Sadly, for all of Vancouver's extremely beautiful features and wonderful reasons to live here, there is a very dark side to the city.
Vancouver has the highest incidence of AIDS in all of Canada, almost exclusively located in a neighborhood alternately known as "skid row" and the "downtown eastside". This area of town is perennially in the grips of crushing poverty, and junkies, prostitutes, and the homeless flock there in ever-greater numbers each year. The last official estimate stated that 51% of all residents of this neighborhood were infected with AIDS or HIV; a problem seemingly without solution, given the rampant heroin trade there; a problem even the police station in the middle of the slum can do little to curtail.
Perhaps even more unsettling is that Vancouver's primary tourist locale, Gastown, is just two blocks away from Skid Row, and it's easy for an unwary tourist to stray from the squakky-clean red-brick roads of this venerable location to the worst place in the country. Tourists visiting Vancouver would be well-advised to ask locals where this neighborhood is, so they can steer well clear of it.