Two Vancouver Surveys

If you want to live longer, move to Vancouver:

The report released Wednesday, called Health of Canadians Living in Census Metropolitan Areas, found that the range of life expectancy varied greatly across Canada with Vancouverites having an average life expectancy of 81.1 years. At the other end of the scale, people living in the northern Ontario city of Sudbury have the shortest life expectancy at 76.7 years, about the same as those living in Ireland, Portugal or the U.S.

I’d guess that Vancouver’s demographics, with a large, long-living Asian population, probably skewed the results in our favour. On average, we’re also more active and health-concious than those back east.

In the Lower Mainland, you’re far likelier to be shot in the suburbs than downtown. There’s no link on this one, as I read it in the paper this morning, but check out these neighbourhoods and the number of firearm-related crimes:

Coquitlam: 39
Surrey: 37
Richmond: 23
Port Coquitlam: 12
Vancouver: 5

Of course, these stats fail to consider other types of crime, and the relative population of these suburbs, and the sample size is too small. Nonetheless, it might make one reconsider the suburbs as crime-free havens for the middle-class.