on
universities. This is because the gains permitted with such generous CGT
concessions more than make up for year-on-year rental losses. This strategy
only makes sense when house prices are rising, which has been the case for ~20
years in Australia. Given that Australians are at, or close to the limit of
their ability to take on more credit, real standards of living (real net
disposable income per capita) have been falling for the last five years, it
seems that the bubble may not be sustainable. Unless you internationalise the
housing market and make it a place for turning cash into hard assests, like
London.

~~~
mistermann
> Prices are set at the margin.

Do you happen to know if there is any well written economics paper on this
topic?

~~~
eru
You could start with
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginalism)
and follow leads from there.

------
anuj_nm
In the past year, I've had 3 colleagues quit their jobs at a Vancouver startup
to work remotely for a US company (to get paid in USD). Tech salaries in
Vancouver are too low for the cost of living.

Its especially discouraging to see an employer with offices in Seattle and
Vancouver offer their Canadian employees salaries that are >30% lower than
their American counterparts. I won't be surprised if Canadians working
remotely becomes commonplace.

~~~
gavingmiller
I'd agree 100% on this. As a Canadian, looking at our future career prospects
it is in our best interest to learn how to work well as remote employees.

------
tempestn
The USD median house price in Vancouver is misleading too, because it wasn't
long ago that the dollar was at parity, and incomes certainly haven't changed
much as the dollar has dropped by a third.

Anyway, so far the effect on Victoria seems to be our own mini (compared to
Vancouver; still nuts for most of the world) housing boom. I have three
couples of close friends all house-hunting right now, and it's not a fun time
to be doing so. I can't imagine committing to pay the better part of a million
dollars for something with less than a day's deliberation, no time for an
inspection, and a need to offer over asking price to even have a hope of
"winning".

~~~
ironsides
Honest question here - why not just rent and wait it out?

edit/from the article; Rentals are hard to come by, and just as unaffordable.
The vacancy rate of 0.8 percent is one of the lowest in the country, and the
average monthly rent of C$937 for a bachelor suite is tied at highest with the
cost in Toronto, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Rents for
newly built units and renovated basement suites are pricier.

~~~
tempestn
You've pretty much got it. Still, while expensive, renting is still much more
affordable than buying. The other problem is, decent SFH rentals are very
difficult to come by. Here in Victoria, my friends who are looking for houses
are all starting families and would like more space than most apartments
offer. Many of them would be fine with renting as long as prices are
unbalanced, but the rental market selection if you want something larger than
a 2-bedroom apartment is really sparse. Plus, many of the places you _can_
find are only there until the owners manage to sell them, which obviously
isn't ideal if you're looking to settle down.

~~~
branchless
> renting is still much more affordable than buying

Because rent is constrained by wages. Land prices are constrained by fiat
issuance. Fiat issuance is constrained by credibility.

------
vanthrow
I'm a millennial immigrant to Vancouver (came with my family when I was 10).

I'm a software developer by trade.

The problems are real, but the outcome is greatly exaggerated.

The fact is MOST millennials outside the most lucrative STEM/Law/Finance
fields are in no position to be buying real estate anywhere in North America.

And the Vancouver rental market is actually not half bad. You can get a
basement suite for under $1000 in the city proper. You can get a 2 bedroom
downtown for $2000. Or at least you could a year ago, the Canadian dollar has
plummeted.

Meanwhile people are weighing in with terrible salary stories. It's also not
exactly true. Yes, I could make more in Seattle, and even MORE in Silicon
Valley. But there are lifestyle costs to both. I value the Vancouver lifestyle
quite highly. Now, full disclosure, I moved to Europe for a 2-3 year transfer
with my company last year. But this was also a lifestyle based decision to
allow me to travel more - I took a paycut.

The truth about salaries is Amazon pays very well (though not as well as in
the States). Microsoft pays very well. So does Facebook, and Apple, and
Salesforce pays the best (supposedly they are competitive with US salaries).
These big players are forcing the rest of the market to kick up. And all these
players are also relatively new to the scene (most growth in the last 5
years). As a result, I foresee in the next few years a lot of ex-employees
from these places going out on their own and doing great things in the startup
community, or commanding similar salaries from local shops that want to get
experienced engineers with big scale experience.

