Living in a city isn't going to be much fun if it's a crappy city, sure. You can say it's not a dump area, but I'm sorry, a city with zero museums and only two coffee shops is just not much of a place. I've lived in small college towns that did better than that.
Vancouver is a great city. I didn't live anywhere near the nice parts. I was walking distance to the 7-11 and laundromat. And the apartment was infested with cockroaches.
The bank is the best landlord I ever had.
I think that a lot of $$$$$$ IT workers forget about slumlords (or are slumlords themselves!)
I'm sorry you had a bad experience in Vancouver. But in my experience, bad and even extortionate landlords are not limited to cities--they absolutely do exist in suburban and even rural areas.
