No. There's something to be said about West Coast vs East Coast vibes, but the article accurately describes SF and it mostly doesn't apply to the smaller cities like Portland, Seattle and especially Vancouver.
I have very close friends in Vancouver, and over the last 20 years, I've been to there often, throughout all parts of the season. I'm fairly familiar with it. If I could retire in Vancouver I would because it's a nice, quiet, slow-paced town. Even at the height of work hours, there is very little traffic downtown.
It doesn't have the same flair that a city like SF has. SF has major events throughout the year. It has a culture of weirdness, wackiness, lots of technology, lots of greed. It has very vastly different neighborhoods with vastly different cultures. Haight is completely different from
Noe which is different from Castro which is different from the Marina. It's not like West End vs East End in Vancouver.
There is a culture of risk taking. People always coming up with stupid or crazy startups, trying to push it on the local businesses. There are lots of great restaurants as well. There is zero night life in Vancouver, and a few very good restaurants (but a lot of great sushi restaurants, much better than SF). Downtown is practically dead by 8pm, which is nice. Granville Street which should be like Market Street, is instead almost like a dead street, Robson has a lot of tourists, but no real culture except coffee shops.
So go back through the article, and you'll see most of the stuff on startup life doesn't apply at all. There is no craziness or wackiness, no real tech scene, not on the scale of SF or Seattle, no sense of early adoption (not very many people has iPhones in Canada because of the draconian cell phone contracts), the idea that neighborhoods are far away doesn't exist in Vancouver because the traffic isn't nearly as bad as it is here, not even 1/10 as much fog as SF, etc.
Your impressions of Vancouver are dated by about 5 years. A lot has changed over the last few years with the Olympics, Canada Line, BC Place renovation, Convention Centre, Shangri-La being built, etc.
> There is zero night life in Vancouver, and a few very good restaurants (but a lot of great sushi restaurants, much better than SF).
The problem with Vancouverites is that they just like to complain about the bad nightlife even though it is actually fairly vibrant. I have lived in Vancouver for about 15 years now and most of that time I've lived downtown. I can go into almost any bar and hug the bartender. There is a good live music night almost every night of the week. (Guilt & Co, Railway, Commodore, Media Club, Orpheum)
> Downtown is practically dead by 8pm, which is nice. Granville Street which should be like Market Street, is instead almost like a dead street, Robson has a lot of tourists, but no real culture except coffee shops.
Granville and Robson are the tourist trap and drunk college kids strip. Gastown is usually packed on Friday and Saturday nights with drunk 19 year olds. Most of the locals hang out in Gastown, Yaletown, or South Main depending on your scene preference.
The sushi in Gastown is garbage, but Yaletown probably has better sushi than the rest of Canada and the US combined (Ki Isu, Honjin, Bistro Sakana, Minami, Blue Water, Hapa Izakaya).
You are essentially saying SF is bigger than Vancouver, which it is. Of course there is more of everything in SF.
Have you ever lived on the East Coast though? The differences between the actually "culture" is dramatic. It seems though that most of the people objecting to my comment only have experience on the west coast, and therefore see the differences in the cities instead of how - in reality - how similar they are, at least when compared to the eastern half of the continent.
BTW, here in Vancouver everyone I know has an iPhone, including me.
Nope - San Francisco is not much bigger. San Francisco has 800K people. Vancouver has 600K.
(It is true that there are much more people in Bay Area versus the greater Vancouver area.)
I've lived in both cities. Vancouver is basically the San Francisco of Canada. But it lacks the defiantly weird spirit of San Francisco. The insane wealth that's pumped through the city from nearby tech zillionaires does play a role, because it gives 20-year-olds really high incomes, even though they spend a lot of it on rent. But in NYC or Toronto people would be spending that money on status possessions, not constructing snail-cars that shoot fire.
And everyone having an iPhone? That was 2007 in the Bay Area.
Vancouver does have virtues of its own. The OP talks about SF's culture of fitness, but I did not notice that so much -- it's nothing compared to Vancouver. People in Vancouver have excellent work-life balance. They put in a decent effort at work, more or less 9-5, but do two different sports in their spare time. People in Vancouver look like they're 25 when they're 35. People in SF stay mentally young for longer, but the job stress tends to wear down on them. When I moved from Vancouver to SF I noticed how tired everybody looked.
(It is true that there are much more people in Bay Area versus the greater Vancouver area.)
Yeah, it's bigger. People don't stay within local municipal boundaries. Don't be ridiculous. Nobody in their right mind would argue that Vancouver and SF are the same size.
I've lived in both cities.
Great, but have you lived out east? Because that is what I'm comparing. I recognize there are differences between each city. Of course there are. What I'm saying is that there is a definite "vibe" that is shared by each of the cities on the coast, (even Portland and San Deigo have it) that is simply different from the average each coast city.
