Umm, could the nice Calgary dopers give me a link to towns and such , within a half hour or hour radius from Calgary.
This would mainly be for commuting reasons, and so far I am having a bitch of a time refining the questions that would yield a fruitful google search.
Declan
Commuting reasons? Thinking of moving to Alberta? Anyway, the first to come to mind are the following:
Airdrie. Just north of Calgary.
High River and Okotoks. Both south of Calgary.
Cochrane. Just west of Calgary.
No links handy at the moment, I’m afraid, but these names should be able to help you in a Google search.
All four towns have a number of people who commute into the city each day, although be warned: the trips in and out during rush hour can be congested. Public transit–like Ontario’s GO train and bus system–is non-existent, so coming into Calgary from any of these places means driving yourself.
My brother and sister-in-law live in Airdrie - she works downtown Calgary and there’s an express bus she can catch to the c-train, actually. It’s not SUPER because it runs a pretty limited schedule and takes a while to get anywhere, but you don’t HAVE to drive.
Strathmore is about 30km east of Calgary - it’s decent but depending on the day it begins to be a bit smelly.
Cochran is lovely, but about twice as expensive as Calgary (if you’re looking for a place to try to save $$).
Balzac is very small, north of Calgary.
I can go on…
I see the answers have already been given. I feel so redundant.
We love you despite your redundancy.
I love you despite your tendency toward being a bumface.
It’s good that SOMEONE loves me.
Friends of mine moved to Okotoks last year. I’ve been to visit them four or five times since then, and I swear the town (city?) adds a subdivision each time I go there.
They both work in Calgary, and its about an hour commute for them.
Lovely place. If I was to move to Alberta, I think I’d prefer living there to living in Calgary.
Not me, I’m a city girl. At least, I’m a city girl where you can live in the city and it’s still safe for your kids to play in your yard and to go to school and actually learn.
Can you tell I live in a big American city now?
That isn’t Calgary anymore.
Its the rent situation basically, even people who have been living in apartments for a while are getting rent increases, existing apartment buildings are being turned into Condominiums and even with an increasing wages , its looking better to commute in.
Until someone shoots down that idea ,lol
Declan
Not shooting it down at all, but it does sort of depend where you work. If you’re going to be in the core, paying for parking is a bitch.
Yes, but what about park n’ ride? Last time I was home, the C-Train went way the hell South, so it wouldn’t be too much of a drive. Probably free parking there, too.
And I have to apologize, I see in the OP that he wanted the nice Calgary dopers to chime in. So I’ll withdraw any advice I’ve given. 
One thing I’ve found about moving to Alberta is that you have to shift your thinking a bit. Especially when you think of housing and location.
The apartments that you’re probably thinking of, and certainly that you’re used to in southern Ontario, don’t seem to exist out here much. The idea of a forest of high-rise apartment buildings, like you’d find in Toronto, or even in Barrie, just isn’t popular. Sure, there are some such buildings in Calgary, but not to the extent you’re used to in southern Ontario. For the most part, people tend to either buy or rent houses. Renting a whole house is quite common. Or renting parts of houses–basement apartments are common enough; but some places even have both the basement and the upper part rented to separate people. You may want to include these kinds of places in your search as well–I think you’ll find these arrangements to be much more common and accepted than they are in Ontario, while traditional apartment buildings are less so.
It’s important to remember also how separate the communities we’ve mentioned above are from Calgary. Again, this is not southern Ontario; you don’t have Toronto melting into Thornhill, which melts into Richmond Hill, which melts into Aurora, and so on, without a discernable break. You can’t, for example, say “I’d like to find something along Highway 2 between Airdrie and Calgary; the closer to Calgary the better, but even outside the city limits is okay too,” because there won’t be any such place. You’re out in farmland between any of the Alberta communities mentioned and Calgary itself. This is partly the reason why you won’t necessarily find rents decreasing as you move from the centre as you would in Ontario (though you might; I haven’t checked lately). But the other part of the reason is that the communities cited above aren’t seen as suburbs or bedroom communities of the big city as Thornhill and Aurora are; they are seen as separate communities entirely, with house prices and rents that are not necessarily based on distance from Calgary.
I guess my point here is that, coming from southern Ontario, you have to change the way you look at rental housing and at the way the communties out here are located. Having moved here from southern Ontario ourselves a few years ago, my wife and I had to do the same thing.
I was out in Calgary about two weeks ago now , and from what I have noticed at least around 17th ave was apartment buildings that seemed to top out at ten storys at most, what I would call row housing , where you have litterally ten houses joined together with about 400 square feet space.
While my perceptions at this point are fluid, I do have a boots on the ground problem in that what ever is online , is usually about 1 or 2 percent of the actual vacancy total, add to that, reports of people camping out lead me to believe that there is an actual rental crunch.
IF I had one rant about Calgary , it would be the lack of Tim Hortons , I mean seriously , how do you people survive.
I use this to Ilustrate ,that when we left Calgary to head back to Ontario , we drove out on the trans canada, and I think there was one little town ,with a timmies just twenty minutes out and then the next major place was Medicine Hat. I am aware at least on the eastern side , how limited such places might be.
I would love to just hit the city and have a place /job within hours but as people have told me, this is not the old Calgary where you could do that with rentals, so I have to think outside the box, and get as much information on oblique options as possible.
I still have to look at Edmonton and some of the other citys , before I make up my mind and hit the Trans Canada again.
But thank you for the detailed reply
Declan
I guess my point here is that, coming from southern Ontario, you have to change the way you look at rental housing and at the way the communties out here are located. Having moved here from southern Ontario ourselves a few years ago, my wife and I had to do the same thing.
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Aww Ginger , while we have never conversed , you have always seemed nice to all the other posters.
Declan
Thanks.
Edmonton is wonderful. I’m a Calgarian at heart (GO FLAMES; Fr. Lacombe Grad 1988) but I do love Edmonton. My dad lives there, I have lived there, and I love to spend time there.
There’s a big time rental crunch. BUT - it sort of depends what sort of rental you’re looking for. If money isn’t your primary determinant you should be OK.
However, trying to find something economical in a decent neighbourhood can be tricky.
FWIW - if you’re not picky about where you live you could contact Boardwalk - they own a bunch of buildings and they’re pretty well maintained and in good locations. Not super cheap though.
BTW - what is it you’re planning on doing here? Working? Going to school? Being a houseboy?
While I have a pretty good job here in Ontario, its an employers market at the moment. It took me four years as a Temp employee before I was finally hired on and with the domestic auto industry going through a transition, we are some what insulated but not to the point where I would feel safe about the long term prospects.
I want to be able to make a jump now while there is a reasonable expectation of matching or even exceeding what I make per year.
Declan