You know I have never been there. When I go to a pub on Stephan Ave it’s generally for dinner and I go to the James Joyce.
Calgary is a young, working city, not a living city. I’m young, I live in a tiny room and pay ~$400/month with utilities and garage. No problem for me, since I spend 12 hrs a day at the office downtown anyway (has a better view). Everything is expensive and crappy, the weather sucks, roads suck, transit sucks, drivers suck, everything featherlou says is pretty much true. There’s no culture, the city has no soul. There is not a single place in this city that I have any interest in visiting, I spend my weekends at the office or catching up on chores and cooking at home.
Put up with the crappy stuff, live cheap, work hard, save your money, make contacts, get work experience, surf the dope in your spare time. That’s what Calgary is good for. Don’t come here looking for a good time, it won’t be very good and it won’t be cheap.
If you can wait, wait until the housing market cools down so living is a little more affordable.
I’ll look into some of the Ontario suggestions. Ottowa would be good; I don’t know why it wasn’t on my list.
Seems like Calgary evokes strong feelings, not much middle ground.
I’ve wanted to for decades. Now that my citizenship of Canada has been recognized, it’s feasible. (I now have dual citizenship, in the U.S. and Canada.) And, in my own selfish self-interest, I’d like to get some credits in Canada’s retirement system. And, the NDP needs all the help it can get.
Umm, have you tried to look for any?
I work in the arts and saw 6 excellent plays (ok one was a ballet) in one month. The city is brimming with theatre, if you look for it. I have seen anything from the standard comedy, campy musical, to edgy contemporary stuff. I am not a huge fan of Theatre Calgary, but I can’t wait to see Christmas Carol this year. I have seen the set designs and they are Broadway quality. ATP is a good bet. I have heard good things about The Goat, but that closes on Saturday and their next show is Peter Pan with flying actors of course. Theatre Junction will give you the more edgy stuff. Insomnia was their last show and was great. Sage Theatre just did Trainspotting, which I watched with an ex-junkie who actually cried during part of it because it hit so close to home. Vertigo is doing an Oscar Wilde comedy opening in a few weeks. If you are a dance fan Decidedly Jazz Danceworks is opening a new piece soon, I think they are renting The Grand for that show. Thier stuff is always fun.
What kind of culture are you looking for?
That explains why I couldn’t find it on Wikipedia. Ottawa would be better.
Welcome to Toronto, Frank! 
In my opinion, the Toronto area is too big for its current leadership (they flubbed the Expo 2015 bid today, for example) and until we get some people who really start thinking like they run a city of 4.5 million people, and start building facilities and programs to match, we will never be more than an also-ran.
Also, the weather sucks in November.
Other than that, there’s some great architecture in a sea of short-sighted crap; the subway is decent but underfunded; there are lots of art galleries, museums, cultural events, shopping, and newspapers (at one point I counted 11 dailies, only four of which were in English); and we Tronnadopers would welcome you. 
Waterloo, of course, would be west on the 401.
Frank, you might want to get a better fix than just “I like culture and pro baseball.” Where you want to live will be heavily dependent on what sort of work you want to do, or if you presently have any job prospects, or indeed if you have family in the US you want to be able to visit (a city with a big airport like Toronto would be easier to travel from than, say, Halifax.)
Of course, jobs will generally be more plentiful in or near large centres. Southern Ontario has the most people and, hence, the most jobs, but the fastest growing economy, and highest wages, are in Alberta.
However, if baseball is critical and you want job opps, southern Ontario might be your best choice. If you don’t want to live right in Toronto there are cities on the periphery with close to, or more than, 100,000 people - London, Waterloo, Kitchener, Guelph, Barrie, Oakville, Burlington, and some biggies like Mississauga (650,000 people) and Hamilton (500,000.) Windsor and Kingston, you’re getting pretty far, but they’re nice too. Ottawa, on the other side of the province, is very nice. And near Toronto you have Blue Jays baseball. Or you can live in Windsor, and you are right next to your 2006 American League champions, the Detroit Tigers.
Of course, Toronto is much bigger than it was when you were here last time and does carry big city problems, most notably traffic and air pollution.
Try www.workopolis.com for a Canadian job search.
Hey now, YHZ is not so tiny as all that. US and Canadian Customs stations.
This former Maritimer votes for Halifax. Aside from the occasional White Juan, the city winters feel milder than typical for the region, and it’s got a lovely big-city feel with a relativly small population (under 400,000)
Winnipeg also seems to have been left off your list, although I can’t say I see much to recommend it. Bitterly cold, difficult to get around, and downtown always seemed kind of dirty.
I quite like Toronto, but Ottawa is nice, too. Toronto has better restaurants, but fewer shawarma joints. And Ottawa’s across from Hull, which is a big minus. Ottawa is a nice walking city, except for the bloody freezing cold, and it’s pretty. Toronto has a pretty decent cultural life, a great public transportation system, and the Robarts library. How can you lose?
