What area of Vancouver should I move to?

I'm 22 and moving to Vancouver, BC next year but i'm not sure exactly where. I want a lively, busy area (probably downtown) where I can do LOTS of photography, take public transit everywhere, and sip tea on patios. I'm looking for an area very rich in arts & culture. Suggestions??

Anywhere in the downtown area, from Yaletown to the West End, Kitsilano, Kerrisdale, University Heights, False Creek etc.etc. would fill the bill - but accommodation is very pricey. Where you stay is goingi to depend in a large part on what your budget is. Google up the Vancouver Sun and read a few of the real estate 'for rent' classified ads to get an idea.

you can always live in a cheaper area and just take the public transport to the nicer areas of the town. try the eastern side of vancouver... near the joyce skytrain station. there are lots of accomodations (apartment highrises or basement suites) there and the rent isn't that bad.

taking the skytrain from there to the nicer (western) side of the city only takes about 10 minutes.

Live in the "West End" as close to English Bay as possible.

I say Kitsilano.. It is closed to downtown.. Close to UBC where there will be lots of people in your age group and it is slightly cheaper.. You can walk to Grandville Island and you can take great picture of downtown Vancouver from your end and then cross the bridge into Downtown and take pictures of Stanley park.

Yaletown is the best place, it's very nice, but forget about taking public transit, except for skytrain and a few special routes. Unless you know what you're doing get a car. Relying on public transit exposes you to all kinds of diseases and is time consuming, again, unless you know which routes are good ones and which to stay away from. 90% of them are just unsanitary and will take up your whole day anyway.

Chilliwack is very nature-fills with some mountains nearby (Mt. Thom for example). There're areas around Downtown Chilliwack you can move to for nature, but downtown has some older homes. Sardis, which is on the other side of the overpass (Chilliwack is on one side of the highway, Sardis is on the other), is pretty busy, but not as busy as, oh say downtown Vancouver. There're many areas where you can live near the bustling noises of the town, but be on a street that is fairly quiet.
The further out of Chilliwack you go, the quieter and more spread out it is. Yarrow, which is by Cultus, is one fairly quiet area but has a form of downtown.
I can't say if it's rich in arts and culture... but there's a lot of older buildings and areas that you can see in downtown =D
One nice area of Sardis that's near the busier streets is a new development that's a quiet area is Garrison Crossing. Prices have been changing for what's being sold (roughly 200,000 for one of the houses, I recall), but overall it's a nice area of Sardis/Chilliwack.
So the Chilliwack area is definitely a good area for photography and scenery and definitely public transit - there's a lot of buses going everywhere (from Sardis to Rosedale to Promontory... to downtown Chilliwack and Fairfield Island, etc. Everywhere).

Good luck finding a nice area =) There're definitely different parts of the lower mainland around Vancouver you can look at, like Maple Ridge, Horseshoe Bay, Langley (great place for busy bustling area, kinda far out for photography things if you're into nature), Aldergrove, Abbotsford, Surrey, etc.