Public Disorder & the Decline of Vancouver's Livability

[Vin]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Where do you have evidence for this ranking?

There you go, are these all enough "evidence" for you?

Originally Posted by Skook

So if Vancouver has 660,000 people and only 9 per 10000 homeless, then we only have 9 times 66 = 594 homeless. I doubt this is accurate.

In the last week, I have been to see American comedians Louis CK and John Mulaney. Both are from New York and both immediately commented on the addiction problem on our streets.

We likely do have less violence here because Canada, but the open drug use and rampant mental illness here is noticeable instantly, even to famous visitors from the biggest cities staying in our best hotels.

Who cares if other cities score better or worse according to some measures, we have a world class problem here, and most of our proposed solutions are more of the same — that has failed consistently for years and years.

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

Vancouver has also been on the national news the last week because of the efforts to clear Hastings. It's possible that the comedians saw those stories which prompted the jokes.

Originally Posted by chowhou

Just speculation, but based on the Portland map posted earlier Americans might expect homeless camps to be dispersed throughout the city. Vancouver, on the other hand, has mostly kept the homeless population concentrated in the DTES (which happens to be beside the hotels and stadiums big comedians would be around). If you saw the DTES and thought that there's dozens more of that spread out across the Metro Vancouver area, you'd understandably think we have a huge societal issue.

Based on this article and map, homeless encampments are pretty spread out across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Meanwhile, any new encampment outside the DTES tends to make major headlines (Strathcona and CRAB parks in particular).

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised when I travelled to Portland a few weeks back. I had been told to expect a homeless situation far worse than Vancouver's, but the downtown had hardly any homeless and only a couple tents in some surface parking lots. But my perception of Portland's problems was certainly framed by my experience with the concentration of Vancouver's homeless in one or two areas (DTES and CRAB park). The clearing of the DTES will probably make our situation more closely resemble the dispersed nature of U.S. cities.