Relocation services for British Columbia, Canada

Greater Vancouver

Vancouver has consistently scored well in surveys on quality of life and the best places to live.

Vancouver scores fourth on Quality of Life

A water taxi leaving Granville IslandThe latest (2009) Mercer survey on overall quality of living finds Vienna, Zurich and Geneva as the world’s top-scoring cities.  Vancouver and Auckland were in joint 4th place. All the Canadian cities surveyed are highly ranked, with Toronto in 15th place, Ottawa 16th, Montreal 22nd and Calgary 26th. These Canadian cities were the top cities in North America.

June, 2009
The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Vancouver #1 in it’s Most Livable City survey.
See my article on this.

Climate gives Vancouver the edge according to a Mercer spokesperson, otherwise there’s very little difference among the Canadian cities in quality of life

All of the Canadian cities covered by the survey appear in the top 20 rankings for personal safety and security. Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver rank jointly in position 18 with scores of 112.

Source: http://www.mercer.com/qualityofliving

Vancouver Voted as Best City in the World for expatriates

English Bay, in Vancouver’s West EndMelbourne and Vancouver are the best cities in the world for expatriates to live in, according to a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Both Australia and Canada did well in the survey, with the west Australian city of Perth ranking third, and Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide tying in eighth place. In Canada, Toronto and Montreal also made the top 10, while Calgary was 16th.

Conducted by the Economist Group, the survey assessed the level of hardship for expatriates in 130 cities.

It looked at 12 factors including housing, education, recreational activities and climate, rating every city on a five-point scale in each category, with five indicating extreme hardship.

The top cities in the list:
1. (tie) Melbourne, Australia
1. Vancouver, Canada
3. Perth, Australia
4. (tie) Vienna, Austria
4. Toronto, Canada
4. Geneva, Switzerland
4. Zurich, Switzerland
8. (tie) Adelaide, Australia
8. Brisbane, Australia
8. Sydney, Australia
8. Copenhagen, Denmark
8. Dusseldorf, Germany
8. Frankfurt, Germany
8. Oslo, Norway
8. Montreal, Canada
16. (tie) Calgary, Canada

For the full article, click here.

City facts

Downtown Vancouver, with a cruise ship docked at Canada Place.

The City of Vancouver had a population of 545,671 in 2001 and it covered an area of 114.67 square kilometers. The Greater Vancouver Regional District had a population of 1,986,965 in 2001, making up nearly half the population of the province of BC (3,907,738). [Census data from Statistics Canada]

Building Permits

This is a measure of the economic health of the area.

Area	Value of building permits
	1996	2000	2004
Anmore	3,617,898	2,630,865	8,434,830
Belcarra	3,285,184	306,786	2,454,219
Bowen Island	N.A.	4,922,525	12,997,100
Burnaby	218,880,133	263,194,902	514,808,697
Coquitlam	207,263,844	164,550,080	127,443,852
Delta	99,888,000	95,965,875	104,393,282
Electoral Area	8,073,100	366,050	3,444,800
Langley City	14,914,550	24,686,700	47,457,800
Langley Township	227,448,183	132,833,373	279,552,966
Lions Bay	-	966,850	3,787,240
Maple Ridge	76,134,409	87,857,859	103,658,000
New Westminster	53,055,486	45,521,070	88,637,729
North Van City	69,153,056	54,205,638	101,985,410
North Van District	121,381,198	72,940,950	88,366,737
Pitt Meadows	16,674,000	13,634,650	44,155,099
Port Coquitlam	58,508,336	78,494,634	44,307,133
Port Moody	24,702,477	28,495,459	118,426,679
Richmond	350,815,774	169,499,858	368,500,393
Surrey	694,911,240	578,278,243	1,026,692,912
Vancouver	1,239,010,625	834,960,230	1,728,574,126
West Vancouver	102,467,623	76,656,549	177,671,000
White Rock	22,716,714	15,386,912	33,845,110
Total GVRD permit values	3,612,901,830	2,746,356,058	5,029,595,114

Note: Prior to 2000, Bowen Island was included in Electoral Area.

Sources: GVRD, Policy & Planning Department & GVRD Municipalities., Vancouver Sun

Communities within the area

If you want to explore the communities in the area, you can use the clickable map below. Or use the text links that follow.

Links

The Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) comprises these main cities:

• Vancouver West
• North Vancouver
• West Vancouver
  • Bowen Island
• Abbotsford
• Burnaby
• Maple Ridge
• Richmond
• Surrey
• Tri-Cities
  • Coquitlam
  • Port Coquitlam
  • Port Moody
• White Rock

External Links

• Greater Vancouver Regional District
• City of Vancouver
• Vancouver school board district 39
• Vancouver Courier newspaper
• Vancouver Activities Mailing List
• Vancouver’s changing panorama