The spoiled image of Vancouver: Can it be revived again?

Today I am not going to write from a position of a Vancouver BC real estate agent, but simply from a position of a Vancouver’s citizen. If you asked citizens from from just about any country what the greatest city there is, many of them would probably answer “Vancouver”. Even the 2009 Mercer Quality of Living global city rankings showed Vancouver as the greatest city in America. And still it is getting negative international press attention by The Economics and The Independent. What is the reason for this?

While Vancouver has 2.7 mil residents, there have been 45 gunfire incidents from January to March 2009. 17 people died in these. That’s 6.3 violent deaths per 1 mil citizens. Compared to Toronto (5.1 mil citizens), there was 11 murders in the same period, which works out at 2.2 violent deaths per 1 mil citizens – almost three times less!

Two battles: gangs vs. gangs and gangs vs. the police

Compared to the present situation, the number of gangs operating in Vancouver some 10 years ago was 10 times smaller. Speaking in specific figures, it is more than 100 gangs active in Vancouver these days! And as if that wasn’t enough, these numbers are topped up with three factors worsening the overall state of affairs: the gangs 1) being poorly organized, 2) having too comfortable access to weapons and 3) being comprised of mostly very young recruits.

Nowadays there are two battles going on at the streets of Vancouver. The first of them of course occurs among the gangs. The gangs are at each other’s throats since the cost of cocaine from Mexico has grown. Lately, there has been a powerful effort coming from the Mexican government, aimed at the drug cartel business, which has pushed the cocaine price from $23,300/kg to almost $39,000/kg.

There is a natural question occurring – why is Vancouver such a drug capital? Well, the configuration of the city’s easy-going attitude, geographical area and vast back country make the excellent configuration for enhanced drug crime. Also no other place in Canada combines these characteristics to such an extent. And yet the city of Vancouver has fewer policemen per head of population than any other large Canadian city. On the top of that the regional government plans on cutting the police and court annual expenses by $20 million by 2012. The other fight going on between the gangs and the police would be much more favorable to the latter, if the police had enough resources, both financial and personal.

What to do now?

I am far from pretending that this problem we are facing can be resolved by some quick & easy peace recipes. However, it seems apparent to me that the police would need to increase its staff count and budget, not cut it back! Safety and security must become the city’s important characteristics again. One, but not the only reason being the Olympic games in 2010, but mostly because the people of Vancouver deserve it. Recently, the PM Stephen Harper suggested a new harsh law which would judge gang killings as first-degree murders with at least 25 years in prison. This is of course a right thing to do, but in order to improve the situation in Vancouver, it is not sufficient.

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