I’ve never made it to the Maritimes, but what I know about Nova Scotia is appealing. It has mountains, scenery, etc.
Toronto is, well, Toronto. I loved it in the 70s, but have visited only briefly since, and not since 1992.
Calgary seems Denverish. A plains city close to the mountains.
What is the job scene like in these cities? IT jobs (I’m an Oracle programmer), or middle-class jobs in general if I couldn’t get a programming job right away?
Culture? Dining? Professional baseball?
I’m interested in any pros and cons.
And if anyone has any other cities come to mind, feel free. I need it to be large enough to have a city feel (100,000 minimum, I think), decent scenery at least close by, plenty of varied restaurants, and - seriously - baseball. Quebec is out, at least until I learn French.
My grandfather lives in Halifax and I visit every other year or so. I love it. It has a nice mellow vibe to it, and the colleges give it a youthful vibe. It’s got a lovely public garden and I thought it was very clean. It has a British vibe to it, I think.
Lots of history (boat explosion, forts) and also the deepest natural harbour (for you Canadians) in North America, I think.
If you want baseball, only two Canadian cities play: Toronto Blue Jays, and Vancouver Canadians (who are a farm team for some major league franchise). Vancouver is also close enough to Seattle that you can take a drive every so often to see that team play. But that’s it.
Vancouver has the added bonus of the best restaurants and scenery in the country.
I hear Halifax is lovely. There’s no baseball in Calgary. There is no place to live in Calgary. There is no healthcare in Calgary. There are no good roads in Calgary. You wouldn’t like it here. I will grudgingly admit there are lots of jobs here, though. But they don’t pay very well.
I know we’re full up, but you don’t have to be so mean to the potential newcomers!
We do have baseball here, but not at a very high level. There’s a Northern League team called the Calgary Vipers. I think that’s classified as A-ball.
There’s plenty of places to live, but no cheap places to live. There are tons of jobs, and I disagree with the idea that they don’t pay very well. I spend a lot of my time lately covering the job market, and in the right industries, companies are literally throwing money (thousands of dollars even) at people to get them to come here, switch companies or the like.
I’m a Calgarian. I miss it like crazy. My vote is Calgary - not only is the economy booming, but you have the Rockies less than an hour away, you’re only a short flight from Denver (if you have ties there), there is a wonderful arts and culture scene AND there’s a fabulous zoo. There’s also some minor-league baseball team, as well as CFL and NHL teams.
Raygun99 makes a number of good points. And, to address another of the OP’s queries; yes, Calgary is very much like Denver, Colorado. I base this on the fact that my wife is a former Coloradan–she lived in Denver for a while, in fact, though she also lived many other places in the state–and she finds Calgary to be much like Denver: Rocky Mountains and skiing close by, the climate is much the same (though you do have to make allowances for being much farther north), and the people aren’t quite as “intense” as you’d find in New York or Toronto.
So yes, very much like Denver, according to a former Coloradan. Except the drive out of the mountains isn’t nearly as harrowing as I-70 eastbound and there is no “cash register” building in the skyline.
Well if you’re open to other locations Ottawa might fit.
2 hours to Montreal, 5 to Toronto. Gatineau park right across the river, various hi-tech companies all over the place. Baseball might be problem; I think the local AAA team is heading south. It’s not booming in the crazy way it was before the dot com bubble burst but it’s still growing steadily.
Another Calgarian here. Out of those options I would have to say Calgary.
I spent a year living in New Brunswick (not Halifax but they are close enough) I still have a bit of the Maritimes accent, and yes it is absolutely beautiful in the Maritimes, but the winters are something else. They seem to just get pounded by the winter storms.
I also lived in Southern Ontario for a bit as well. Not Toronto but a small town a couple of hours away. I guess my problem with TO is that it is just too big for my liking.
Now to Calgary. If you want to rent, the places are WAY too expensive for what you get, and I think the vacancy rate is somewhere around 1%. I guess I could say the same thing about buying a house as well. I love the downtown core, I work in the heart of it and there is just something about Stephan Ave. The winters are bearable because of the occasional Chinook that rolls in. And you have to love a city that connects its downtown buildings so you never actually have to go outside to get around when it is bitter cold. I can get within two blocks of my house using the plus fifteen to walk home from work.
I will second the mountains. Banff is beautiful (I lived there too for a few years) I got engaged on the top of a mountain looking over the mountain ranges. Nothing beats that.
And I love the zoo, in fact I am looking into getting married at the zoo. I think that would be so much fun.
But on the downside I really don’t like Alberta politics compared to the rest of Canada. I am not a Harper fan, and don’t get me started on Klein.
Other side of Toronto from Ottawa, there’s Waterloo, and further, London.
Waterloo’s considered the hi-tech city of Ontario. RIM is probably the best known of the companies based here. 2 universities do this. It makes it a ‘young’ city.
Waterloo’s about an hour away from Toronto, east on the 401. There’s also Kitchener, which is pretty much the same city (though you’ll never hear most of the people from either city say that)
London’s nice too… Though I’m not from there, and have never spent more than a few nights there.
Ralph won’t be around too much longer. He was an awesome mayor, by the way.
Hey, has the Unicorn (Stephen Avenue, Devenish bldg) turned into a sucking hole? I was there for about ten minutes a few years back, and it was awful. Not at all the fun hangout it was when I was a downtown girl.
What about Kingston, Ontario? It’s a university town (with prisons, of course), right on Lake Ontario, close to T.O., Ottawa, Montreal, and up-state New York, with lots of lovely small lakes just an hour’s drive to the north.