Vancouver is surrounded on three sides by the sea, snow-capped mountains, and the U.S. border. Copious amounts of prime real estate are also set aside for Stanley Park, UBC, and the airport. There's some sprawl toward the South (right up to the border) and East (inland), but the downtown core itself is physically incapable of getting any bigger than it was 100 years ago.
It's somewhat like downtown San Francisco, except Vancouver is even smaller. No point in downtown Vancouver is more than 1 mile from water. This helps keep everything within walking distance.
Compare this to, say, Los Angeles, where there's not much to stop the city from expanding in every direction.
> commutes range from 5-30 minutes (and that's going to cover people who walk, bike and take transit).
So, in general, it is like a classical European city, where the streets are even full of life after the end of the workday? If that’s true, than this is actually amazing.
And creates the new question: Why did it work in vancouver, but not in so many other cities on the american continent.