# Visions of Vancouver (w/ Justin McElroy)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hatchet-7116624/visions-of-vancouver-w-justin-mcelroy
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hatchet-7116624/visions-of-vancouver-w-justin-mcelroy.md
Podcast: [The Hatchet](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hatchet-7116624)
Published: 2025-09-26T09:55:20+00:00
Episode link: https://hatchetmedia.ca/p/visions-of-vancouver-w-justin-mcelroy
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/174587524/130aeb9268915197994d6a465d97e53c.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-hatchet-7116624/episodes/visions-of-vancouver-w-justin-mcelroy
Duration seconds: 3496

## Resource

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit hatchetmedia.ca Vancouver is a funny place. It’s without a doubt the most beautiful city in the country, probably also the continent and maybe even the world — at least when the sun’s shining. The rainy season, which lasts around eight months of the year, can turn it into a dreary, inescapable limbo. It’s a place filled luxury car dealerships, high-end watch stores and other markers of flamboyant wealth. But also absolutely heart-wrenching displays of visible poverty. Vancouverites are simultaneously proud of their city, and often deeply insecure about how it compares to other metropolises. It’s also, I’d argue, deeply misunderstood by the rest of the country. Strangely enough, Vancouver, and British Columbia more broadly, are left out of the national conversation, despite its population, economic importance and unique political culture. There’s this conversation I always have with my journalism friends from BC about how whatever’s happening in Vancouver eventually ends up becoming the rest of the country’s problem. You’ve seen that over and over again, whether it’s about the housing crisis or debates around drug use or crime. And so I figured, why not just bring one of those friends on to have that discussion right here on The Hatchet. Last week I was at a wedding in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where I was able to corner my old friend and CBC Vancouver’s municipal reporter Justin McElroy, and bully him into being on the show. For the British Columbians in the audience, Justin really needs no introduction. He is by almost any measure one of the best-known journalists in the province. And he’s gained this enormous cult following, not just through his reporting or his penchant for ranking things, but because he…

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## Transcript

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