Where in Canada would you live if you HAD to move?

[Doug]

I'm going to be living the dream in a year or two...

Splitting time between Maui, Big Cottonwood Canyon (traverse over to Solitude ski resort, Brighton is next to Solitude, Park City is one ridge over to the norrg, Alta and Snowbird are one ridge over to the south) and Perth, WA

Air travel better be back to something sane by then

Other places I'd like to live: Indian Ocean coast in ZA, Munich, Lake Tahoe, Whitefish, MT, Sandpoint, ID, Bend, OR, Santa Fe, NM, Boulder, Co, Telluride CO, Nelson, NZ, Sunshine Coast, QLD

[Doug]

Originally Posted by YYCguys

Is that tongue-in-cheek or for reals? I’ve been to maple creek. It’s definitely on the quiet side! A small, close knit prairie community. But it is on the edge of Cypress Hill Inter-provincial park, and that park is breathtaking!

One could do far worse than Maple Creek. My great grandparents homesteaded not far north of there. Cypress Hills is a well kept secret

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Doug

I'm going to be living the dream in a year or two...

Splitting time between Maui, Big Cottonwood Canyon (traverse over to Solitude ski resort, Brighton is next to Solitude, Park City is one ridge over to the norrg, Alta and Snowbird are one ridge over to the south) and Perth, WA

I've wondered about an arrangement like this. It would be pretty easy for me to work abroad for a few months a year. One concern of mine is getting actual legal permission to work remotely (I only have Canadian citizenship) and the other is whether or not it would be possible to have a real sense of being at home socially in two places.

And then we have issues like the covid lockdown. I wonder if we are in a new crazy era where random lockdowns will be more common. I am skeptical that covid is a once-per-century type event. I think it is similar to pandemics that emerged many times in recent decades (e.g. many rounds of influenza like N3N2 in 1968), but we just didn't do mass PCR testing and lockdowns for those.

[MonctonRad]

If I had to move somewhere close, it would likely be back to Halifax.

If I had to move somewhere over 1000 km away, I think I would choose Stratford ON. Stratford in some ways reminds me of Charlottetown (major theatre festival, compact prosperous downtown and good restaurant scene). It is just about the right size for me (as far as smaller communities are concerned), and ideally situated centrally in southwestern Ontario, with a passenger rail connection to Toronto. It ticks a lot of boxes on my list.

[jonny24]

Covid has ruined pretty much any benefit of living in the city. I moved to Hamilton because of close proximity to bars, restaurants, frequent festivals and events, Ticats season tickets, and I liked all the cool old buildings.

Now, I hate my new neighbours, I can't go out anywhere ( I know I can, but it's not the same yet), no Ticats, I can't do things like have campfires, my new hobby barely fits in the driveway...


So fuck the city. what I really want to do is move back to Norfolk, especially if the premise is that work doesn't matter. Unfortunately, also following the premise, 100km is too far, so I guess it would be somewhere just past that line near London - St. Mary's or Aylmer ish. In the country, with room for a shop and a few cows and low enough cars going by that I can piss off my front porch.

Over 1000km, still within Canada.... probably semi-rural Nova Scotia. Fiancee's family lives in Halifax, and it seemed nice the one time I went to a cottage out there. Seemed better suited to small-acreage farming than my impression of the West, but I have never been.

[WhipperSnapper]

Indeed. Quarrantine sucks. I still have campfires in my backyard.

[Harrison]

Domestic: Guelph or Montreal
International: Dalat, Vietnam; Sapporo, Japan; Wellington, NZ

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by jonny24

Covid has ruined pretty much any benefit of living in the city. I moved to Hamilton because of close proximity to bars, restaurants, frequent festivals and events, Ticats season tickets, and I liked all the cool old buildings.

Now, I hate my new neighbours, I can't go out anywhere ( I know I can, but it's not the same yet), no Ticats, I can't do things like have campfires, my new hobby barely fits in the driveway...


So fuck the city. what I really want to do is move back to Norfolk, especially if the premise is that work doesn't matter. Unfortunately, also following the premise, 100km is too far, so I guess it would be somewhere just past that line near London - St. Mary's or Aylmer ish. In the country, with room for a shop and a few cows and low enough cars going by that I can piss off my front porch.

Over 1000km, still within Canada.... probably semi-rural Nova Scotia. Fiancee's family lives in Halifax, and it seemed nice the one time I went to a cottage out there. Seemed better suited to small-acreage farming than my impression of the West, but I have never been.

