The Great Canadian Towns and Villages Thread

[kwoldtimer]

The Detroit Institute of Arts is well worth a visit, however.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by rousseau

It's the bleakest city I've ever been to in my life, plopped right down in the middle of the least appealing part of the U.S.: the midwest. Ann Arbor stands out a bit for its academic atmosphere and collegiate sports, though not enough to really ameliorate the passive-aggressive dourness and prickliness smothering a general uneasiness and repressed tendency to violence (mixed in with the other multitudinous aspects of American culture and society that I hate, etc.).

Never quite thought of it in such explicit terms before, but now that you mention it, it rings true - the dourness and prickliness in particular. And it's funny to see that considering what a prosperous society they have. I wonder if the Americans have gone a little too far in the direction of individualism and away from the idea of community, where you and someone from the other side of town might have a common interest... you don't have to press an American very long to start hearing about how everyone else (Democrats, Republicans, white people, black people, immigrants, US-born citizens, businesspeople, welfare recipients, etc.) is taking advantage of him and is out to get him.

As to Chatham, the idea of being an hour away from other legitimate cities (even if they're Detroit and London) sounds like a wonderful fantastical dream to this prairie person's ears.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Well, in terms of "big city character" Detroit definitely comes up a little short. It's basically a sunbelt city without the sunbelt weather.

I guess with Detroit you don't get a city, you get a population centre: you still have the critical mass that can support esoteric shops and decent restaurants, but you have to know exactly where they are ahead of time so that you can plan your drive to a strip mall in Royal Oak, or wherever.

The other advantage of Detroit is that you have access to cheap flights across the globe from their Delta hub*.

*Well, cheap US destinations anyway. International flights were always competitively-priced out of Pearson and the low Canadian dollar helps.

Have you ever been to Detroit? Doesn't sound like it. DT Detroit is a very popular place right now with lots of investment and very low vacancy rates for residential. Many shops and restaurants are opening in the core, and the vibe is very positive.
As for Royal Oak, it's DT is very busy and urban for a suburb, I don't think of strip malls when I think of Royal Oak, I think eclectic shops and brew pubs and nightclubs.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by north 42

Have you ever been to Detroit? Doesn't sound like it. DT Detroit is a very popular place right now with lots of investment and very low vacancy rates for residential. Many shops and restaurants are opening in the core, and the vibe is very positive.
As for Royal Oak, it's DT is very busy and urban for a suburb, I don't think of strip malls when I think of Royal Oak, I think eclectic shops and brew pubs and nightclubs.

Yes, I have been to Detroit.

Downtown Detroit is improving, but let's put things in perspective: Detroit is a metro of 5 million people. For a city of its size, Detroit has the most feeble downtown outside of Phoenix, AZ and maybe the Texas cities (downtown and midtown Atlanta is noticeably more vibrant). Hence the sunbelt comment.

Everywhere outside of the American sunbelt + Detroit, cities of 5 million people have square miles upon square miles of intact urban fabric, teeming with hundreds of thousands of city dwellers leading their everyday urban lives. They don't have to give tax breaks to coax people to come downtown to work and eat at their restaurants. The downtown is the natural meeting spot that people from all over the region gravitate to, and civic leaders are worried that their rail infrastructure will support all the people who want to come.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Well, in terms of "big city character" Detroit definitely comes up a little short. It's basically a sunbelt city without the sunbelt weather.

.

I agree with the first part (in spite of obvious improvements) but the sunbelt part is a total mischaracterization.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by rousseau

You can get amazing old houses for amazing prices in those towns southwest of London. I sometimes look at the MLS website and weep.

The main streets have that classic southern Ontario charm, and it's palpably warmer and less snowy in winter than the GTA and the extended greater Golden Horseshoe.

The problems with the area as I see it are:

1. It's flat. So, so flat. As in: no hills. Whatsoever.
2. It's isolated. Chatham is an hour from London and an hour from Windsor, and at least two and a half hours to the GTA. During heavy GTA traffic times you're looking at three and a half hours to downtown Toronto. That's not a day trip anymore. Detroit is not an alternative to Toronto by any stretch of the imagination, and the thought of it being my nearby metropolis is depressing.
3. I've heard that southwest of London the people tend to be a little bit more American in character and a little bit less Canadian. That's a complete deal-breaker. For me, anyway.

And yet, look at the kind of place you can get for $359,000 in Chatham:



This one in Ridgetown is $209,000:



It's like they're giving them away!

Bah! Who would want to live there when you could have this instead:

theapricity.com

[Hali87]

A few NS towns:

Wolfville:


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Kentville:


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Lunenburg:


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New Glasgow


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Antigonish:


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[ssiguy]

Ridgetown actually has a large student population as it has a major campus of the University of Guelph.

Ya Chatham is 2.5 hours from Toronto but in Western Canada that considered next door.

