>The other thing is that Vancouver isn't really a 'city' in the way that many others are, the 'burbs are separate cities so we get this 'most unaffordable' label when its really much better than many other cities.
What are you comparing to? Here in the US, it's exactly the same. Every single "big city" is really a metro area with a core city that bears the famous name, and a slew of separate cities bordering it. "Phoenix" for instance is a collection of a bunch of cities: Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Paradise Valley, Sun City, Peoria, etc. "Los Angeles" has more cities than I can count. "New York City" is a little more centralized (since the city annexed a bunch of the bordering cities back in the late 1800s, turning them into "boroughs"), but still has White Plains, Tarrytown, and cities in bordering states like Stamford, Jersey City, Newark, Bayonne, etc.
Maybe European cities are singular like that, but not here in the US.
What are you comparing to? Here in the US, it's exactly the same. Every single "big city" is really a metro area with a core city that bears the famous name, and a slew of separate cities bordering it. "Phoenix" for instance is a collection of a bunch of cities: Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Paradise Valley, Sun City, Peoria, etc. "Los Angeles" has more cities than I can count. "New York City" is a little more centralized (since the city annexed a bunch of the bordering cities back in the late 1800s, turning them into "boroughs"), but still has White Plains, Tarrytown, and cities in bordering states like Stamford, Jersey City, Newark, Bayonne, etc.
Maybe European cities are singular like that, but not here in the US.