The problem with Vancouver is it's hard to find a city to compare it to. Yes,
the economy isn't the strongest it can be, but the proximity to nature is
unbelievable and very difficult to match. That intangible IS worth something
despite people not taking advantage of it complaining that "that's all there
is". If you don't care about world-class ocean and mountain sports in close
proximity to outstanding international food options, this city is not for you.
There are places with more vibrant art and culture and nightlife scenes, no
doubt. But if you make the most of Vancouver's strengths, it is unbeatable.

~~~
atwebb
>buying real estate anywhere in North America

Maybe major major cities, but it's not unreasonable to get a 3-4k sq ft house
for less than $1400-1500 a month all in in "B" cities or outlying areas of
major cities.

------
tinduck
I'll be honest. It's hard for me to hate on Vancouver too much as I truly
think Urban planning is difficult.

I think people should move to lower costs cities if the situation makes sense
for them. Vancouver might be at a disadvantage due to Brain Drain at this
specific moment in time, but I believe there's an argument to be made that
Vancouver has significantly been a beneficiary of Brain Drain from other
countries in the past.

As the USA and Canada continues to transition to a knowledge based economy,
our cities should emulate what made Vancouver a economic powerhouse, which is
a world class research university, great public transportation, and effective
immigration programs. Now, there are things you can't emulate like great
weather or prestige, but we can make more cities like San Francisco or
Vancouver.

------
voltagex_
I really like Victoria and I hope the town does well out of this. I'm sad that
I may not be able to afford to live in Vancouver anytime soon, though.

~~~
huhtenberg
Victoria is nice, but it is a small city and being on the island it's pretty
isolated.

While you do have direct access to the said island, there's a limit to how
much "nature" activities one can do. Diversity Nanaimo (another city) is
utterly unremarkable. Tofino is very nice, but it's 4-hour drive away.
Everything else is even farther _and_ unremarkable. Getting to anywhere
outside of the island is a major hassle. Victoria International Airport
provides fine selection of international flights, though to Seattle only.
Ferries are slow and expensive. Floating plane taxis tend to crash now and
then, so that's not very good either. So, yes, in theory you can get off the
island on a whim, in practice though it's so much hassle that more often than
not you simply won't bother. Hence the "isolated" remark.

YMMV, but my experience was that outside of work things get very boring very
quickly.

~~~
jdpigeon
Strathcona Park has some of the most remarkable backcountry skiing and ice
climbing in the world, I'd say.

------
Tistel
I lived in Vancouver for 5 years. Beautiful spot. Met a lot of interesting
people from all over the world. But, even by Canadian standards (which are
much lower than the US) the salaries in Vancouver are notoriously low. A much
better (2X) offer brought me to Toronto.

Staring to feel the same about Toronto too expense and hassle wise. Want to
try remote work from the States and live in the country in Canada. Only
interia prevents me.

------
Nickersf
While we're moving south... Portland is next. Are we all trying to catch of up
with SF cost of living?

------
johnm1019
I find it interesting that due to high rent prices the article hypothesizes
that people are moving away from Vancouver and the next upcoming city is a
peninsula on an island? What do you think is going to happen in the real-
estate market there?

------
JackPoach
Yep, Canadian tech salaries can't compete with Silicon Valley

~~~
Wingman4l7
I'm curious -- can it compete with the PNW at all (i.e., tech jobs in
Seattle)?

~~~
andromeduck
Even Microsoft internship in Vancouver was about 3.5k per month vs over 7 in
Seattle

Hell I've received serious offers for ~70k salary here when that's lower than
lots of Bay area internships before the exchange rate

It's absolutely ridiculous

------
Reason077
If millennial are fleeing Vancouver for London because they can't afford
housing, as this article suggests, they're going to be very disappointed with
our housing prices!

~~~
justinhj
Ha. That's true but as a Londoner living in Vancouver I can tell you that for
young people here moving to London would be exciting and educational compared
to staying at home for the same money, so many would leave for that reason.

