The problem with Bart is 1) cloth seats, and 2) a large homeless population. Not a great combination. There's been some talk of replacing the cloth seats with

The problem with Bart is 1) cloth seats, and 2) a large homeless population. Not a great combination. There's been some talk of replacing the cloth seats with plastic seats, which will be less comfortable but much easier to clean. I'm not as creeped out by bart as you are, but it is kind of gross. Vancouver is a great city, no question about it. I think San Francisco is bigger, more disgusting, more thrilling, and in my opinion uglier and more beautiful than Vancouver depending on where you're looking. Keep in mind that part of the reason for our homeless problem is that we're a magnet for the cast-offs of an entire nation with less of a support system than you have in Canada - it's not like San Francisco manufactures homeless people in some factory south of market and dumps them out on market street every morning. We're not purely innocent victims in all this, San Francisco has done plenty to earn that magnet status. Every now and then a mayors of some other city starts a kerfuffle by offering homeless people $50 and a one way bus ticket to SF (though SF actually used to bus its own over to Oakland). I think a very well implemented national health care program can be a competitive advantage. The other things you mentioned seem less important to me, valuable at the margins, but not game changers in any way. It comes down to UBC vs (Stanford + UCSF + UC Berkeley). UBC is a wonderful university, don't get me wrong, but as long as the Bay Area has those three, it will be a huge player in high tech.