NYC? Vancouver Down Town East Side. It's been that way for years. Flea markets on the sidewalk of stolen items. The allies aren't safe to walk, with all the needles, the strung out people and the refuse (human and s___ of all kind). Needle exchanges. Shooting galleries where you can get your drugs tested. SRO (single room occupancy) hotels, that should be torn down, run by slum lords, buildings being threatened to be confiscated for fines. Millions going into it, and it still looks like a hole. Speed limit halved, so the jaywalkers don't get killed.
Solution? Not anything I can change. I think it's Portugal that has a good plan. Mine is ship then up north and put into camps and live off the land (farm) or go hungry. Learn a skill, and get clean. Try to get away, and then die in the "waste land" trying to find a city (like Alcatraz).
This surprises me. I used to visit Vancouver a little when I was stationed in Bremerton. I always thought of it as one of the cleanest cities I'd ever visited. But, it was probably 40 years ago and I probably never got to that area.
When I was a kid, like 47 yrs ago, and stores where closed on Sunday, you could buy a buys pass for the day for change ($0.50) and ride all day anywhere. Halloween we would take it DT to that same area, China Town, wander the streets, the docks, looking for firecrackers, smuggled in by the boots and sold there. Never a problem, never a concern.
But maybe 30 years ago, it started going down hill. 20 years ago, even worse, in the open, place being run into the ground. 10 years ago, threw the out into the country for the Winter Olympics, and spread it all over the Lower Mainland, along a 100 mile front. Wow, just putting a time line to some of this. All the things in my original post. I don't go there, outside of work, Vancouver has NOTHING I want, that I can't get somewhere else, and not have to pay a fortune for parking.
Maybe a little bias, I hate cities, love the country, hills, mountains, I would be gone except for job, wife and family.
In answer to your statement, if you don't go near China Town/Hastings St/East Side, then Vancouver is great. Some very nice points of interest, and a deep history (only over a 100 years), my family has been here for a lot of that, and seen the expansion, along with other places in BC.
