Sorry — I judged your entire personality based on the Vancouver neighbourhood you live in
Vancouver likes to pretend it's one cohesive city. A place that hikes, eats kale, wears lulu yoga pants, and adopts a "clean girl" aesthetic while also supposedly being marijuana-obsessed thanks to our one resident famous person that isn't Ryan Reynolds: Seth Rogen.
This, of course, is a painfully stereotypical misconception of a place. Vancouver is not one city — it is a collection of micro-identities loosely connected by rain clouds and that one Nikki Yanofsky song called "I Believe" that plagued the 2010 Winter Olympics. If you were here and wore the red mittens, you know what I'm talking about.
I hate to break it to you, but where you choose to live says everything about who you are (whether you admit it or not). Consider this your extremely scientific and deeply accurate personality assessment based on what Vancouver neighbourhood you live in.
Kitsilano
You're wearing workout clothes at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, and no one knows what you do for work, including you. This is the neighbourhood that most accurately fits the athleisure-wearing, green juice-drinking, outdoorsy Vancouver stereotype.
If you live here, you probably own Arc’teryx. You most likely ski or snowboard. You say you surf, but nobody who lives in Kits is actually very good because, where are you surfing? You play beach volleyball in the summers and insist you'll die if you don't "get outside" and "move your body".
Kits is your cozy sweater of people: generally nice and usually approachable. (I say this as someone who lives in Kits, so take it with a grain of salt).
Your downfall? You'll never shut up about living by the beach and may be caught saying terrible things like "I don't even know who I was before I lived by the ocean" and "ugh, I could never live South of Broadway!"
All in all, you're an extroverted introvert that would probably be categorized as ish-popular.
Yaletown
The neighbourhood where rich people from Toronto want to live when they come to Vancouver. You are an extrovert through and through. Definitely what a millennial would call a "party animal".
If you're a woman, you have acrylic nails, a quarterly appointment with your cosmetic injector, and can actually wear heels for an entire night out without taking them off. Yaletown women tend to be emotionally strong. If you're a man, you're in tight pants, Common Project sneakers and you go heavy on the cologne. Yaletown men tend to be emotionally weak.
You love being heard. You love being seen all the more. And you are deeply judgmental, but somehow offended when judged back. If you're a hermit (i.e., freelance work-from-home writer such as myself), this neighbourhood is your personal hell.
Gastown
This one's for my Jughead Jones'. My Timothée Chalamet's reading old literature at a pool party in Ladybird. You are a rare but powerful breed — a brooding, leather jacket-wearing, nightwalker. If you sleep at all, it's in the daytime. You have thick skin to the point of near emotional numbness.
Your hair is greasy, but it seems intentionally so? Your home is a loft and has actual exposed brick (not the stick-on kind), which is genuinely cool. You have at least one serious tattoo and one goofy one because you read Sartre in university and abide by the idea that "life has no meaning".
You don't flinch. You don't panic. You never leave the bar early. In fact, alarmingly, you're often the last one out. There is something admirable, yet unnervingly intimidating about you. Your lifestyle entirely defies every Vancouver stereotype.
Olympic Village
You have a dog. If you don't have a dog, you don't actually live here. I'm convinced they won't let you in. This neighbourhood is riddled with that excitable yet sometimes anxious rapidly-approaching-baby-territory-but-I'm-also-an-entrepreneur-energy. You speed-walk everywhere because it's important to get your 10,000 steps in. You somehow manage to fit more into a day than every other person in the city.
You are hyperactive and organized. You have a thick skin (because sometimes weird things happen here at night, but you're used to it). You're bouncy, fun, loud, and by all metrics, highly impressive.
West End
Kits without the pretence. You are either a hippie or part of the LGBTQ+ community. Maybe both. You are down-to-earth, friendly, and always ready for a good time, provided you can go home afterward and decompress in peace.
You recycle. You bike everywhere. You believe in the true tenets of community (which is actually very endearing; nowhere else in Vancouver believes in capital "C" community quite like you do).
Honestly, no notes. I've only ever met nice people who live in the West End. (I've also heard someone say Sunset Beach is like Florida if Florida was inclusive and liberal and kind and well... just not at all like Florida, so take from that what you will).
Coal Harbour
The weird empty neighbourhood by the financial district. You can't convince me anyone real lives here. I unfortunately have to deem you personality-less.
Main Street
You are an extroverted introvert with opinions. You thrift. You brunch (yes, as a verb). You care deeply about aesthetics and where your coffee beans are sourced from.
You're social, but selective. You think of yourself as creative-adjacent, even if your job is in "marketing" or "communications" (which it probably is). You feel interesting without trying too hard (most likely because you have a cool fashion sense). You are self-aware. You are ironic. And you are absolutely, without a doubt, always judging those who live in Yaletown — quietly.
Commercial Drive
Everything about Main Street — dial it up to ten: louder, bolder, more political. You have opinions and aren't afraid to share them with strangers who didn't ask.
You thrive on resistance and espresso. You love a neighbourhood that feels alive, messy, and unapologetically itself because it's how you'd define yourself. For some reason I get the sense you love the musical RENT and have seen the movie version more than once but I don't have forensic evidence to yet fully back up that claim. Just a hunch.
You are exhausting to some. A breath of fresh air to others. You wouldn't change a thing. (I love it here).
Point Grey
You are over 45. Even if you're 32, if you live in Point Grey, you're spiritually over 45. You have kids. They go to private school. You don't check the prices of anything at the grocery store (i.e., fresh blueberries are a staple in your household all year round).
You don't swim in the ocean. But you do swim in your own pool. And yes, that pool does overlook the ocean. You're able to say words like "investment property" and "legacy" unironically. You jog, but only between 6:00 and 6:37 a.m. You drive an SUV that has never seen gravel. Your life is quiet, pristine, and deeply insulated from reality.
You are not impressed by Vancouver. Vancouver is impressed by you and your perfectly landscaped hedges (or so you think). Sometimes, when you're feeling wild, you'll go out to a "funky little restaurant" on Commercial Drive just to feel like you've touched middle-class grass.
You have a superiority complex that truly isn't your fault (it was inherited alongside your generational wealth) and have exceptional blonde highlights. If people hate you, it's probably because they secretly want to be you.
Kerrisdale
You grew up here and simply… never left. Why would you? Everything you need is within a ten-minute radius, including the same coffee shop you've been frequenting since 2009. You vacation in Hawaii and Mexico. Never to explore, but to relax. You love routines. You love familiarity. You love a neighbourhood that hasn’t changed too much.
You are polite, practical, and deeply unbothered by downtown drama. You don't chase trends; you observe them from a safe distance and then decide they're "not really your thing." You are comfort personified. You also secretly judge everyone else's life choices.
The views expressed in this Opinion article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Narcity Media.
