Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Hello everyone,
we are still researching to find somewhere that meets all (most ) of our requirements. Of course such places exist - but our budget won’t take us anywhere near there.

The area we are looking at is Kitchner. Are there any areas in Kitchner that compare to Oakville? Safe and good schools. Oakville is a top contender, BUT the daily commute is putting me off. Ideal ideal scenario is to drive to work, max 30mins. Oakville is 30mins to union station on GO but the connections add up - don’t they ? getting to the station, parking time, waiting for the train, connections from Union station ( to wherever I need to get to) and walk from there to office. I’m looking at 1hr 15mins at a minimum I guess. I can’t do that day in day out - i do it now here (UK) and I’m totally fed up.

Coming back to the point, please can anyone suggest lovely areas in Kitchner/Waterloo that can give me access to IT jobs within 30-40min drive?

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

If the IT job is in Waterloo or Guelph most areas of Kitchener are feasible. Waterloo itself is probably more expensive than Kitchener for housing. To me, Waterloo or Guelph are probably the places I'd want to move to in the greater GTA if I had to live in that area.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Guelph, northeast of the river, between Eramosa, Metcalfe and Elizabeth.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Don't know any beautiful areas in Kitchener, but have a wee look at the Elora/Fergus areas. Very scenic and easy commute to Guelph or KW.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

I'm sitting in a semi-rural house from which we commute to Guelph. It's nothing at all like Oakville around here. I'm guessing that the Oakville the OP is thinking of is the affluent treed suburbia pictured in, for example, American Beauty. The area of Guelph I nominated is like that, see Streetview, there are similar areas of Waterloo. If, otoh, the Oakville of the OP's dreams is one of those ghastly housing projects north of the QEW then much of Kitchener, as well as "the south end" of Guelph offers that. Be warned though, competition is fierce in K-W and area due to all those people being priced out of the GTA.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

I love the Kitchener/Waterloo area ......... and you're in the middle of the Mennonite and Amish communities.

St Jacobs is a lovely more rural area just north of the joint cities of Kitchener/Waterloo.

I've also seen some nice areas in Guelph.

I'm always amazed at the conjunction of century old brick and stone houses which I would love to own and the modern slap dash building!

Schools probably will not vary much in any of those areas ......... and all 3 have at last one university for future consideration.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Yes, there's some lovely areas around - also Elora isn't bad - I also quite like Stratford, for a 'town' situation though there's some lovely countryside around. My nephew lives in a lovely old house in Guelph.. he and his family love living there.


:)

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Hence my suggestion above. Old houses, proper lawns, parks, walk to Loblaws, walk to the Farmer's market, walk across the river (probably using a bridge) and you're at the Wooly or one of numerous other bars and restaurants, walk to the GO station. The are behind the cathedral offers similar amenities though it would drive me mad to live in a street called Yorkshire or Edinburgh and to have to mispronounce the name in order to have things delivered.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Guelph is a very nice town. I prefer it to Oakville but then I prefer Burlington and Hamilton to Oakville too.

Waterloo/Kitchener is a little more bohemiam but fine.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Thanks all. Kitchner/Waterloo/Guelph area is now on the top of our list. Oakville is now off the list. Housing is too expensive and I'm not very happy with the commute.
Please can I ask for recommendations of specific areas to look at - so I can have a rough idea of what my money can get me in terms of housing.
Here are some areas I gathered from this forum:

1. Beechwood / Beechwood forest
2. St Jacobs
3. Guelph
4. Elora/Fergus

Coming from a big city like London, we don't want to live somewhere rural at this point. We prefer a small quiet town/suburb. One more question - what to expect from having Amish/Mennonite communities around? (As long as they are peace loving and tolerant, we have no probs). What extent of "bohemianism" to expect in Kitchener? Is it like Camden town in London(UK)?

We'd love to have a nice 4bed house on a big lot, in a peaceful neighbourhood, with good schools and within short commute to work. The last part I know is the most difficult to quantify, but anything upto 30 mins drive is fine. Shorter the better!

Thanks again for sharing your insights. I'm very grateful.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Beechwood/Beechwood Forest as in the neighbourhood to the west of the U of W? Big homes, big lots, lots of trees, although with big lots and a squiggly road design comes sprawl and I'm pretty sure little to no public transit in the interior of that subdivision. I was at Waterloo in the 80's and Beechwood seemed quite settled/mature then. Lots of profs live there and their kids. You'll be driving to almost everything.

Guelph has been described by a poster who has lived there and still works there I think. Nice town although the new subdivisions on the south side are devoid of character now.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Guelph, northeast of the river, between Eramosa, Metcalfe and Elizabeth.

I don't know where Beechwood is or what's it's like. I've lived in Guelph, worked in Kitchener and Guelph, visited the others often,

The defining characteristics of the others are (imo):

St Jacobs, nice houses, relatively little in the way of new development, one house has a racing MGA in the driveway so there are some Brits. Religious place, centre for Mennonite religion.

Guelph, bit like Oxford. University town but with industry so not dependent on the school. Bit of a lefty organic vibe, lots of electric car charging points.

Elora, up itself. Disproportionately expensive. Nice gorge though.

Fergus, historically Scottish, has a highland games, nice core but increasingly hard to find as the sea of griege plastic houses seeps across the land. Lots of overflow residents from Guelph.

