Vancouver is reported to be one of the least affordable cities in the world.  Inside the city, the widening gap between rich and poor is reflected most starkly in challenges with affordable housing, especially in the downtown eastside.  The ‘poorer’ neighborhoods of the city increasingly find themselves the target of  ‘gentrification’… defined as “the social, economic, and cultural transformation of a predominantly low-income neighborhood through the deliberate influx of upscale residential and commercial development.  Encouraged by municipal development policies, economic incentives for investors, and the mythical pull of the creative city, urban land is purchased and developed at low cost for middle-class buyers” (source).  The fallout associated with the “violence of gentrification” that is taking place in the current pattern of ‘urban renewal’ in Vancouver is explored in the very interesting full story here.