All of SW Ont is flat and only becomes gently rolling/hilly about 40km west of London. It is DIRT cheap to buy anything there. In a small town you can get a serviced lot starting at $20,000 and a basic house starting at $60,000. Chatham has about 40,000 so all the necessities are there and London is only about 50 minutes away.

I don't know where you got this idea of the area being more "American" than most, I've never found that at all and I'm from the SW. Both St.Clair and Erie are right there and there are many nice parks and a lot of quaint small towns. The area is so safe unlike most of rural/small town Western Canada.

Chatham and Leamington have become retiree havens in the last 10 years. The housing is dirt cheap and is about one-third what you would pay in the Okanagan. It doesn't have the OK mountains but then Chatham isn't in the middle of no where. The nearest big city is Vancouver.......about 5 hours away and no rail service. Chatham has good rail service being on the Tor/Lon/Win route.

Chatham gets the mildest winters outside of the Lower Mainland and the same as Kel/Kam. Chatham only gets 80cm of snow and due to warmer temp there is rarely more than a few cm on the ground for long. That's less snow than either Windsor or Leamington. Chatham is quite an old city and has a lot of lovely old homes and neighbourhoods, the Thames River, and a very interesting history.

Sarnia is a dump but the area these people moved to was Bright's Grove.................an old fashioned beach town with small cottages 10 km from downtown Sarnia and it's pollution. I often spent summers there when I was really young and it was wonderful and thankfully hasn't changed much.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Ya Chatham is 2.5 hours from Toronto but in Western Canada that considered next door.

I don't know where you got this idea of the area being more "American" than most, I've never found that at all and I'm from the SW. Both St.Clair and Erie are right there and there are many nice parks and a lot of quaint small towns. The area is so safe unlike most of rural/small town Western Canada.

I agree with your travel comment but I am perplexed with the bolded one. Are you talking about murder and mayhem or petty theft and B&E?

[VANRIDERFAN]

I see that the prairies are not getting much love. I assume that since the area is very young compared to eastern Canada, we have not been able to afford to build the grand structures you find back east.

Killarney MB

Minnedosa MB

Moose Jaw SK


Maple Creek SK

Can't have a photo montage of the Prairies without the Hutterite Colony photo!


Have at er boys at how depressing, sad, soul destroying, etc, etc that living on the prairies is like!

[north 42]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Ridgetown actually has a large student population as it has a major campus of the University of Guelph.

Ya Chatham is 2.5 hours from Toronto but in Western Canada that considered next door.

All of SW Ont is flat and only becomes gently rolling/hilly about 40km west of London. It is DIRT cheap to buy anything there. In a small town you can get a serviced lot starting at $20,000 and a basic house starting at $60,000. Chatham has about 40,000 so all the necessities are there and London is only about 50 minutes away.

I don't know where you got this idea of the area being more "American" than most, I've never found that at all and I'm from the SW. Both St.Clair and Erie are right there and there are many nice parks and a lot of quaint small towns. The area is so safe unlike most of rural/small town Western Canada.

Chatham and Leamington have become retiree havens in the last 10 years. The housing is dirt cheap and is about one-third what you would pay in the Okanagan. It doesn't have the OK mountains but then Chatham isn't in the middle of no where. The nearest big city is Vancouver.......about 5 hours away and no rail service. Chatham has good rail service being on the Tor/Lon/Win route.

Chatham gets the mildest winters outside of the Lower Mainland and the same as Kel/Kam. Chatham only gets 80cm of snow and due to warmer temp there is rarely more than a few cm on the ground for long. That's less snow than either Windsor or Leamington. Chatham is quite an old city and has a lot of lovely old homes and neighbourhoods, the Thames River, and a very interesting history.

Sarnia is a dump but the area these people moved to was Bright's Grove.................an old fashioned beach town with small cottages 10 km from downtown Sarnia and it's pollution. I often spent summers there when I was really young and it was wonderful and thankfully hasn't changed much.

Chatham's weather station is not in Chatham, it's in Erieau, a small spit of land that jutts out into Lake Erie. So it shows warmer in winter because it's surrounded by water, same as Point Pelee. There is really no difference between Essex and Kent Counties weather wise.

[ED.SA]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Sarnia is a dump but the area these people moved to was Bright's Grove.................an old fashioned beach town with small cottages 10 km from downtown Sarnia and it's pollution. I often spent summers there when I was really young and it was wonderful and thankfully hasn't changed much.

Were not a dump!!!

[ssiguy]

Did a little digging.......

The reason many retirees are moving to Chatham is that Chatham average daily high in January is 0 celcius and gets more days in January with highs over 0 than under it. It gets just 80cm of snow a year and it's record snowfall for one day was in Jan 1999............a whopping 22cm.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

^Zero still sucks.

My aunt and uncle moved to Chatham last year - retirees. Weird, wild stuff.