Be aware that highway 6 is nightmarishly slow and prone to white outs.


Guelph, perhaps K-W, I suspect the others are too small.


I should think they would make as much impact on your daily life in Guelph or K-W as the Rastafarians do in London. Handy to have around if you need building work done and can turn a blind eye to the child labour/lack of H&S aspects of their style.


Bohemianism in Kitchener is something I struggle to picture. There are some homeless people, drugs are available, the population is from all over the world. Edgy like Finchley rather than Camden, I'd say.


Well, yes, and a 1968 E-Type OTS in the garage, children en route to being doctors and lawyers and such and to be forever young. Me too.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

OP, please have a butcher's at the places listed on streetview and in Wikipedia, come back with your impressions, "too many bungalows", "hate all those swings in the park, they'll attract children", "I want more traffic", whatever, then we can refine our comments a bit.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

:fingerscrossed: Join me on the adventure then !!

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Streetview trip to the places is being planned for tonite (Exciting stuff to do once the kids sleep). We love bungalows, parks, swings, less traffic/more traffic is fine too.

I'm worried paranoid about drugs, street violence, hate crimes (I'm from Indian descent, I look really Indian) and racism in schools.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Hmmm, adventures with ladies from the internet have yielded mixed results for me.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

You might enjoy this on your recce trip - lots of Mennonite vendors, look for the horses and buggies parked outside!

https://stjacobs.com/Farmers-Market-...nformation.htm
There's some info on Mennonite culture in a link of the St. Jacobs website: https://stjacobs.com/Culture-Heritag...nite-Story.htm

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

I went there a few times when I was in university. I recall one time having the hangover from hell and my girlfriend at the time coming by my apartment with her car and her wanting to go to the farmers market etc. The smell of all of the frying bacon in the place caused me to head outside for some fresh air before the waves of nausea subsided. Otherwise it was great

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Living in Waterloo or Guelph and being from Indian descent and looking Indian (is your ancestry from T & T or Guyana or actually India) won't cause any issues in either of those places. Most of Kitchener is the same although of the 3 Kitchener strikes me as the bit less progressive/international. Once you head out of town into the rural hinterlands you're heading to the land of 'Chinese and Canadian' food where chicken balls in red sauce is found:whistle:

Waterloo itself due to the large university is quite international (especially Chinese and to a lesser extent Indian)

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

My ancestry is from India. My sisters look mixed race - but my brother and I look Indian.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

I miss the days of your blog...

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Well yes, I put meeting HGerchikov up there with meeting RussMeyerGirl.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

IMO,

drugs are a legitimate concern. Guelph station has an underpass that used to be open all day and used by many pedestrians. It's not now as too many people were using it as a place out of the weather to do drugs. There are "harm reduction" facilities all over town. One of my children was a drugs prosecutor for a while (elsewhere in Canada) and said that the department only pursued fentanyl cases; there are enough of those that meth, crack, heroin cases don't get considered. What I'd ask is where in the world are drugs not a legitimate concern?

Street violence is not a reasonable concern in Ontario. You can get shot in Toronto, as you can get stabbed in London, but that's easily avoidable by adults and avoidable by savvy youths. Only some clubs attract violence outside, only a subset of people get involved with serious violence.

I'm not Indian so I can't directly address being Indian in Guelph, or anywhere else. But someone asked on here a few years ago if it would be problematic for her family in Guelph due to her being white English and her partner being Indian, they were concerned about their children being bullied. They moved, I saw her a couple of years later, they'd just moved from a rented house to one they bought. She still has an acupuncture clinic near the Woolly. If you were visiting you could hunt her down for some first hand vaguely comparable experience.

Today I was at a project kick off meeting for a computer system. I suppose 20% of the people in the room looked Indian. I know some of them and they're from India, Pakistan (straggly beard and not eating a free lunch were a bit of a give away), Bangladesh and Kent (parents from the Punjab). Next to me was a woman dressed in salwar kaweez and a lot of gold jewellery, she could not have looked more stereotypically "affluent Indian" if she'd driven her Acura into the room. I didn't hear her speak, so I wouldn't like to guess where she was from, one tends to find out that people were born and raised here only when they're asked to curl or play ice hockey and they can do it. The thing is, almost everyone here accepts that the neighbour, the person at the next desk, the other kid in school, is from somewhere else; most places have a diverse population and everyone just gets on with it. The only exceptions I know are families with elderly parents who aren't going to learn English, they want to stay in Brampton or Markham or wherever it is that has a significant population of speakers of their language.

All of the above assuming you mean you look as if you could be from India, If you look like an American Indian that's a whole other game, in that case I'd say to look elsewhere.

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Re: Kitchner - Waterloo
 

Hello.....Haven't been on here for ages, but just aw your thread. I'm in Beechwood, been here 9 years now. Town is growing fast, all around, but still relatively small. Great for kids. I have one in grade 11 at SJAM High School , one in Mary Johnson elementary. Schools are generally good. When I moved here, I wanted my kids to be able to walk to school. Communities in this part of the city are pretty multicultural, UWaterloo attracts a diverse population. IT job sector has bounced back, I think, with lots of smaller companies, plus D2L, Sybase, Opentext, Google, AGFA ....and still a Blackberry presence. All within 5-20 mins drive. It depends on what you are looking for and salary expectations.