If you've ever been to Richmond BC  I grew up there, from 1962 to 1989, then moved away to Vancouver island for 9 years before coming back. What a change in those 9 years! I remember in the 60s living on Cambie Rd. as a young kid, there were lots of empty farmer's fields everywhere, and people sold fruits and vegetables from their gardens in the summer, putting out little signs in front of their houses to advertise. The family across the road kept horses that were used in the local parades that ran down #3 Rd. In the fall it would always be foggy and in the winter we got 1-2 feet of snow guaranteed. Bumper riding down #3 Rd. to the mall was a blast in the early 70s. There would always be ice fields that kids played hockey on. My family and I moved from Cambie to a newly built house on Rosehill Dr. in late 1968. It was surrounded by a huge empty parcel of land that was being turned into a subdivision. There were only a few non-whites in my high school in the early 70s. It was a white population and we did typical Canadian things, like saying 'eh' after everything (I still do it), drinking Molson beer, and wearing mack jackets. The first high rise buildings to go up in Richmond were the 3 identical towers just behind the mall on Minoru Blvd. Nothing else in Richmond was more than 3 stories. The McDonald's on #3 Rd at Granville St. has been there for as long as I remember. It used to be white tile with red trim and large glass windows in the front. It used to be one of the few regular Friday night hang-outs for kids in the community. Lansdowne Mall used to be an old horse racing track in the 60's. Lansdowne Mall was built over it in the early 80s. A large influx of East-Indians started arriving at about that time, and they started to buy up most of the land and properties east of #4 Rd., which they still own today and is still hardly grown out. By the late 80s when I left, it was still the same old 'downtown' Richmond that it had always been. When I came back in 1999, it was the beginning of today's Chinatown with all the Chinese stores and signs and ugly buildings and a fucked up road system on #3 Rd. that only a fucking idiot could come up with. There was still no sky train then but that came well in time for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. That's the period when Richmond really boomed with all the Chinese immigrants and the growth of all the high rises and lights and glitter of Chinatown. It's sick what they turned that once comfortable white community into. The place has lost it's soul.