How else will you know unless you walk (or should that be ‘drive’) your way through this chart:
The decision-tree style image leads you through a series of mundane binary inquiries, finally spitting you out at one of six possible answers, ranging from “Definitely Yes” to “Definitely No.” Obvious factors, like transportation mode and housing type, are joined by more inexplicable ones, like how long it takes you to get to Starbucks and whether or not you go to work before dawn.
Vancouver no longer a city:
I live in Surrey:
I bike to work, don’t have an animal, live in a house (townhouse) and can peek into my nieghobours windows it says I probably live in a city.
If I lived in Vancouver:
I bike to work, but raise legally owned chickens (livestock), I don’t live in the city. Ohh, too bad Vancouver!!
Sad that the defining question of whether you live in a city is “how far is the nearest starbucks,” which determines whether it is a “yes” in a city or “no”, not in a city That is absolutely horrendous on so many levels. Because there’s only one Starbucks on Commercial Drive, that means my old home at Salsbury and Commercial is, get this, “probably not” in a city. And yet someone who lives in Pemberton Heights in North Vancouver, definitely a suburb, and is in walking distance to two Starbucks locations, despite one being in a suburban mall and the other requiring a walk across a reasonably large parking lot, is “yes” in a city.
Urbanism should be a place for small businesses, individualized stores, not chain restaurants and big box hardware joints that have been squeezed onto two levels with the parking on top (yes, I’m looking at you, Cambie Street). And this chart gets it wrong.
Starbucks? I didn’t get past “subway to work” (mmm, close enough). Lack of Starbucks on the drive is an exception, as is the 50 mph bus rule, usually true, except the 41 to UBC. Applebees, Olive Garden and the rest do seem to be confined to the suburbs. TGI Fridays failed to survive downtown, as did that owl themed chain. So many better options, even the ‘chains’ like Milestones or Cactus Club beat the likes of Chili’s (shudder)