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The disputed sale of the 90-hectare Expo lands in 1988 to Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing for what seemed both then and now a laughable low price of $320 million ($581 million in today’s dollars) fuelled foreign investors’ interest.

With such a large development, for the first time the city of Vancouver demanded all kinds of amenities — walkways, parks and public art.

Photo by Mark van Manen / Vancouver Sun

Before the first towers of glass were built, condos were sold off the drawings in Hong Kong for the little more than the cost of a parking stall there. It was called pre-selling and, often between the deposit and the occupancy, the condos changed hands. It was a precursor to what’s recently emerged as “shadow flipping” of high-end, single-family homes, often to foreign investors.

The often derogatively used nickname “Hong-couver,” had been coined by the late 1990s along with “astronaut” to describe the many parents who returned to Hong Kong or China to work, while their families stayed here.

Few investor immigrants stayed in Canada. Today, nearly 300,000 Canadians live in Hong Kong. Most of them were born there.

The economic immigrants who stayed both literally and figuratively changed the face of Metro Vancouver. But most still financially lag native-born Canadians and many have fared only marginally better than other immigrants, including refugees. That has led to calls for another substantial immigration policy overhaul.

Expo was the catalyst that brought visibility and cash to Vancouver, which in turn has made it vibrant, more interesting, more diverse and, yes, more livable.

It’s now so frequently on the lists of best cities that when a new one comes out it barely rates a mention.

But, of course, there’s been a down side. With more people, there is more traffic congestion. Heritage homes have been lost. Single-family neighbourhoods have been encroached with multi-family low-rises and highrises.

Most jarringly, though, it’s become a city beyond the reach of the children and grandchildren of so many people who spent hours marvelling at the wonders of the World’s Fair.