Vancouverites like where they live
By Doug Ward and Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun
Vancouverites are more positive about their city than the residents of Montreal and Toronto are about theirs, according to a new Angus Reid poll.
The survey found 67 per cent of respondents in Vancouver believed their city was the most livable in Canada.
“This is a high number,” said Jean-Francois Barsoum, a senior consultant with IBM, which commissioned the poll.
“Only about one-third of Montrealers picked their own city.”
Sixty-five per cent of Vancouverites said their city is on the path toward long-term livability. Barsoum said Vancouverites and British Columbians generally were more concerned with livability than were respondents in other provinces.
“Not only did Vancouverites rate their own city highly, but they also rated it highly on a dimension they felt was important.”
Vancouverites weren’t alone in feeling positive about B.C.’s largest city. Vancouver topped the poll when Canadians were asked to choose the most livable city in Canada, with 18 per cent of respondents putting it in first place.
But Jon Garson, of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, said the poll didn’t paint a complete picture of sustainability, as it didn’t include questions around housing affordability or property taxes.
“Packaging it as a livability poll is a little bit ingenuous,” he said, but added: “There’s stuff in there that governments should pay attention to.”
Vancouverites acknowledged that their urban region has problems. Sixty-nine per cent cited transportation as a major challenge for Metro Vancouver, compared with 60 per cent of Torontonians and 53 per cent of Montrealers.
TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie said it’s not surprising transit is at the top of the list of concerns, noting it generally lands in the top three.
But Hardie said it shouldn’t be seen in a negative light. “That shows two things: that people are interested in the system and they have a real stake in how it works.”
He said there are several reasons Vancouverites are so passionate about transit. Not only are they environmentally aware, but many come from other countries that have been stripped of trees and parks and overdeveloped.
“They really jealously guard the quality of life here,” he said. “People want to to maintain that.”
But Garson said it’s concerning that Vancouverites are worried about transit, given that the city has some of the best transportation in the region.
“That really highlights not only the challenges in Vancouver but in other communities,” he said.
Garson said Vancouverites also hit close to the bone on their views about the economy, with 11 per cent of respondents citing worries about declining career opportunities.
He noted that jibes with the feelings of businesspeople, who have cited skills and labour shortages among their major challenges.
Vancouver had mixed results when it came to public safety. Sixty-three per cent of respondents in Vancouver ranked public safety as good or excellent while 40 per cent said public safety is one of the biggest challenges facing Canadian cities, ahead of respondents in Ottawa (25 per cent) and Toronto (27 per cent.)
“Vancouverites seem to be saying we are doing well, but that more needs to be done when it comes to public safety,” Barsoum said.
The poll, which questioned 2,015 adult Canadians, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.19 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
http://www.vancouversun.com/Vancouve...713/story.html
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Because this is the best place to come and talk about what is wrong, instead of being a bunch of smuggy assholes patting each other on the back.
hehe
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