My MIL keeps trying to get us to move to Napanee, where the big excitement is the new Wal-Mart. :rolleyes: I wouldn’t suggest Napanee, really.
Gotta say I’m loving Toronto… one of the things I love is the diversity here… living downtown has been great for getting around too… after living in my car in California, being able to walk everywhere is amazing to me… My car has gotten used maybe once every week or two since we moved here…
And yeah, the weather has been a little rough so far… Is it almost spring yet?
Thanks for the link.
I’m tentatively planning on next summer for the move, so I’ve plenty of time to research and think and job-hunt. Toronto has many of the things I enjoy: big league baseball, a world class zoo, museums, large parts of it are walkable, etc., and it has sentimental value to me. I’m just trying to get some ideas beyond that.
I’d actually be closer to most of my family in the U.S. in southern Ontario; family in Canada is in Ottawa and Victoria, with some that I’ve never met on the plains.
Hah! That’s funny - Toronto has some of the mildest winters in Canada. Maybe you could spend next winter in Winnipeg or Saskatoon - when you go back to Toronto, you’ll feel blessed to be there. I know I feel that way in Calgary, because the winters are so much milder here than on the bald-ass prairie (that’s one thing I like about Calgary - the mild winters).
Calgary is not a walking city - it’s an oil and gas city, and you are strongly encouraged to spend as much time as possible in your car (preferably an SUV).
Too bad you’re not into curling, Frank. We could help you out there in any city or town, then. Have you thought about taking it up?
I’m not knocking you guys, I’m actually trying to get into musical theatre myself (if only I had more time), but to me culture == cathedrals and coliseums and stuff like that. Calgary is just too new. Granted I’ve never lived in any other Canadian cities so maybe they’re all like that, but IMO a city needs to have some kind of underlying theme. I have an immediate mental image if I think of New York, or Northern California, or Shanghai or London, I don’t with Calgary. The whole cowboy thing is just bizzare and seems completely unnatural.
Whats completely unnatural is that there is no Tim Hortons on almost every street corner that I passed, mind you it was a small slice of the city , but still compared to anywhere southern ontario , you would count at least an even dozen
Declan
All of Canada is too young for that sort of thing, save for Montreal. The cowboy thing is, as you’d see if you drove for a half-hour outta the city, very natural. My family has been in farming in Alberta for a very long time, and along with that comes roundups and rodeo. Our past is the cowboy, and our future is the oil and gas. It’s a city that doesn’t have an underlying ‘theme’ because it has grown by leaps and bounds.
Also, NYC? No theme, IME. It’s different from block to block.
And to an Albertan, Ontario is littered with them (not like it’s a bad thing). There are not nearly enough Tim’s for my liking at home, but that’s just because I lived for a year in Kingston. Where there were eleven, including one on the military base.
Seattle gets more fog (in Vancouver it’s all on the north shore), but that does describes the weather. In fall and winter. Real winter climate is safely contained in the mountains. And the thermometer dips below freezing once a year for 20 minutes.
I’ll toss in my vote for my hometown of K-W (some of us from Kitchener don’t mind lumping it in with Waterloo). I’m not as up to date on its progress in the last decade but there are 2 major universities and a lot of hi-tech companies. You’re right in the middle of Southern Ontario and not far from anything (Toronto is about 1 hour, Windsor/Detroit 2, Niagara Falls/Buffalo 1.5). The Toronto airport is on the south side of Toronto and is easy to get to. Kitchener itself has some minor league hockey and baseball teams and decent cultural activities. There’s a large German community and I believe it has the largest Oktoberfest in North America. If I can ever convince my wife I’d love to move back up north myself.
I believe it’s in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that all Canadians have the right to have a Tim Horton’s within ten minutes of their house.
WaryEri -
Okay Winnipeg may have some shortfalls, but culture and theatre we have in buckets. We have some of the most revered and recognized theatre, music and dance programs in the worls and for history we can’t be beat. OUr downtown still has a large variety of turn of the century buildings and is often used for movie shoots.
As for our winters, yes they are cold, but it is dry (I know it sounds like a cliche) and dry cold you can dress against. Wet, humid cold (the chilly kind) is next to impossible to clothe against.
We have a lively city, full of festivals and fairs, but summer and winter. Our housing prices are still reasonable (compared to say, Calgary or Ottawa). Spending 250,000 here on a house will get you a beautiful home on a large lot, try that anywhere else.
As for dirty, actually no, we are not any dirtier than any other city (except maybe Ottawa which does seem cleaner than anywhere else). We have large greenspaces and North America’s largest urban forest. We also possess a prairie desert and a very interesting climate (cold in the winter, smoking hot in the summer). We have some of the best beaches within easy driving distance, and a beautiful Interlake area.
I liked Ottawa when I went there, never been to Halifax, but have heard it’s lovely. Housing market has tough resale there though.
For more info on Winnipeg - Winnipeg
I hate it when people pick on my city. Let me know when you are coming here and I will make sure you get a chance to see the real Winnipeg.
Winnipeg is home.