There has been much attention these days focused on claims that we have reached "Peak Vancouver" and our gorgeous city is now on the decline. Stories of millennial migrations, absurd property valuations, potential bubbles, and of course, the million dollar teardown trend highly in our local news cycle to the delight of news organizations in our otherwise dull city.

But how much of this is media hyperbole and how much is fact? Personally, I don't believe that Vancouver is dying and by two gross measures: our population and our economy, this City is doing very well. And more importantly, can we lump all of Vancouver into one giant failure bubble, or are there nuances to the vitality of this City?

Perhaps a better question is: Are there geographic expressions to Vancouver's vitality? I've already commented on population dynamics in the City, locations of alienated desire and of course where to find good beer. What else can we map then?

Naturally, my thoughts turn to the service industry (restaurants) where two good ideas come to mind:

We can measure the health of a neighbourhood's local economy through its retention of established business, specifically in this case, local restaurants. The theory here being that neighbourhoods with high restaurant survival rates are good places to do business (and therefore are nice to live in as well); and We can also measure local economic health through an analysis of economic growth. In this case, we can look at the rate of formation for new restaurants in the City. The theory here being that neighbourhoods with high business formation rates speak to growing markets and exiting places to be.

Before we go any further let's nail down these two concepts:

Restaurant Survival Rate - Percentage of all restaurants that were open in 2011 still open in more or less the same location in 2016; and

- Percentage of all restaurants that were open in 2011 still open in more or less the same location in 2016; and Restaurant Formation Rate - Percentage change in total number of active restaurants by 2011-2016

Now, let's suppose that these two factors: restaurant survival rates and new restoraunt formation rates are not correlated. If that's the case (and it is: r-squared of 0.0034!), then we can create a simple two variable model to classify the City: