I'd settle for a few decent sidewalk cafés, preferably a cluster of them, something like the Place de la Sorbonne, but without the Laputan conceits of the sorbonnien(e)s.
Oh and we need to make it legal to drink wine in the parks. A picnic without wine is like sex without an orgasm.

Give seattle a few hundred more years chaz, it might surprise you.

I can't read your posts because they hurt my brain, but that picture of Vancouver you posted looks like shit. Walking past those hulking towers on the street is an oppressive, depressing experience. Vancouver is a great city in a gorgeous setting, but from a distance it doesn't look much better than a turd in a sea of diamonds. Here's hoping the same fate never befalls Seattle.

You're wrong about Vancouver, Westy. Have you been?

TBH calling Seattle a mid-size city is stretching it a little - It punches above it's weight, but it will always be just a very large town.

You think, Dan? I've been to Vancouver many, many times, actually worked there (thanks NAFTA!) for some time three years ago. I love Vancouver and they do so much right, but the neighborhoods are like office parks. The apartment my company rented for me was in a building where many people actually lived, and it felt as homey as the sixties-era campus dorm room I lived in when I was a college freshman. Probably a third of the city feels that way, and those neighborhoods are terrible places to live or even go for a walk.

AND!... while my opinion is subjective, it's provably true that giant, out-of-scale buildings annhillate the pedestrian experience. That sums up too much of Vancouver.

no, he might be right, we may be doomed. I used to live in Vancouver - East Van, Burnaby, New West - and went to Capilano College and SFU there.

I moved here in 1989 - and just went back to visit over Easter weekend this year - during the time I've lived in Seattle, we've done pretty much squat, but Vancouver has advanced in so many ways.

Sigh.

You rock, Charles... Keep it coming.

Well, Westy, I'm sorry you feel that way. I spend tons of time up there, and I love the place—dense, lots of folks living downtown in vibrant neighborhoods, mass transit, no freeways through town. Yeah, I should go live there if I like it so much. But if you hate it so much, you might want to get the hell out of here—because Seattle, even without the monorail, is headed in that direction.

Oh burn!

Vancouver is a little denser, especially in the west end, but I really don't understand what the big deal is on their supposed "differences". Seattle and Vancouver are much more alike than any other two cities I can think of. The biggest difference is that Vancouver has a lot more Chinese people.

Density is good for Urban life, we can have better restaurants, better clubs, and great shopping. I hope we can tear down a lot of downtown Seattle and put up more high-rises. Getting rid of height limitations will help a lot.

Why don't you just move if you don't like it here?

As far as BC goes, I like the mid-rise (and lower rent) Commercial Drive neighborhood a hell of a lot more than I do the concrete canyons of Yaletown.

of course, Commercial Drive is sweet. And now they have SkyTrain there, so it's even better.

If by "advancing", Will, you mean ultra-gentrifying, then you nailed it.

2010 is not even four years away, folks. Have you seen all the construction in Vancouver in the past month? No buses on Granville.. Gastown is Conetown now.

There's good and bad in this, of course. But I know no one in Vancouver right now how is happy with the development. (To be fair, no one was happy when the SkyTrain was first built. Obviously, public opinion changed when it first started running.) Commercial Drive is about as expensive as Capitol Hill now, if you average out benefits.

Basically, Vancouver is really fucking expensive for a Pacific Northwest city now, and -- just like each of these world cities that we all must swoon at -- is becoming a "huge money or little money" type of city in no time, if not already.

I love Vancouver myself. But I'm happy to live in more reasonably priced Seattle instead for now, thanks. I'll make do with the quainter (and much cheaper) bus system we have, which at least gets me from A to B to C and back.

(When the Canadian dollar stops trying to be equal with the U.S. dollar, call me, too.)

I think that Geneva, Switzerland offers an example that Seattle leaders should consider, it is a real global city. What is amazing there is the influence of the Le Corbusier school of architecture, which, to me, means tall stacks, 10 to 40 stories tall, made in concrete; rigid developement control, no "oil spill" sprawl, like here where the rule is low buildings with minimum open space, except for streets and parking, think instead, mature parks over 25% of the urban footprint (400K live comfortably inside 5 square miles, massively served by buses and trams, a bicycle is completely practical as primary transportation). It is terrifically difficult and expensive to get an apartment, but citizens are practically guaranteed residence, to the exclusion of the strangers. It's a great place to work and ownership is protected from legal theft, which is a big problem here, in comparison. PS The reason there are more people of Asian descent living north of the border is racism backed by violence. Same reason that indigenous people have a more intact culture there. I don't endorse moving to cure cancer, it doesn't work. But moving to avoid violence is another thing. Personally I am struggling to keep the institution of King County from dispossessing me into exile in Europe as an undocumented worker there. I've already lost but would like to use the blogosphere like other refugees from assaulted communities: to find the remaining partisans, to connect with the other exiles, to organize for real changes to the structures of laws and enforcers that are cutting people like me down, so silently. My US passport is a ticket to abuse, I hope to use my time in exile to drum up an alternative.

Vancouver is fun, has great shopping and Canadians are very nice, but the architecture of the city itself is a vast midrise of blandness. Even Seattle's architecture is more interesting than Vancouver's. OUCH! They do have new buildings under construction that will liven it up, but the damage has been done. Dan, Seattle will become a lively and dense city, but please, not at the same expense our Sister to the North has paid.

BTW, Dan, do you live downtown? What would it take for you to move downtown if you don't already live there?