------
Tiktaalik
I think it's likely that tech in Vancouver is having trouble hiring and
retaining as millenials flee to SF, where they can get paid dramatically more,
but in general Vancouver is seeing net gains in millenials.

I have no idea how Bloomberg made their chart but using census and BC stats
data no one has been able to reproduce it.

This UBC sociology prof crunched BCStats numbers and found that there is net
positive millenial migration into Vancouver.

[https://homefreesociology.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/ch-ch-
ch-...](https://homefreesociology.wordpress.com/2016/03/16/ch-ch-ch-changes-
in-vancouvers-net-migration-profile-by-age/)

This doesn't change the fact that the unaffordability situation in Vancouver
is deeply problematic and is probably accelerating a brain drain to the USA.

------
rdlecler1
This is a major issue everywhere. Take stagnant wage growth and stack that up
against high housing costs and you have a double pinch. Prospects are
extremely bleak.

------
tdicola
Get ready Seattleites, we're next. The housing market is already going a bit
bonkers with no sign of slowing down.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Their salaries are much higher than Vancouver, they might be ok....especially
in tech.

~~~
tostitos1979
Canadian tech salaries are a pittance compared to US ones. In the Bay area,
150K to 250K are standard for people with 5 years of experience. This is not
the case in any Canadian city. This neglects the lower exchange rate.

~~~
eitally
You're way off. 150k for 5yrs experience is pretty typical in big tech &
unicorn companies, but not anywhere else. 250k base salaries are highly
atypical anywhere (except for very senior engineers). Total comp will be more
than that, but if that's what you meant you shouldn't have said salaries.

------
hokkos
When the forced reload timeout of the page (to gather more fake views) is less
than the video duration of your article you know your site is broken.

------
clessg
What is currently the best way for a Canadian tech worker to get into the US?
Still the same situation as usual?

~~~
kspaans
Have a degree? Get a TN status (non-immigrant work permit). All you need is a
job offer from an American company.

------
rgoldade
There is a diaspora of Vancouverites in their late 20s, early 30s here in
Toronto. They left home for better employment and housing opportunities. I
think we all would love to move back but it's just not worth it. Vancouver is
a better city than Toronto but not THAT much better.

------
yeukhon
Believe it or not, I have a number of coworkers come from Canada. I am not
sure if they have all converted to US citizenship or not, but most of them
have family or have a stable life here, and they blend in extremely well. And
then there are a number of British coworkers too...

------
wmeredith
How the hell is autoplaying video still a thing in 2016?

~~~
OldSchoolJohnny
spend some time on that page and it gets worse, in the middle of reading the
article it just refreshes the page losing your place for no apparent reason
and then starts autoplaying the video again.

Maybe they do it to fake more views for more ad$?

------
Apocryphon
"The vacancy rate of 0.8 percent is one of the lowest in the country, and the
average monthly rent of C$937 for a bachelor suite is tied at highest with the
cost in Toronto, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp."

Montreal? Calgary? Edmonton? Halifax? St. John's?

~~~
jbarham
> Montreal? Calgary? Edmonton? Halifax? St. John's?

Winter.

