Yaletown is one of Vancouver's most fashionable areas and one of the most impressive urban-redevelopment projects in North America.
Back in about 1985 the BC provincial government decided they were going to take a derelict industrial site on the north shore of False Creek, clean it up, and build a world's fair. Twenty million people showed up for Expo ’86, and Yaletown, on the site of the fair, was born. The brick warehouses were turned into apartment buildings and offices, and the old loading docks are now terraces for cappuccino bars and trendy restaurants. There are brewpubs, day spas, retail and wholesale fashion outlets, and shops selling upscale home decor.
There's also a seaside walk and cycle path that completely encircles False Creek. It's hard to imagine that back in the 1880s and ’90s this was probably the most lawless place in Canada: it was so far into the woods that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police complained they couldn't patrol it.
