Actually it _is_ mostly due to Chinese money and the fact that Vancouver is the closest Canadian metropolis to Hong Kong, which jump-started the Vancouver bubble in 1999.

> best climate for Canada

The Okanagan valley seems like it might merit that title as well, being fairly dry and sunny (sagebrush and wine growing!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okanagan

Looks nice! https://goo.gl/maps/nWS4Stwc1WT2

I think Victoria has better climate as well...

The sunshine coast a little up from Vancouver has reasonable climate as well, it's in the rain shadow of the Vancouver Island mountains.

So there's no shortage of land with similar enough climate. It just doesn't have "Vancouver" on it.

It's not bad, but compared to the wild and lush nature around Vancouver, it's pretty barren.

> it's pretty barren.

Given that it's nice and dry, that's a feature, not a bug!

Vancouver Island has Ewoks! Call me a tree-hugger but I'd favour a forest walk beneath a canopy of 800 year old trees over gaining a tan in Kelowna any day.

The climate in Vancouver is horrific. Rain and clouds for months on end with no respite.

True, but it's one of the comparatively few places in Canada that absolutely never experiences -20c, and normally doesn't have snow on the ground for longer than a couple days at a time (except this last winter.) Most other Canadian cities go through ice-building cycles in the late Autumn that can persist in neighborhood streets all the way through to late Spring.

True, but that's still better than -30degC and 2m of snow during winter; and +40degC (without humidex) during summer. So for Canada, yeah, that's pretty good.

It's all relative. I'd rather live in Vancouver than Arizona or Texas. I'd rather deal with rain than extreme heat.

Seriously, it's like Seattle but without the jobs.

And the jobs there don't pay very well. The food is wonderful though, better than Seattle IMHO and it's a lovely city in general.

Yeah, in my experience most of the US has shitty food. Take NY as an example, if you want an expensive meal you can get great food, but if you want a quick and healthy lunch you find yourself struggling.

Almost any local New Yorker will know where to get a quick, healthy, $7-10 lunch.

Someone in town for the day might have to open Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Cheap+Fast+Lunch&find_...

I obviously need new friends.

Data shows Vancouver gets 10% less sunshine than Seattle. That's horrific.

it's not great but if it's sunny in vnancouver it means it's a nice day to be outside. there's almost no days where it's sunny but too hot or cold to use your patio/deck/balcony

You mean because there's no sun from December to March?

Horrific is a major exaggeration since the weather is the least extreme of all major Canadian cities. Rain and clouds for months isn't horrific, it's bland.

Australia and New Zealand are in the same boat as Canada, and Sydney and Auckland as Vancouver. The countries have high immigration, especially Chinese. Those cities are bounded and the land already developed, but climate doesn't seem to be a factor for their popularity because there's other places in those countries with better climate.

> high immigration

ya, 5000 entire people last year in CoV...