[Hali87]

I was in Detroit earlier this year, and while the city as a whole is obviously in pretty rough shape (thousands of abandoned/decaying/"missing" buildings, entire neighbourhoods foreclosed, public services streched extremely thin, etc.), the Midtown area basically just feels like a fairly standard North American city (maybe that's an understatement - there's a huge university presence, and things like the DIA that you won't necessarily find in other places). Downtown was... well not totally abandoned (there were certainly restaurants, bars, stadiums and casinos), but that said, I'd hesitate to call it "vibrant". Downtown Halifax, and Downtown London, both feel much more vibrant in terms of number of people you see, number of options in terms of dining/drinking/businesses, lack of conspicuous abandonment, and scale of land taken up by parking. Metro Detroit is about 10x the population of either Halifax or London. The difference between Detroit and Toronto/Mtl (where I went immediately afterwards) was, well, almost impossible to exaggerate. At the time, there were still tax breaks, but I think they were mostly for businesses.

Detroit is far from being totally dead, and is an interesting place in its own right, but it definitely has less "bustle" than what I'd expect from a city with a million+ metro. There are small pockets of activity where things feel "normal" (ie. you can easily find a bar or restaurant and not be the only person there) but "vibrant" to me implies crowds, variety, excitement. These things were conspicuously lacking in most of the city, including most of the downtown.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I was in Detroit earlier this year, and while the city as a whole is obviously in pretty rough shape (thousands of abandoned/decaying/"missing" buildings, entire neighbourhoods foreclosed, public services streched extremely thin, etc.), the Midtown area basically just feels like a fairly standard North American city (maybe that's an understatement - there's a huge university presence, and things like the DIA that you won't necessarily find in other places). Downtown was... well not totally abandoned (there were certainly restaurants, bars, stadiums and casinos), but that said, I'd hesitate to call it "vibrant". Downtown Halifax, and Downtown London, both feel much more vibrant in terms of number of people you see, number of options in terms of dining/drinking/businesses, lack of conspicuous abandonment, and scale of land taken up by parking. Metro Detroit is about 10x the population of either Halifax or London. The difference between Detroit and Toronto/Mtl (where I went immediately afterwards) was, well, almost impossible to exaggerate. At the time, there were still tax breaks, but I think they were mostly for businesses.

Detroit is far from being totally dead, and is an interesting place in its own right, but it definitely has less "bustle" than what I'd expect from a city with a million+ metro. There are small pockets of activity where things feel "normal" (ie. you can easily find a bar or restaurant and not be the only person there) but "vibrant" to me implies crowds, variety, excitement. These things were conspicuously lacking in most of the city, including most of the downtown.

If you had seen what DT Detroit looked like a decade ago, you would be amazed at how far it has come, especially in the last 5 years. The city still has a long way to go to be healthy, but at least pockets of it are finally gentrifying, something that didn't exist just a few years ago. Plus, the optimism just keeps growing, with a very healthy, strong growing IT cluster DT, and lots of new residential planned.

[Hali87]

Yeah, I'm not saying that it couldn't be/hasn't been worse, I'd just hesitate to call it "vibrant" yet in the sense that that word is applied to most other places.

[SignalHillHiker]

Some of my favourite wee ones in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I mainly prefer one type: traditional Newfoundland vernacular, of course - but ONLY if the communities were founded with the intention of being larger. Communities of this type are still completely rural in appearance but have a denser, more haphazard mess of buildings when compared to communities that were always intended to be villages. The latter tend to consist solely of a single road with houses on both sides, businesses mixed among them, and have no identifiable core. People from most parts of the world probably wouldn't even recognize them as communities.

So here are a few examples of the former, the type I actually like, set to an old tune...

• Video Link

Brigus ("Brick House")
Founded: 1612
Population: 750






Harbour Grace
Founded: 1610
Population: 3,075








Newtown
Founded: 1849
Population: 390






Bonavista ("Beautiful Sight")
Founded: "1497" (Actually sometime in late 1500s; but changed hands between Basque, Spanish, French, and English many times; current town dates to early 1700s)
Population: 3,750














Trinity
Founded: 1700s (Exact year unknown)
Population: 191








Port Union
Founded: 1917 by the Fishermen's Protective Union; markets itself the only union-built town in Newfoundland and, now, Canada
Population: No idea, it's amalgamated with the whole region







The other main type I prefer were those built by the American military, which Trevor3 has already depicted well.

And a brief glimpse at what immigrating/living in one of these small towns can actually be like:

• Video Link

[FrAnKs]

Absolutely stunning !
I particulary liked the top right picture of Harbour Grace. It's like a copy paste of Ireland !

[P. Alouishous]

The main issue with moving to SW Ontario is that the economy is in shambles. If you're retired it's great because of the cheap housing, proximity to major centres, and favourable (by Canadian standards) climate. But if you need to work you're gonna be struggling.