Does anyone know anything about Kingston? Looks like a nice city but I have heard that it has more French speakers than most Ontario cities, which puts me off as can't speak word of French! Like the fact it's near a lake and house prices seem reasonable there?

There are two main employers. One's a university and the other is the prison service. The Tragically Hip come from there. A tall ship sails out of there. Due to a magnetic fluke compasses don't work there.

That's all I know. I haven't heard that it's especially French.

dbd is right about the university and the prison, up to a point. Kingston has a population of about 150,000 and it's unlikely that many of them commute elsewhere to work (where would they go?). There are plenty of other public and private sector employers.

I wouldn't worry about the French thing (first I've heard of it). It may well be that there are lots of people there who can speak French because there are several large institutions there that work on a country-wide basis, such as Queen's, the nick, federal government offices and a rather large military base.

I would suspect that a high proportion of the francophones are connected to the military base.

Kingston is, by the way, handily placed for Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. Each is less than three hours away.

We live about 30Km from Kingston and go there quite often. It's a nice city just the right size with no traffic jams and other big city issues apart from the odd panhandler. A downside is the possibility that a lot of the population are welfare since their primary income earner is a guest of Corrections Canada.




Plug Kingston into here

http://www12.statcan.ca/english/prof...dex.cfm?Lang=E

Kingston is a funny old place. As has been mentioned it's dominated by Queens University, the Royal Military College and an impressive collection of prisons. It's also a tourist centre (Thousand Islands etc) in the summer.

This boils down to a classic "town vs gown" scenario. Queen's thinks of itself, and attracts much the same sort of clientele, as does e.g. Oxford. Lots of rich kids who party far too hearty on the one side, and a relatively poor, underemployed local population on t'other.

Don Cherry comes from there. Avoid.

hi there!
been a long time since i've added anything to these pages but thought this would be a good time. my husband and i have been living just outside kingston (about 20km west) for the past 8 months and i have mixed feelings about it. very nice city (and i wouldn't worry about the speaking french thing). we like it because of the location to toronto (where i'm from and have friends there), ottawa and montreal as well as easy access to the states. but although i have been job searching for the past 8 months i'm still not employed. my husband has been a bit luckier and managed to get a job about 4 months ago but for me the struggle continues. i studied interior design at college in scotland and was looking forward to trying to pursue this. there isn't the need in kingston and although i have had a couple of contract, payed under the table jobs, it's no where near where i would like to be.

things will hopefully be changing soon as i actually have an interview this week but it is with a daycare - nothing to do with what i'd wanted to do. toronto or ottawa is the place to be for the type of work i would like to do. can't afford to live there though.

kingston does have some very nice areas with very reasonable house prices, it's getting work that is the difficult part. we love the outdoors and there is plenty of that in the surrounding areas. i don't want to put anyone off from searching this area but jobs seem to be few and far between. this of course is just my experience and maybe others have had an easier time.

good luck with your decisions!
fiona

Go check it out, its an OK place. Dont worry about the French thing, its not something Ive ever noticed when Ive visited.

I like it for its more old world (ie european) style, some of the architecture is quite striking. Of course to go along with that, street parking is a bit of a nightmare, and the one way system can be a bit bizarre.

The French thing could be explained either as there are a lot of government offices there, so bilinguality is more common, or simply because its the last biggish place in Ontario before you hit Quebec (not counting Ottawa), but either way it wont impact your day to day life.

For some photos of Kingston:

http://skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=373061


http://www.skyscraperpage.com/~trill.../kingston.html

To see some photos of Ontario's cities and towns:

http://www.skyscraperpage.com/~trilliumphotography/

Great word.

So is Floccinaucinihilipilification???

At least that one probably appears in a dictionary.

like this one?
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/bilinguality

It's a fair cop, guv.