Up and coming city
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2/8/2016
I've lived and worked in the Vancouver area for 10 years. When I moved here it had a depressed feel. The downtown area was deteriorated, with many empty storefronts. However, over the past five year, Vancouver has really come alive. There are few empty commercial spaces in the downtown and uptown neighborhoods. There are many wonderful restaurants and microbreweries and numerous events throughout the year. My wife and I like to walk and have never felt unsafe walking at any hour of the day or night in Downtown.
A few years ago the mall in the central part of the city was virtually abandoned, and had few tenants. Now, it has been remodeled and is very upscale, with every type of store and is home to one of the nicest movie theaters in the nation.
East Vancouver has also expanded tremendously, with tons of shopping and new developments. However, traffic in the east side of town has gotten especially bad over the last few years.
The city broke ground in 2015 on a huge project at the old Alcoa aluminum plant along the waterfront. Within the next few years there will be numerous housing and business towers, with restaurants and shops, as well as parkland and trails to explore. There are also paved walking and biking trails along the Columbia river and Vancouver Lake and the Burnt Bridge Creek Trail runs for miles throughout a greenbelt in the city.
The schools are very good overall, although a few of the high schools are not as good as the others. However, any school in Vancouver is better than the Portland Oregon schools. My son attended Skyview High School in Vancouver and it is the nicest high school I have ever seen.
For housing, east Vancouver is full of new developments and upscale apartment complexes. North and Central Vancouver is a mix of many 1960s and '70s style homes, duplexes, modern homes on large lots, and a sprinkling of old original farmhouses from the areas agricultural past. Downtown Vancouver has many interesting older homes. The Hough neighborhood is full of great, well cared for homes, and could be any of the popular neighborhoods in Portland, but less expensive. The Lincoln neighborhood is full of WWII era homes that were built for the workers at the Alcoa plant supporting the war effort. The streets are tree lined and quiet, and the houses are small, but nice.
My wife and I love to go to Portland on the weekends for the culture and people watching, but we like the feel and pace of life of Vancouver during the week. Having no state income tax and no sales tax just minutes away in Oregon is very nice, too.
Larry | Puget Island, WA