Chapter 5

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/homebuyers/story.html?id=32b226ed-a8d2-41f1-b232-4f2d159851c5&k=46095

According to a recent global best cities survey conducted by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, Vancouver is ranked 3rd overall city among 215 cities in terms of quality of life. The survey bases this rank from 39 factors, including economic, environmental, personal safety, etc. Vancouver achieved a total score of 107.7, thus tying with Vienna for third place, and behind only to Zurich and Geneva. Other Canadian cities ranked fairly high, including Toronto who was ranked 15th, and Calgary who was ranked 1st in terms of health and sanitation. On the other hand, Baghdad was ranked last overall, and Baku, Azerbaijan was last in health and sanitation.

This article has lots to do with macroeconomics, which is broad study of the economy of a country. The high overall rank of Canadian cities tells us that the economy of Canada must be doing extremely well. In Vancouver specifically, this may be due to high volume of jobs available recently in the city and province. The 2010 Olympics has brought in a lot of work for people the recent year, including construction, tourism, and others. Vancouver is also a major contributor to GDP with all this construction going on. Just counting the subway line running down Cambie Street, or the Dedicated Fire Protection System in downtown, it is obvious Vancourites are major spenders of the country.

As a result of all this, the unemployment rate of the city has greatly gone down. However, unemployment might go up a bit during the winter season, because workers are generally less needed due to the unsuitable weather for construction of any kind. Even so, it is also the time when we get a lot of tourists into the city just to come ski or snowboard. Vancouver has never been more popular of a place to be to ski. Millions of people come around the world on vacation just to ski. Thus, all the jobs these tourists come in may offset the unemployment rate. Either way, in both cases, these jobs encourage seasonal unemployment.

Personally, I am surprised that Vancouver is ranked so high up. From my knowledge, Vancouver has one of the higher crime rates among major North American cities. Also, it is increasingly harder to purchase property every year. To live a truly comfortable life, one must earn a salary with six digits. In my opinion, the Winter Olympics in 2010 is mainly for the benefit of the rich. Most of us average people wouldn’t be able to go watch a hockey game for example without making huge sacrifices. Also, I find it funny how the stuff they’re building now are for the people moving into the city in the future, while they force people already here to move outside of the city to Surrey or Coquitlam because no one can afford a place to live inside the city.