Years ago, after living in Van during the 90's, I moved back in the mid 00's. I lived above a strip club in mount pleasant. Most weekends there were shootings or beatings or violence of some kind in the area where yellow tape was around my building in the morning. I could hear the mice in the walls. Kingsgate was barren beside buy-low, an insurance place and a weird photo passport place by the washrooms. this was before the library or trendiness of current Kingsgate. My rent was like $500. It was a sh*tty abandoned neighbourhood where the community centre gym was in a stuffy basement without windows. There was a dollar pizza place still standing and outside the foundation and the first Slickity Jims there weren't many trendy restaurants yet. I left Vancouver and now pay $800 for a place with a balcony over looking Nanaimo. It has the same feel that mount pleasant did years ago. Yellow crime scene tape, dirty broken sidewalks and abandoned buildings. For the better part of my adult life I loved Vancouver. the 90's and 00s were amazing. But it changed. Leaving Van I realized that other places are cheap and eclectic and what Vancouver used to be.