&gt;The other thing is that Vancouver isn&#x27;t really a &#x27;city&#x27; in the way that many others are, the &#x27;burbs are separate cities so we get this &#x27;most unaffordable&#x27; label when its really much better than many other cities.<p>What are you comparing to?  Here in the US, it&#x27;s exactly the same.  Every single &quot;big city&quot; is really a metro area with a core city that bears the famous name, and a slew of separate cities bordering it.  &quot;Phoenix&quot; for instance is a collection of a bunch of cities: Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Paradise Valley, Sun City, Peoria, etc.  &quot;Los Angeles&quot; has more cities than I can count.  &quot;New York City&quot; is a little more centralized (since the city annexed a bunch of the bordering cities back in the late 1800s, turning them into &quot;boroughs&quot;), but still has White Plains, Tarrytown, and cities in bordering states like Stamford, Jersey City, Newark, Bayonne, etc.<p>Maybe European cities are singular like that, but not here in the US.