Housing Choices - where you choose to live

[Calgarian]

Lifestyle is a factor that should influence one's choice where to live as well. If you are the outdoor enthusiast who goes camping, hunting and fishing on the weekends, and who owns snowmobiles and quads, living downtown (even if working downtown) is obviously less that optimal as the cost of storing all your gear would be astronomical. Also you might be able to walk to work, but are going to commute on fridays to get out of the city. So somewhere halfway between the edge of the city and downtown would likely be the best bet.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Unless you live downtown, you have a 75% chance of a given job being far away from you.

Commute time absolutely should be a factor in the decision, but noticing that people in the US regularly drive 90-120 mins to get to work (seriously, a 2 hour one-way commute is surprisingly common!) leads me to believe that either not many people care, or many people simply don't have the multitude of employment opportunities that you and I may have.

That's definitely true, we are lucky in Calgary that we can pick and choose what job we want and in what part of the city we accept it.

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Ask yourself how many people you've known who've deliberately taken the lower-paying job just because it's "closer to home". It's an option that comes up for many of us at some point in our lives, and most decline it. We all want that big paycheque, and damn the consequences.

Lucky/smart downtown dwellers get the best of both worlds, because typically downtown jobs pay more, all else being equal. There's a presumption of the "extra cost" that working downtown brings, and it's often factored into wages. If you live downtown you can have your cake and eat it too.

Oh, one thing we've ignored is the cost of moving itself. It can easily get into the 5 figures for a move once you factor in all expenses. That $12/day isn't that bad if it avoids a move every few years.

Originally Posted by Calgarian

Who are these people accepting jobs so far from where they live? In choosing a job as much as choosing a house, commute times should be considered. A job may be better than what I have now, but if I have to drive 45 minutes one way to get to it, that will be a very large factor in whether or not I accept the position.

I'm with Calgarian on this one, for me (currently job hunting) a job offer is considered on many aspects from the job itself to the location, with the commute being a significant factor in the decision

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

Lifestyle is a factor that should influence one's choice where to live as well. If you are the outdoor enthusiast who goes camping, hunting and fishing on the weekends, and who owns snowmobiles and quads, living downtown (even if working downtown) is obviously less that optimal as the cost of storing all your gear would be astronomical. Also you might be able to walk to work, but are going to commute on fridays to get out of the city. So somewhere halfway between the edge of the city and downtown would likely be the best bet.

Or the worst of both worlds. Depends on which of the 2 commutes you find less tolerable. I love public transit but would hate the additional 20 minute drive to a "halfway" point when coming back from a long day hiking. Hence why I live 30 seconds from a freeway that connects me directly to the mountains.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Or the worst of both worlds. Depends on which of the 2 commutes you find less tolerable. I love public transit but would hate the additional 20 minute drive to a "halfway" point when coming back from a long day hiking. Hence why I live 30 seconds from a freeway that connects me directly to the mountains.

Yeah when you are coming into the city on the highway, nothing is more aggravating than going from 120km/h to bumper to bumper traffic. I would pick the shorter commute to work as you will be doing it 10 times a week as opposed to 2 (there and back counts as 2 trips). But that's just me, anyway, I digress.

[kw5150]

Hey, If you want to live downtown at a semi affordable price, now is the time. Pricing is really good right now and the choices are quite broad. This will not last forever as many young first time buyers snap up these deals. Many people have friends (or friends of friends) that live in an inner city
condo and now want the same thing. Have fun looking at all of these great condos! I sure did.

[kw5150]

Originally Posted by Full Mountain

I'm with Calgarian on this one, for me (currently job hunting) a job offer is considered on many aspects from the job itself to the location, with the commute being a significant factor in the decision

PLUS + if you get to live for 3 years REALLY close to work, and then move later, at least you will have had those 3 years with a short commute.....better than nothing!!

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by kw5150

Hey, If you want to live downtown at a semi affordable price, now is the time. Pricing is really good right now and the choices are quite broad. This will not last forever as many young first time buyers snap up these deals. Many people have friends (or friends of friends) that live in an inner city
condo and now want the same thing. Have fun looking at all of these great condos! I sure did.

Very good point. Now is definitely the time to buy downtown. We still seem to have some excess capacity from the last build cycle, and there's plenty more coming onto the market very soon. I don't know if I'd call it a "buyer's market" but it's certainly better than it was a few years ago.

[Full Mountain]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Or the worst of both worlds. Depends on which of the 2 commutes you find less tolerable. I love public transit but would hate the additional 20 minute drive to a "halfway" point when coming back from a long day hiking. Hence why I live 30 seconds from a freeway that connects me directly to the mountains.

True, I'd rather do the opposite, drive into DT on a weekend evening after a day of riding, than drive/train in on monday morning

[fusili]

Originally Posted by freeweed

Or the worst of both worlds. Depends on which of the 2 commutes you find less tolerable. I love public transit but would hate the additional 20 minute drive to a "halfway" point when coming back from a long day hiking. Hence why I live 30 seconds from a freeway that connects me directly to the mountains.

Driving out to the mountains from downtown adds about 15 minutes, tops. It is best when you go out on a work day so you can laugh at all the suckers going to work stuck in traffic on 16th avenue while you head up for some awesome powder!

As well, I would much rather add 15min to my drive out to Louise every couple of weeks, rather than 30 min every day. That being said, I only really have a board to store, so I don't need much space.

[suburb]

Originally Posted by floobie

I do hope Calgary becomes a bit more multi-nodal in the coming years. Indeed, not everyone wants to live in the "zoo" , but they should still have the opportunity to live near their workplace.

