I made my way into Yaletown[wiki] on my running route today, and this was my first extension into the neighborhood in all the time that I have lived in Vancouver. I’ve been down in the area numerous times during this period, but any runner call tell you that you tend to notice different things when you are pounding the pavement.
It could have been the fact that I approached the area from a different angle, but as soon as I passed underneath Granville Bridge, everything changed. This wasn’t a very good change either. In fact, it didn’t even feel like a neighborhood at that point. Luxury cars, people walking around in suits, and overly sculpted landscaping. I couldn’t help that this area looks pretty on the outside, but when you get up close, not so much.
There’s nothing friendly about the area when you are running through there, at least to my senses. Just tall buildings that decry a social status that few will ever be able to obtain. I had a brief thought that people were looking down at me from their windows above in disgust of the mis-matching running gear I was wearing, not to mention the off-brand workout pants I bought from Target some years ago. Sacrilege.
There are condos in those buildings that insanely priced for the amount of square feet that you can become the owner of, and the amount of people who can own them become less and less everyday. I’ve never had the extreme urge to become one of them, and that hasn’t changed much today.
It looks like a Hong Kong housing project.
Interesting you say that. It’s been mostly developed by HK companies.