Love Where You Live
And create a few Peak Vancouver days.
- lastsummer, a friend and Ihad what we refer to as our Peak Vancouver day. We started with a stroll over to Alberni Street to feast on dim sum atKirin, thenpacked up our panniers with rosé, books andsnacks, and biked to Third Beach to hang out for afew hours.(Oh, summer of rosé, how Imissthee.)We ran intoneighbours while swimming(which felt much morekismet-y than if we had spotted them onland), and then towelled o and saddled up for across-city bike ride over to the PNE, where there were food trucks, rides, beer gardens and adelightful session at the Dueling Pianos tent. Thanks to the scream-shot camera over the wooden roller coaster, I have photographic evidence of just how be ac hy( read: giant) my hair was. And also how big my smile.
We were maxing out our neighbourhood sf or the day. We’ re both West Enders( I had nothing to do with it being named our top ’hood this issue, Ipromise—that’s thanks to the cold hard stats from data journalist Chad Skelton), so that’s where we were for a good chunk of time. It was pretty quintessential “livable neighbourhood” that day: embodying some of the legendary urban activist Jane Jacobs’s ideas for what makes agreat place to live (like a mix of retail and residential space, a diversity of building types and ages, density and walkability), plus asmattering of qualiers from the livability index, too: safe transportation (yay, bike lanes), clean environment (a swimmable ocean), social engagement (hey, neighbours!) and more.
Our Best Neighbourhoods story (page 26) this issue takes all of those factors into account, as our executive editor Stacey McLachlan lays out, along with just how that data shifts depending on your personal wants and needs for whatever point you are at in your life. (As a single person, for example, schools and family density are less important to me.) There’s no doubt that most people feel a certain attachment to their own neighbourhood—Vancouver, despite the current housing crisis, still tops many “Most Livable City” lists around the world—but Iencourage you to try out the neighbourhood tool we’ve created atvanmag.com/FindYourHood to see how the factors that are important to you might direct you to your best spot to live. And, by all means, share with me your Peak Vancouver days—let there be many of them for all of us in the months to come.