ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

Hi, I am looking for a good place to live in Ottawa area which has good schools, reasonable house prices, and is commutable to Ottawa. I have looked online but it is very hard to tell which are the good and which are the bad areas of Toronto. It would be great if someone could advise me on which are the good and which are the not so good areas of Ottawa. Thanks

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

We've just got back from Ottawa after a 9 day reccie, and we have decided to settle in the east of the city, just south of Orleans, near Gloucester (Canadians pronounce it "Glou-sester") we're off there in September. We have 2 grown up kids (18 and 20) and had to weigh up their wants and needs with ours, and found Orleans just about a right balance between good housing, semi-rural setting and good commuting distance (about 12 miles) into central Ottawa where my wife now has a job. It's also about 50/50 english-french speaking, although the french speakers switch to english as they need to it seems.

Kanata is a large 'township' just a few miles west of Ottawa and has all the hi-tech industry, more jobs are available here than in the east. The great thing I found by living in the west or east is the Trans Canadian highway, which basically runs straight through Ottawa, you can get from east to west or vice versa before you can say "where was it we were supposed to come off at?" As I did many times while I was there.

It seems there's sections south of the city which we were told by the realtors to avoid living, although I can't verify any of what we were told because we didn't go there.

The inner bits directly around the centre there are loads of older Victorian and Edwardian buildings some of which are really run down, there was an argument going on between an old guy in a car and a heavily tattood young woman which seemed to be about payment for something or another:) which was a bit of fun in an otherwise uneventful 9 days. Downtown seems ok, we went a couple of evenings to bars and restaurants with friends and things were pretty much laid back and casual, no fisticuffs and the like.

If I had young kids, I'd head west, more chance of work. Nice schools too by all accounts, so I'm told.

The old hands here who've been around Ottawa for 300 years or more will be able to give you much more in detailed info then I can, I've just replied with what little evidence I picked up while I was there.

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

[QUOTE=steve666;5093538]We've just got back from Ottawa after a 9 day reccie, and we have decided to settle in the east of the city, just south of Orleans, near Gloucester (Canadians pronounce it "Glou-sester")

The real old timers pronounce it as Glou-sester....and the really really old timers refer to it as the "Township" of Glou-sester


Kanata is a large 'township'

just a few miles west of Ottawa and has all the hi-tech industry, more jobs are available here than in the east. The great thing I found by living in the west or east is the Trans Canadian highway,

which basically runs straight through Ottawa, you can get from east to west or vice versa before you can say "where was it we were supposed to come off at?" As I did many times while I was there.

It seems there's sections south of the city which we were told by the realtors to avoid living, although I can't verify any of what we were told because we didn't go there.

The inner bits directly around the centre there are loads of older Victorian and Edwardian buildings some of which are really run down,

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

[QUOTE=clynnog;5094959]
What he said:)

EXCEPT.....
Driving on the 417, it's all relative of course, for me was a doddle, a breath of driving fresh air, a fine evening wine as opposed to a bottle of vinegar, even taking in the road construction I drove through the centre on several occasions around 4, 5, and 6pm AND in the morning 7 to 8am from west to the inner bits and back again, stopped occasionally when traffic got a bit tight but never for more than a few minutes. Now I drive on the M3, M4, and M25 and BELIEVE me in contrast the 417 is a road where the majority of the cars have been taken away by aliens and have just left a few stragglers. If you drive east it was like, "is that a car over there or an optical illusion?".

Ottawa's a fine city.:thumbup:
I want to have it's babies...

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

When I was in Ottawa for a year I stayed at Bank/Heron. Dull. Very dull.

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

Endured a year at Heron and Briar Hill, within spitting distance of Bank.

BORING. And that is putting it politely.

I've tried to forget I ever lived there until I saw this thread.

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

I've no idea what Bank and Heron might imply, except it sounds satisfactorily rural.

To the OP though:

a) how many essentially identical threads do you need?

b) Caps lock is a poor approach.

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

Not rural at all.

About three or four miles from exciting, vibrant, busy, noisy, congested, smoggy, polluted, crime-ridden, graffiti-filled, cars bumper-to-bumper, streets full of potholes, traffic lights not working, downtown Ottawa.

Everything one would expect from a big city.

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

Four miles out of downtown IS rural.

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

A big city? Ottawa isn't a 'big' city! Ha Ha Ha, I laugh in your face sir! London is 'big', Glasgow is 'big', Paris and Berlin is 'big', Rome, Toronto and Vancouver is 'big' (Rome! Toronto and Vancouver! In the same sentence! How dare you!). Ottawa, and you'll have to understand it from my perspective in being at times a big city dweller, London and Plymouth, is a huge area of small conglomerations interwoven by a cosmogorical communication system. A central area of the most refined type co-existing with an itinerant and invigorating sub culture easily maintainable and controlled by an ever present exceptionally large police force.

My next book "Montreal - A city where the hookers drive the cars and the punters walk the streets - a dichotomy of an irrelevance" will be out in hardback next month, cost - $70. (available from Amazon at a knock down price of $69).

Any more bad mouthing of Ottawa and I'll be forced to drive a large 3 pronged spiked piece of angled heated metal up the rectum of the author. :mad:

Love,

Steve.

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

I must quibble with the idea of Toronto as being "big". It covers a lot of area but it's mostly suburbs and not a very interesting place. It's not a big city of bright lights in the sense that London or New York is a big city and Kansas City once was. There's hardly anything at all in Ottawa but then that's what people who go there want.

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

Consider your rectum full of hot spikey metal.

dbd have you heard of a company by the name of 'Data Discovery Canada' over there?

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

I haven't heard of them and neither, it seems, has Google.

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

Exactly...A friend of mine here asked me if I'd be interested in database/php work in Ottawa. He said this particular company had approached him via email here in the UK and asked if he knew anyone who'd be interested. I haven't heard of them and when I did a search I couldn't pick anything up.
Just thought as you were in the business so to speak you may have come across them.
Ok I'll get back to my mate and see if I can get some more info. Thanks.

Re: ADVICE ON AREAS IN OTTAWA?
 

Don't be put off if they're a one man band, lots of government contracts are handled by shady middle men who take a percentage just for being intimate with the contract administrator. (I, ahem, know this to quite common). Be careful though to get them/him to finance your receivables, the government can take (literally) years to pay their bills and it's not unusual for contractors to have to give up on the job because they ran out of cash flow.