Loosely related to my previous post, consider the following evaluation of Vancouver's trend of wealthy foreigners buying homes in the city.

[W]hen highly educated folks making six figures still can’t afford to live in your city (and it takes over an hour’s commute to get to downtown from slightly more affordable areas), you simply don’t have the conditions to grow a knowledge economy....

Entire downtown neighbourhoods and chunks of the west side are growingly becoming ghost towns as permanent residents are replaced with investors who don’t occupy their units....

A massive capital injection from abroad makes Vancouverites feel wealthy, while the city is in no real terms wealthier. Talented people continue to leave and with them the future of our city.