One Year

A year ago this week we flew from London to make our new home in Vancouver. So it's our new-home anniversary.

Looking back, I could claim that we've had a bit of an "immigrant experience". Our story as newcomers wouldn't be as dramatic as those of previous generations, perhaps, but we did face some challenges. We didn't exactly waltz into Vancouver with new lives waiting for us.

This was our first move as a family without a job waiting for us. If I could do it again, I'd have invested more time in the job search before coming over. I wrongly assumed the ease with which I found work in London would transfer to another city of similar size. But as I've written before, Vancouver has two things that make this difficult. One is that, who you know really makes a difference. If I apply for a job as a friend of a friend of someone already on staff, I'm much easier to evaluate than a total stranger. The other reason is that so many other people, Canadians and otherwise, want to live in Vancouver, so competition is fierce.

We also moved at about the worst time possible. September is about when the economy was dropping fastest. There wasn't much helping that, as the girls both started school that month. But it was unfortunate timing.

A year later, Margo and I both have rewarding jobs. We're living in a nice neighbourhood, and Margo's made a comfortable home of it. Margo is excelling in her coursework; she's picked up some nice grants and is chasing some bigger ones. Sarah has made many schoolmates and, with her help, we've befriended a few families in the neighbourhood. I've got a few mates I can get pints with.

We've done without a car the whole year. I reckon this alone gives our family its lowest carbon footprint ever. Margo has joined a car sharing co-op so she can get a car pretty easily when needed. Me, I'm happy using transit and my bike.

I do miss owning a home. It's something I think about almost daily and it does rankle. But Vancouver is a very different market. Few places in North America are more expensive, arguably. Real estate is blood sport here. It's a constant topic of conversation. On my income alone, we could either buy something close-in but dumpy, or something fairly nice but distant, and drive an hour or more to work. When Margo graduates in two years we'll have two professional incomes, and a better sense as to whether or not we stay in Vancouver; I expect we'll buy one way or another at that time. In the meantime we'll keep waiting and grow investments instead. This weekend Margo showed me an article in Time on how, in some cities, renting makes more economic sense. It suggested that, if you take the cost of a home, and divide it by a year's rent in a similar home, renting makes sense if the ratio is above about 16. I did some quick calculations for us and came up with almost 29.

I'm also missing the community I've enjoyed previously in Portland and Olympia. With its high immigrant population, Vancouver is arguably more fragmented culturally, and it seems harder to integrate. I've made some inroads to volunteering but haven't yet found good matches.

All in all, we do feel quite comfortable in our new home. We've done a lot for ourselves, and I think things will just get better.