YESTERDAY, we mentioned some troubles facing Vancouver, a place where early-'90s-style economic doldrums are back and politics has devolved into blood sport.

But there's still a lot to like about the place. Such as--

• Architecture. The ultramodern gently clashing with the beautifully decrepit and the '50s-stoic.

• Pleasant disorientation. The odd currency with its pathetic (for them) exchange rate. The metric system. The bilingual signs and food packages. The Euro-mod women's fashions.

• Less sprawl. Because the region chose long ago not to build lotsa freeways and the like, the Vancouver metro area fits 80 percent of the Seattle metro area's population in one-fourth the real estate.

  Vancouver itself's a very compact city, with most everything a tourist would be interested in lying in a two-mile radius of the downtown Granville Mall, and everything else easily reachable by bus, by commuter rail, and by...

• SkyTrain. While it doesn't use single-rail technology, this very successful, 15-mile, elevated light-rail line does just what Seattle's monorail advocates believe an elevated line will do here.

• The movie-TV biz. While The X-Files is now being filmed in territories where the FBI actually has jurisdiction, plenty of other TV shows (Stargate SG-1, The New Addams Family) and movies (Better Than Chocolate, The 13th Warrior) are keeping B.C. crews active. You can now take a guided tour of places where The X-Files and other "Hollywood North" TV shows pretended they were someplace else.

• Wreck Beach. Perhaps at no other public, free-admission spot in the Western Hemisphere can you buy a taco or a premixed cocktail from an attractive, totally-nude adult of your favorite gender.

• Fewer sex hangups. One chain of Poutine stands (see below) advertises "Full Frontal Fries--Lots of Skin;" while the Mars bar (equivalent to the U.S. Milky Way brand) promises "quick energy" for husbands worried about wedding-night performance. Local TV offers nudity-laden "art films" on regular broadcast channels with commercials and everything.

  Prostitution is quasi-legal; though politicians and cops keep harrassing the area's estimated 1,500 sex workers (providing a $65-million segment of the tourist economy) and their client-supporters, it's on a much lower-key basis than in most U.S. cities, and is mostly aimed at keeping the streets respectable-looking. Sex-worker-rights advocates are many and outspoken.

  The once-thriving Vancouver strip-joint circuit, though, has nearly collapsed; as many bar owners have switched to music formats to attract more coed audiences.

• The nightlife scene. B.C.'s archaic liquor laws (much more restrictive than Washington's except for the 19-year legal age) prevent the opening of megaclubs like our Fenix or Showbox. An unintended result: A lot of smaller clubs, with a wide array of live, DJ, and karaoke formats.

• The Granville Mall and the Robson-Denman-Davie downtown loop. While many huge global chains have staked their spots (the former downtown library now houses a Planet Hollywood, a Virgin Megastore, and a TV station!), dozens of cozy, picturesque, locally-owned shops still thrive or survive.

• Chinatown. Lotsa martial-arts movie theaters, exquisite silk-clothing boutiques, and open-air food markets. There's even a whole storefront promoting the great Japanese chocolate-covered pretzel stick, Pocky!

• Fun foodstuffs. The great Canadian candy bar, in all its giant-sized variations, is still a thriving institution. While Frito-Lay's muscled in on the once-powerful Canuck chip biz, potato-chip creativity lives on at the Chippery store. And the town's now full of outlets for the great Quebecois foodstuff: Poutine! (That's French fries covered with cheese curds and gravy. Yum!) And, of course, there's always Tim Horton's Donuts.

• The Elbow Room. Utterly-huge pancakes, other breakfast and brunch goodies, and an atmosphere of gregarious "rudeness," personally ruled by the Quebecois owner (a cross between Seinfeld's "Soup Nazi" and an aging, flamboyantly-gay theater director).

So take off to the Great White North as soon as you can. Not only will you have tons-O-fun (unless Customs finds pot stashed on your person), but the economy up there needs your U.S. bucks.

TOMORROW: Fun music-related talk.

PITCH IN: This time, I'm looking for cultural artifacts today's young adults never knew (i.e., dial phones, non-inline skates, and three-network TV). Make your nominations at our MISC. Talk discussion boards.

ELSEWHERE:

• Learn the Periodic Table of the Elements with your favorite comic-book heroes....
• Men of assorted professions and the women who lust after them...
• Many, many things that have been sold in vending machines (found by Anita's List of Links)....
• Golf goes punk and one L.A. woman doesn't like it (found by The Obscure Store)....
• "Karaoke is a sign of a healthy musical culture...."