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This site gives some good examples, probably outdated by now:

Crack Shack or Mansion?

And that's why he moved to Silicon Valley? The model place for affordable housing?? Really?

Yes, really: SV prices are downright affordable compared to Vancouver's. In Vancouver, an actual crack house will cost you over $1M.

I guess you haven't seen the crack shacks that pass for million-dollar homes on Vancouver Island. Places that would be tear-downs anywhere else in the world ... Vancouver real estate is insanely priced. A million bucks gets you a fixer-upper. Or a small unit in a condo that was slapped together quickly to benefit from the condo boom.

This is from 2 years ago - it's actually gotten worse.

or this from June of this year ...

We cannot attract new businesses here because they cannot transfer their employees. Existing businesses and faculties cannot attract excellent talent to the city because employees will not take what amounts to a cut in their standard of living to live here.”

Housing in Vancouver has become one of the most expensive in the world, outstripping international cities like New York, London and Paris.

As The New Yorker put it in May:

The most expensive housing market in North America is not where you’d think. It’s not New York City or Orange County, California, but Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Bay area is cheap compared to Vancouver Canada:
http://www.crackshackormansion.com/part2.html

You forgot one point in your list:

Real Estate bubble? Check.

http://www.crackshackormansion.com/

"Look at these pictures from my city (Vancouver, Canada). I have lots of friends raising families in the city"

Are you fucking kidding me?

Perhaps if your friends are super rich they can afford to live in vancouver city proper. MOST people with kids live in the suburbs, unless they live in their parents old house or some other stroke of luck. There was even an article on it in the tyee recently: Vancouvers Downtown Chases out kids

Not to mention the fact that EVERYONE drives in the lower mainland.. EVERYONE.. Taking the transit is simply not an option as its between 3.75 to 5.00 each way from any suburb. Which is MORE than it costs for gasoline on the same trip, even with gas being 1.31/L currently. Source

Vancouver is HORRIBLY designed. We have very poor density compared to many other urban centres, with sprawling "vancouver special" houses which are built wide, not tall due to regulations. You have these choke points of bridges which clog up and waste tonnes of time every day. Even in my 7km commute to downtown (read BARELY in the suburbs), generally takes an 30-45 minutes in rush hour. And thats using plenty of shortcuts.

Now these condos you mentioned, from your image it looks to be olympic village. Want to know what it costs to live there? Go take a look: Olympic Village Pricing. You will see that it costs 500k -1M for a 2 bedroom 800sqft apartment in your "city planners with vision" utopia. How the fuck is that affordable for a family???
Sure if you think its a good idea to raise a family in an 800sqft shoebox with only concord pacifics Ãvisionà of "shared green space" (2 acres for like 10k people to relax in) Source. But honestly, i think you are rich, terribly deluded, dont have kids over 4 years old, or simply misinformed.

The bottom line is that you are wrong to use vancouver as a good model of anything sustainable or affordable. Vancouver, where you cant get a 1200sqft house for under 850k. Vancouver, where there is a whole site making fun of the fact that you cant tell million dollar houses from crack house.

Vancouver has a LONG way to go before it is hospitable to families or even pedestrians! When was the last time you walked to surrey from downtown? To burnaby? To richmond?