Sigh... The annual Demographia study is mostly BS. First, they only look at a handful of Anglosphere countries and yet claim to cover the world; Second, they have strong ties to the automotive industry and have an agenda of urban sprawl -- this leads them to target negatively cities that are fighting sprawl, like Vancouver; Third, their only metric for affordability is housing price yet places where there is a more dense population often have high housing prices but lower overall affordability when all costs are considered, most importantly they don't include renting; Finally their numbers don't line with any other major reports (EIU, Mercer, etc).

While Vancouver, has the worst affordable city in Canada, it is very middle of the pack when you look at major cities in the world. And the notion that SF is more affordable than Vancouver is just laughable if you've lived in both places.

> And the notion that SF is more affordable than Vancouver is just laughable if you've lived in both places.

I have lived in both SF and Vancouver and I don't find it laughable at all. I also now live in NYC and have previously lived in London, UK. My experience may be anecdotal but it is representative. Of all the places I have just listed, I saved the least amount of money when I lived in Vancouver. To be clear, the amount of money I put away each month after all expenses was lowest in Vancouver.

In fact, the number of devs being recruited from Vancouver down to SF should be an indication of how much more financially attractive it is to work down there. I can't even imagine someone from SF choosing to make the move to Vancouver.

We can only conclude that you were making expensive choices when you lived in Vancouver.