[haljackey]

To be honest, I'd move out of London if I got the chance. Kitchener-Waterloo would definitely be a favorable choice but I would rather live in a bigger city... maybe somewhere in the GTA. (I'm young like Simpseatles... lived in London all my life and kinda sick of this place.)

I've been to Uptown Waterloo and it's almost like Richmond Row on a smaller scale. The difference between the two is that in London is dull... there's nothing to do so we all get drunk (hense a large bar scene), where in K-W there's more activities.

Location is another reason why K-W is growing at a much faster pace. It's proximity to Toronto and the GTA make it an attractive destination for people what want to be close to the big city but not live there. London's about half-way between Detroit/Windsor (mostly a decaying ghetto) and Toronto (actually somewhat prospering) and people would rather go to the latter.

Kitchener and Waterloo are two separate cities, that's why there's no central core like downtown London. I don't think having a freeway was a main contributor as to why K-W has no central core.

And you can't really argue freeways encourage sprawl. Look at London... we don't have a local freeway and there's low density suburban sprawl everywhere. (In fact I believe we're the largest city in North America that doesn't have some sort of freeway network to serve local traffic.)