Today I am not going to write from a position of a Vancouver BC real estate agent, but simply from a position of a Vancouver’s citizen. If you asked people from from just about any country what the top city there is, many of them would probably answer “Vancouver”. Even the 2009 Mercer Quality of Living global city classification showed Vancouver as the top city in America. However, The Economics and The Independent have been publishing undesirable articles about this city. What is the reason for this?
For the first three months of 2009 alone, Vancouver (2.7 mil inhabitants) has witnessed 45 shootings, 17 of them fatal. Recalculated per 1 mil citizens, it makes 6.3 persons dying a violent death. At the same time, there were only 11 shooting incidents during the same time in Toronto, which has 5.1 mil citizens, which makes the violent death rate almost three times lower (2.2 victims per 1 million citizens).
Double war: gangs fight gangs, gangs fight the police
10 years ago, there were only 10 times less active gangs in Vancouver than these days. That’s more than 100 gangs active in Vancouver today! And what is making these statistics even worse, is 1) bad organization of the gangs, 2) their easy access to arms, and ) the average gang member age being very low.
Today, we can observe a parallel fight in Vancouver and its streets. The first of them of course occurs among the gangs. The gangs are at each other’s throats since the cost of cocaine from Mexico has gone up. Recently, the Mexican government has gone through a massive counter cartel activity project, which drove the cost of cocaine up from $23,300/kg to almost $39,000/kg.
What is it about Vancouver and drugs, you might ask. The answer to this question should mention the general easy-going attitude of the place in conjunction with its position on the map and its gigantic low populated areas surrounding it, all this resulting in great conditions for a very active drug scene. Besides, Vancouver is has quite a unique combination of all these characteristics. And yet the city of Vancouver has less officers per head of population than any other big Canadian city. And in by 2012, the yearly costs for police and court are expected to be $20 million lower, as planned by the local administration. The other battle going on between the gangs and the police would be much more favorable to the latter, if the police had enough resources, both financial and personal.
How to handle the situation
I am far from pretending that this situation we are facing can be resolved by some quick & easy peace recipes. But just using my common sense, I think that taking money and other resources from the police, while they are in need of even more, is not a good idea at all. We must make Vancouver a secure city and a good place to live again. We are planning to host the Olympics here soon, but also and mainly it is in the Vancouver inhabitants’ best interests. Recently, the PM Stephen Harper suggested a new harsh law which would judge gang killings as first-degree murders with at least 25 years in prison. This is of course a right thing to do, but in order to solve the situation in Vancouver, it is not sufficient.
Posted on August 2nd, 2009 by Admin
Filed under: Travel and Leisure
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