Most of Vancouver and Canada was already nice and safe since pretty much forever. It's really not traditional gentrification. There is no local or canadian economic boom driving this.

The difference between a housing shortage and a housing bubble is when rents disconnect from housing prices. Rent is about 1/2 or less compared to an equivalent mortgage in many parts of Vancouver.

In Berlin, rents lag even further behind[0]:

Rents in Vancouver are 60% higher than Berlin, where as purchase prices are only ("only") 35% higher (net income is practically the same, with Vancouver being just ~4% higher than Berlin).

[0] http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...

I've heard elsewhere that the reason for that pricing in Berlin (and/or Germany) is there a combination of policy and culture that makes houses unsuitable as investment vehicles. I forget what the exact mechanics are, but basically housing prices don't increase and no one expects them to. So there is almost no speculation in house prices: people buy houses if 1) they want to live there long term, or 2) they want to be landlords.

But this would suggest the opposite of reality - that rents increase faster than house prices.

In this case German house prices are relatively high & rising faster, when compared to rents.

In Berlin in particular purchase prices have increased by 8-10% per year in recent years where as rent prices have only increased by 3-5% per year (both are still cheap compared to Vancouver).

middle class white people displacing brown and black people is called gentrification.

rich chinese people displacing middle class white people is called "this is totally unfair, why isn't this illegal?".

of course, guess who's making all the money selling these units? the rich white people (developers, bankers, politicians, contractors, lobbyists, lawyers) who decide what's legal and illegal. as per usual, they are the winners in this whole charade, while the middle and lower classes just blame the dirty foreigners. it's even better when they're chinese -- who doesn't hate the chinese??? so convenient. shhh, let's not mention the other 2/3rds of buyers.

the aforementioned elites are playing and winning a game as old as time, as they do.

As a comment posted above, all this hue and cry over 7 Chinese buyers. I've been disgusted by the incendiary media narratives.

How to prop up weapon sales? Sensationalize a crime (revenge/burglary) and say crime is on the rise with a linked article that says weapon owners/NRA members likely to repel break-ins.

I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of your comment but I don't think this qualifies as "gentrification":

"the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents." (Merriam-Webster)

There's no particular area in Vancouver that fits this description with regards to foreign buyers. They seem to have interest almost exclusively in established areas. Not so much "deteriorating" ones in need of "renewal and rebuilding".

i used the implication for dramatic and rhetorical effect, but i didn't call it gentrification either. ;) i agree that it isn't, since for the most part the new owners don't even live there and the previous owners were (basically) rich to begin with. it's basically just monopoly money being swapped around by rich people on two sides of the same ocean.

Bang on assessment.

In this case they aren't gentrifying anything. They're almost exclusively focused on the mid-to-high end market.

Would be genuinely interested in methods for making an area appear less safe

(Dons evil thinking cap) I was considering starting a service to truck homeless people to a neighborhood where you want to buy property. It would be called Goober (rhymes with Uber)...

Nevada beat me to it though: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/10/nevada-settles-busin...

Things are getting so ridiculous and government shows absolutely no interest in doing anything about it, if I won the lottery I'd actually consider doing things like this just to be a massive societal troll.

You may have to lobby local councils to make that legal first. In Westminster (a borough in central London), it's illegal to sleep on the street and illegal to "give people free food" on the street.

Oh easy. Go sleep on the sidewalk. The Justins will be beside themselves.

>Would be genuinely interested in methods for making an area appear less safe

why instead not try to make some non-nice non-safe area a nice and safe one?

You mean, help to gentrify some other place?

Would bringing tech jobs and education into some mid-west be a gentrification?

Well yeah. That's what's been happening in SV since forever.