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Posted Sep 8, 2021, 12:52 AM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Halifax
Posts: 4,526
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This basically tells the current story of Halifax's super-charged growth...
Quote:
The great Toronto exodus continues
Lured by jobs, cheaper accommodation, better access to nature and safer streets, Toronto’s artists and culture workers are leaving the province
BY GLENN SUMI
Aug 26, 2021
https://nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/the...odus-continues
Last year, I wrote a NOW cover story about how, six months into the pandemic, many creative people were leaving Toronto for smaller towns. Unemployment was high, the eviction moratorium had ended and everything that made the city so great – restaurants, culture, festivals and sports – had been put on pause.
A year and a couple more lockdowns later, the same exodus is continuing. But instead of relocating to towns in Ontario – places where they could easily travel, if need be, into Toronto – a new crop of people is leaving the province altogether for other cities: Halifax, Vancouver, Calgary.
A city is partly defined by its artists and culture workers. But the fact that life as we know it has been put on hold has forced many of those creative types to look for other things: a better work/life balance, greater access to nature, a more sustainable way of life.
“We’re paying the same amount for a two-bedroom apartment here that we were for a one bedroom in Toronto,” says Nancy Kenny, a Toronto writer, actor and producer who left for Halifax in July.
“And we have so much more space. Outside, there is water everywhere. The beaches are amazing.”
Holly Meyer-Dymny, a theatre and film designer, and her partner Kevin Olson, a theatre stage manager, moved to Halifax almost a year ago after having Toronto as a base nearly all their lives. And they agree the proximity to nature is a big plus.
“We’re really, really close to the woods,” says Meyer-Dymny. “In Toronto you have to drive two or three hours to get to some kind of substantial hike. From where we are right now, we’re a four-minute drive to downtown. Within 10 minutes, I can be at two massive provincial parks and a sea wall.”
Halifax and Dartmouth area realtor Chris Peters estimates Royal LePage Atlantic has sold about a third of its properties to folks from Ontario. One of the obvious draws is the affordability – the cost of a house in Halifax is approximately $460,000, about half what you’d currently pay in Toronto.
Peters, who moved to Nova Scotia from Toronto in 2004, currently lives with his wife in Eastern Passage, a small fishing community just outside Dartmouth.
“Dartmouth has been called the city of lakes, because wherever you are, you’re not more than five minutes away from a body of water – a lake or the ocean,” he says. “You also have kilometres of various natural pathways and trails.”
More jobs
Access to nature is one thing. But what about access to jobs, especially in the creative industries?
In Toronto, Kenny, a Fringe circuit veteran, workshopped a new play this year at Theatre Passe Muraille and took part in a reading of a new play at the Tarragon. With theatres closed, she pivoted to more TV and film, auditioning for commercials and one-line parts in TV.
“In Halifax, with all the series shooting here, I’m auditioning for series regular roles, stuff that’s a lot juicier and more interesting,” she says. “Two casting directors here know who I am and regularly call me in to audition.”
Before their move, both Meyer-Dymny and Olson had worked in theatre in the Maritimes. And while some of their contracts had to be postponed or cancelled because of the pandemic, they can both easily pivot to film and television.
The Halifax TV and film industry is booming. Peters says one of the reasons why so many shows are taped there is because of the location variety: you have quick access to downtown areas but also rural areas and fishing villages.
Meyer-Dymny and Olson say there was a wonderful community spirit around following COVID-19 protocols.
“You felt the community pulling together, there was this real collective spirit,” says Meyer-Dymny. That’s in contrast to her Toronto neighbourhood of Little Italy, where she was scared of walking around Trinity Bellwoods Park and the neighbouring cafes because they were so crowded.
Halifax-based Kenny is enthusiastic about the Halifax and Maritimes performing arts scene. The day before I talked to her and her partner, set designer Wes Babcock, she took in a play called Good Grief, about a non-binary child and their two gay uncles. Before the pandemic, Neptune Theatre featured the first trans and the first non-binary performer on a stage at a regional Canadian theatre.
A place to start something
“Halifax is the kind of place where you can come and have an idea and start something,” says Babcock, who is starting graduate work in architecture at Dalhousie this fall.
“There’s enough people, and the community is vibrant enough to make it take off. Toronto has 10 of everything and three of those things might be good. Halifax has maybe one of everything. Not all of those things will be good, but there’s enough of them that you’ll be happy. And if you really need something, you’ll go to the one that’s like not so great.”
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