Absolutely. That is actually what TOD is all about. Transit oriented development (it is not simply transit oriented residential). Irrespective of the raw numbers being thrown about, fact is, it increases walk-ability, increases transit use, decreases average kilometers driven, is a method to manage infrastructure pressure on the central node, increases options for people especially within affordable price points, etcetera. To reiterate the reality, 5/6 of all workers in Calgary do NOT work DT. Modest percentage increases in transit use or human powered transport can mean a major different for that 5/6th.

[Wigs]

As for me when I moved to "Cowtown" I lived in the "student ghetto" of Banff Trail (which was better than the "real ghetto" my last semester in Buffalo e.g. my next door neighbor in Banff Trail was NOT a heroin dealer ).

I met and lived with a bunch of people around my age, was practically next to University stop on CTrain, convenient to shopping of Brentwood, Northland, Market Mall but having so many roommates got tiresome. My best friend of the roommate bunch found a sweet condo for rent in Renfrew. She moved in and 7 months later her roommate situation didn't work out so I was able to leave Banff Trail for Renfrew.

It felt like going from 1950's suburbia to "big city living".
2 bed, 2 bath, open concept, high ceiling/lots of windows, balcony with awesome skyline view (I have the same view from our couch ), insuite washer/dryer, gas fireplace, heated underground parking spot and in the heart of Edmonton Trail that I refer to as "The Breakfast District"
Close enough to downtown to walk in nice weather and Bridgeland too. I do miss being so close to CTrain though. One can't have everything!

As one of my younger friends put it: I have the best of both worlds: partly urban, partly suburban.

I'm not wealthy by any means (by Calgary standards, almost a pauper ) but feel truly lucky to have such a great roommate/friend and place to live. I would never be able to afford this in Toronto, Vancouver, etc. Next month it will be 3 years in Calgary

[kw5150]

Lovin the inner city life right now.

[DizzyEdge]

Does anyone know if there is any policy being worked on or even considered to be worked on regarding the issue that as suburban communities age, and due to growth of the city they tend to become more 'innercity', not enough new families can afford houses within, causing a drain on schools possibly leading to their closure?

[kw5150]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Does anyone know if there is any policy being worked on or even considered to be worked on regarding the issue that as suburban communities age, and due to growth of the city they tend to become more 'innercity', not enough new families can afford houses within, causing a drain on schools possibly leading to their closure?

I always wondered why we do this to our cities. It always makes me feel that anything we build is completely disposable and subject to demolition (or extensive re-work) in 30 - 50 years. Why cant inner city schools just be refurbished? I think this may be where someones idea of having many, many, many more townhomes and rowhouses built comes in. In areas around schools there should be way more multifamily so that the choice would always be there for people who could not afford a SFH but who were middle class income earners. Children add such an important vibrancy to the inner city and I would hate to see everyone with kids pushed to the suburbs.

[suburb]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Does anyone know if there is any policy being worked on or even considered to be worked on regarding the issue that as suburban communities age, and due to growth of the city they tend to become more 'innercity', not enough new families can afford houses within, causing a drain on schools possibly leading to their closure?

I don't know of any such policy, but I've proposed many times that the separate school board needs to be abolished such as to enhance efficiency that could hopefully ward off 'some' impact. While neighborhood demographic changes are one root problem, the resiliency of the system is fragile because of the fully publicly funded separate system, something that doesn't happen in most Canadian provinces.

[DizzyEdge]

One thought I've had is when a new community is planned out, just like certain parcels are pre-selected for future school, or ROWs are set aside for future widening of throughfares, pre-select parcels for future densification, so although say 10% of the community may be higher density than SFH at the start, have maybe up 25-50% preset for much higher, so that it's expected as the community goes through it's lifecycle. That said, the biggest issue even then is how do you make the innercity in general affordable to young families, even outside of the issue of family-friendly multifamily being available at all. It's possible though if all communities outside of the very inner innercity had such a roadmap, that there would be enough multifamily across the city to be affordable, particularly if there was some sort of govt incentive for family-sized units. Just random thoughts though. I can't specifically say this is the case, but it seems that two common issues in newly-innercity hoods are threats of school closures, and resistance to density, so if the density could be family-orientated that could be a solution.

[hulkrogan]

Ugh. Another friend who's about to have a kid, suddenly doesn't have enough space in his 1000 sq ft Crescent Heights house with massive back yard.

I don't have kids yet, am I being naive to think it's doable (about 1,100 sq ft in my situation, also with a giant yard for kid(s) to play). It seems people all over the world do it no problem, and people 50 years ago did it all the time, why can't anyone now?

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Ugh. Another friend who's about to have a kid, suddenly doesn't have enough space in his 1000 sq ft Crescent Heights house with massive back yard.

I don't have kids yet, am I being naive to think it's doable (about 1,100 sq ft in my situation, also with a giant yard for kid(s) to play). It seems people all over the world do it no problem, and people 50 years ago did it all the time, why can't anyone now?

All I can think of is that when I was a kid I didn't have so many toys that my folks needed another full room to hold them all (which seems to be the case now).

That said, maybe they expect to have more than one eventually and want to do the upgrade now.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Ugh. Another friend who's about to have a kid, suddenly doesn't have enough space in his 1000 sq ft Crescent Heights house with massive back yard.

I don't have kids yet, am I being naive to think it's doable (about 1,100 sq ft in my situation, also with a giant yard for kid(s) to play). It seems people all over the world do it no problem, and people 50 years ago did it all the time, why can't anyone now?

My brother has three kids (all boys, heaven help him), and lives in a semi-detached which is about that size, with a pretty small yard and it works perfectly well for them. The bigger the house, the more you have to clean. After babysitting my nephews from time to time, I would rather have a smaller place, because everywhere they go, they make a mess.