Buyers lined up around the block to purchase Shaughnessy Heights lots from the Canadian Pacific Railway, Vancouver, 1909

(Named after CPR president Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, with its main streets bearing the names of the CPR’s board of directors; the CPR spent over a million dollars developing the Shaughnessy Heights land before the lots were even put up for sale. In order to purchase a lot, you had to agree that the house you built would be worth at least $6000, six times the price of an average home, and even then, the CPR had the right to reject any designs they didn’t like. Despite all this, look at that line!)