Skip the DTES

Met my Chilean friend for the third time on Saturday, for a coffee. He is here for 6-12 months. I am a bit sad to report that he is not very impressed with Vancouver. The natural beauty, for sure, but he's disappointed with the number of drug addicts and homeless.

Maybe this is awful of me, but I don't see it as a problem in the sense of my daily life. Obviously, these situations exist, obviously we should have sympathy and support efforts to change it, but to me they are very limited to maybe two very small areas (the DTES and Whalley), which are easily avoided.

I can't remember the last time I saw someone in this situation with my own eyes. It was probably walking around downtown Toronto earlier this year - there, it seems more common, albeit, overall, I think of Toronto as a much nicer city than Vancouver (except for the natural surroundings, obviously).

He also commented that the streets and buildings felt a bit dirty and ill-maintained, in comparison with Sydney and Perth, where, it seemed, the city had people fixing and cleaning things as quickly as they came up. He even deployed the ultimate insult: "it feels much more like an American city than I expected". 

Perhaps a bit over the top, but, overall, I have no problem believing this part.

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