~~~
branchless
Montreal is great. I recommend it. Yeah it's a bit cold but it's dry so not
damp cold. Would you rather be a bit cold or working like a dog for some US
company where your healthcare could vanish overnight because your boss was in
a bad mood?

~~~
stormqloud
Montreal is great in some ways. In other ways you run into the regular overt
hatred of non francophones.

[http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news-
community/2016/03/16/elderly-p...](http://www.cjad.com/cjad-news-
community/2016/03/16/elderly-patient-denied-service-in-english-at-verdun-
hospital---again)

""My mom was laying in her bed, she turned over and I noticed she was crying,"
says Martin. "That's when she told me a nurse had just yelled at her for
speaking in English.""

Thats the kind of mean spirited people that work in the "civil service".

Anyone who denies it, hasn't lived in Montreal long enough and needs to get
out to Sherbrooke or Drummonville a little more often to see that natives in
their full hatred.

Fight Anglophobia.

------
nacho2sweet
Real-estate has been fucked up here since 2000, and no one has ever done
anything about it. Our condo market was a money market for years. People would
pay other people to camp out for pre-sales a week in advance in tents and a
new development would be sold out opening day. It would be flipped 5 times
before it was even built.

The "affordable housing" initiatives here mostly seem to be for homeless
people or those on fixed incomes. There is a big resentment from middle class
or the "working poor" here now. But young people don't vote or they vote on
social issues that seem nice when they are 20 but not on something that is
going to effect them when they are 28-40. People who own houses love it but
know it is fucked up. My mom is an example basically, and just banked her
retirement selling her downtown condo. Lots of you are talking about tech
wages because that effects you, but I have lots of friends that grew up that
are in the 40k-50k range that would at least like a shitty condo in east van.
I wish we could go back to 10 years ago about DINKWAD jokes, but the Double
Income No Kids With a Dogs can't even afford detached houses here anymore.
It's $2-million for a tear down crack shack. It is fucking crazy. $2-million
is a lot of money. $2-million used to be a beautiful water view mansion, and
not that long ago.

Everyone should read this article as well:
[http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/investigations/the-
real-...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/investigations/the-real-estate-
technique-fuelling-vancouvers-housing-market/article28634868/)

This is just one shady fucked up thing they know about. There is so much more
to it. I really wish the Frontline about shady money laundering didn't get
canned. [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/06/why-did-
fro...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/06/why-did-frontline-
kill-lowell-bergman-s-gambling-documentary.html)

At the same time we keep saying the "Chinese money laundering!" yea it is
illegal to them. But we also don't live under laws that only allow us to move
$50k a year out of the country. We have to imagine living under that ourselves
I guess.

------
cat-dev-null
Assuming one has a really good heater and sleeping bag, it
legal/possible/affordable to live in a VW bus in say south Vancouver? Renting
in places like NYC, SF these days seems most people are lemmingly throwing
money away in an unaffordable attempt to buy faux status while going into debt
and gaining no balance sheet because "everyone else is doing it." Unless
you've sold a series to HBO, living below one's means is smarter because hope
isn't a strategy.

~~~
raverbashing
Sorry to be blunt, but why the f should anyone do that, especially if they
have a job in tech (but even if they are not)

NYC and SF might be crammed, but there is a lot of space in the surroundings.
In the topic we're talking about Canada, 2nd largest country in the world

And yes, working on nice companies is important, but quality of life is also
important

~~~
cat-dev-null
Then you're a minority of one. Most people living in cities these days are
irrationally pouring typically between 50% to sometimes as much as 75% of
their income into rent, paying for the privilege of holding onto expensive
real-estate they will never be able to afford rather than _save money_...
they'll never be able to retire or have anything else more permanent.

You're making some very broad, self-centered assumptions about quality of life
and perception of other people. Not everyone needs lattés or 3500 sq ft / 325
m^2.

No one cares to live in the Saskatchewan boondocks apart to get away from the
city, so why did you bring that up irrelevant strawman?

Some people also value independence more than being perpetually-indebted to a
company (non-single-payer health insurance / rent).

------
ruffrey
With online collaboration tools really taking off, especially with WebRTC
currently on billions of devices, I have this unfounded belief that city
centers will become less important over the next decade. There will always be
work which is better suited to in-person setups.

Maybe it is more of a hope than a belief - but having a decentralized
workforce has implications for cost of living and quality of life that are
exciting. With (relatively) low-cost mortgages, home purchasing power
increases at a non-linear rate, the more money you make. That is one reason
why housing demand in cities can grow faster than wages.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Unfounded all right. Cyclical, more like it. People's tastes change over time.
Grandparents liked cities, parents like suburbs, I like cities, and I can't
imagine how my kids will feel. Maybe high housing costs will inspire people to
live rurally or in exquisite mobile homes driven by computers. Or it will
result in a global densification the likes of which we have never truly seen.

In Neuromancer, the Sprawl spanned the entire eastern seaboard and yet the
only place with real distinction was Zion - the Rastafarian space station far
away from the regular bustle. Things are always in flux.