Yeah, it will be interesting to see if there is long term changes. As you suggest, a lot of what made cities appealing is gone and a lot of what made them worse (drug use and homelessness) is worse. Will urban dwellers be willing to stick it out or will they just give up on it?

[WhipperSnapper]

It won't last if there is any uptick in moving out of cities as well as homesteading. The latter is incredibly hard. The former allows more personal space but, that's not what people are craving. Some will love it. Most will grow bored. Social distancing is universal.

[LaGrandeOurse]

100km - 1000km: Toronto; close seconde choice: Quebec city
>1000km: Vancouver
Anywhere in the world: Amsterdam, London, Paris

[Denscity]

100-1000 Vancouver
1000+ Melbourne Cancun Barcelona

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Harrison

Domestic: Guelph or Montreal
International: Dalat, Vietnam; Sapporo, Japan; Wellington, NZ

Guelph being the “hometown”?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Yeah, it will be interesting to see if there is long term changes. As you suggest, a lot of what made cities appealing is gone and a lot of what made them worse (drug use and homelessness) is worse. Will urban dwellers be willing to stick it out or will they just give up on it?

There is a lot of discussion of this on the American forums. Their cities are often in a much more vulnerable position as their reviltalization as places to live for the middle and upper classes is generally much more fragile and recent. Plus they have civil unrest and spikes in violent and property crime handicapping the city "brand".

There is a lot of denial among the most enthusiastic city boosters who also tend to be in denial about the level of unrest and its impacts.

I am generally more optimistic about the immediate future of Canadian cities as opposed to American ones.

My guess is if there is any impact on Canadian citiesit will be more of a blip than anything else.

[esquire]

^ I have noticed a wave of ominous news articles in the last month about the fate of American inner cities. I suppose it stands to reason that if you're going to get 1968-style unrest, you're going to get a little 1968-style white flight too. It feels like a lot of the hard-won progress of the last 20 years is disappearing.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ I have noticed a wave of ominous news articles in the last month about the fate of American inner cities. I suppose it stands to reason that if you're going to get 1968-style unrest, you're going to get a little 1968-style white flight too. It feels like a lot of the hard-won progress of the last 20 years is disappearing.

Yup. As I said earlier, the comments of many people really smack of denial. But one can't blame for wanting to downplay things and not adding fuel to the fire, given some of the ominous signs.

[ssiguy]

Now remember kids..........Santa still wants to give you a present under the tree and he can't do that outside Canada because there are no government offices at the North Pole so his reindeer don't have passports.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yup. As I said earlier, the comments of many people really smack of denial. But one can't blame for wanting to downplay things and not adding fuel to the fire, given some of the ominous signs.

The situation in the US is genuinely bad. Crime is way up and it wasn't great to begin with.

I don't believe Canada will be affected in the same way. I also think of this as a "special period"; what happens now will not necessarily be the long-term norm. I believe there are strong forces that encourage people to live in urban environments and that's not fundamentally changing. People were historically drawn to cities in spite of huge drawbacks.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

It won't last if there is any uptick in moving out of cities as well as homesteading. The latter is incredibly hard. The former allows more personal space but, that's not what people are craving. Some will love it. Most will grow bored. Social distancing is universal.

Yeah, while "homesteading" (not sure exactly what that denotes in terms of self sufficiency) does sound appealing, I don't know if I'd use that term for what my fiancee and i want to do. More like "hobby farm", we'd still need our full time jobs in the city to pay off a property, but if we could manage to make enough money on a small farming operation to be revenue-neutral and ideally get the farming tax credit, that would be ideal. My dad manages this with 14 acres of cash crop, my uncle does it with a small amount of beef cows. MY fiancee loves animals so probably more likely the small livestock route - she wants alpacas lol.

So, the plan right now is re-evaluate when our mortgage comes up for renewal in 3 years. More realistically it'll 10+ but who knows Real estate is crazy right now.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

The situation in the US is genuinely bad. Crime is way up and it wasn't great to begin with.

I don't believe Canada will be affected in the same way. I also think of this as a "special period"; what happens now will not necessarily be the long-term norm. I believe there are strong forces that encourage people to live in urban environments and that's not fundamentally changing. People were historically drawn to cities in spite of huge drawbacks.

I'd agree that Canadian cities will generally be fine.

[Coldrsx]

Not sure how I didn't include this, but Sapporo. It reminded me of an Edmonton/Calgary in one and was near ocean/ski hills.