[someone123]

It feels like downtown retail in Vancouver has been in the doldrums for a few years. Pacific Centre is kind of underwhelming, Nordstrom is gone, the Bay is gone. Robson is maybe a bit less nice than it was, although it still has many higher end stores and comparatively few vacancies. Simons would be good, but it's in Park Royal.

I think food options have declined a bit as well. There's still an abundance of very good higher end places (Michelin star or bib gourmand and the like), but there are more and more crappy low end places including ones now with seemingly AI-generated marketing materials and maybe menus. Food quality in the medium and low end has declined for some reasons that probably afflict the whole country. So many of them just aren't worth going to and the good affordable stand-by places of the past have been dwindling.

All of this is happening as residential rents and condo prices are very high downtown and there is a large, growing population. On paper, you'd think the area would be thriving. It is a stagflation sort of situation.

Some areas of town have improved, like Mount Pleasant.