Vancouver is a city of contrasts; obscene wealth and horrendous squalor have so far managed to precariously coexist (more or less) without riot or rampage.

But the balancing act is delicate—how long before the city becomes too small for the rich and the poor to avoid bumping in to each other?

This spectrum of environments was all too clear to me today when I experienced both ends firsthand: less than an hour before I took the above photo of the Regent Hotel, found in the nation’s poorest postal code, I started the day walking my dog here, just off shore from some of the most expensive real estate in North America:

-S