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Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Old Oct 16th 2019, 1:14 pm
  #16  
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by Shard
Airdrie is a City
ok.[/QUOTE]

Sorry if I missed a joke. Thought you were genuinely asking
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Old Oct 16th 2019, 1:49 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by bairn7
ok.
Sorry if I missed a joke. Thought you were genuinely asking [/QUOTE]

No, I was asking seriously. Just surprised that Airdrie is classed as a city. But then again, I'm surprised at Red Deer being a city too.
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Old Oct 16th 2019, 2:48 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

I only know because I had an interview last week and they discussed the possibility of the Airdrie office, so had to investigate.
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Old Oct 16th 2019, 11:43 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Both Lethbridge and Red Deer have populations of just over 100k. There are lots of satellite communities in Central Alberta where people commute to Red Deer, not sure about Lethbridge. We are about to enter our 15 winter in Red Deer, after 7 we decided we would move on we are holding off for now, but boredom is the main reason we want to move. We live on 2 acres just outside of town, love the privacy and convenience of our location for day to day living but find Red Deer is just too far for day trips to anywhere interesting.
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Old Oct 17th 2019, 12:31 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by Piff Poff
Both Lethbridge and Red Deer have populations of just over 100k. There are lots of satellite communities in Central Alberta where people commute to Red Deer, not sure about Lethbridge. We are about to enter our 15 winter in Red Deer, after 7 we decided we would move on we are holding off for now, but boredom is the main reason we want to move. We live on 2 acres just outside of town, love the privacy and convenience of our location for day to day living but find Red Deer is just too far for day trips to anywhere interesting.
What happened to the planned Southern Ontario move?
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Old Oct 17th 2019, 4:00 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by Shard
Sorry if I missed a joke. Thought you were genuinely asking

No, I was asking seriously. Just surprised that Airdrie is classed as a city. But then again, I'm surprised at Red Deer being a city too.
Any municipality in Alberta with a population greater than 10,000 can apply for city status. We're in Airdrie, the population growth rate is high - the 2019 census reported a population of 70,000; it was 49,500 when we moved here in 2013. This report in Macleans has Airdrie as the fast growing city in Canada over the last five years, though it also reports Airdrie's population as 75,000, I'm not sure where it got that figure from
Lacombe, just north of Red Deer, has been a city since 2010 and has a population of 14,000.
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Old Oct 17th 2019, 4:45 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by Bucks_Family
Any municipality in Alberta with a population greater than 10,000 can apply for city status. We're in Airdrie, the population growth rate is high - the 2019 census reported a population of 70,000; it was 49,500 when we moved here in 2013. This report in Macleans has Airdrie as the fast growing city in Canada over the last five years, though it also reports Airdrie's population as 75,000, I'm not sure where it got that figure from
Lacombe, just north of Red Deer, has been a city since 2010 and has a population of 14,000.
I didn't know the 10,000 rule. Is there talk/predictions of when Airdrie will border Calgary?
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Old Oct 17th 2019, 5:06 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by Shard
I didn't know the 10,000 rule. Is there talk/predictions of when Airdrie will border Calgary?
It's not really much of a hot topic here yet, and I think Rocky View County would have something to say about that - there's a good five or six km of Rocky View County to go through before we hit the Calgary city limits. Housing development is almost exclusively in a southerly direction in Airdrie though, and the city are lobbying the province to get a new intersection added to the QE2 on its southern side.
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Old Oct 17th 2019, 7:53 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by Shard
I didn't know the 10,000 rule. Is there talk/predictions of when Airdrie will border Calgary?
Calgary is growing fast, but not that fast.

It will an age before it borders Okotoks and it is far closer to Okotoks than to Calgary and Calgary grows way more to the south than to the north. It passed the 200th Avenue south a few years ago, I don't believe it has reached 130 to the north yet.
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Old Oct 17th 2019, 8:10 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by Almost Canadian
Calgary is growing fast, but not that fast.

It will an age before it borders Okotoks and it is far closer to Okotoks than to Calgary and Calgary grows way more to the south than to the north. It passed the 200th Avenue south a few years ago, I don't believe it has reached 130 to the north yet.
I'm just going by Google Earth satelite pictures, but Airdrie looks like it might pip you...? Anyway, once both join up you can have the cool moniker "the Tric-Cities area" as some places do.
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Old Oct 17th 2019, 10:00 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by Shard
I'm just going by Google Earth satelite pictures, but Airdrie looks like it might pip you...? Anyway, once both join up you can have the cool moniker "the Tric-Cities area" as some places do.
I just realised that the first reference to Okotoks in my post above should have said Airdrie. It will be a very long time before any of those 3 get anywhere near one another
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Old Oct 18th 2019, 1:42 am
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by Shard
What happened to the planned Southern Ontario move?
On hold, give us time to make the car collection more moveable and hopefully see an improvement in the housing market whilst saving as much as possible. OH is concerned about employment opportunities now he is mid 50s too.

If we win the lottery you will see dust clouds we'll be gone so fast. Lol.
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Old Oct 18th 2019, 3:04 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

"P.s. what about Canadian back gardens? Are they generally bigger than british gardens? ������ or aren't people to bothered about outdoor space next to their homes ?"

The answer is that it varies where you live in Canada. Back garden sizes range in size and are dependent upon city planning, the age of the neighbourhood, and a whole lot of other factors.

Speaking of gardens, are you interested in gardening though, or just a large plot? Something you may take for granted is the temperate climate of the UK and how that allows you to grow a diversity of plants, trees, and shrubs year-round, and that you can use your garden year-round. Alberta's long, cold winters would kill most of the plants that would normally survive a UK winter. You don't find lush gardens in Alberta, it is a dry climate, a prairie grassland ecosystem where Calgary is (think Russian Steppes). Calgary's plant hardiness zone is 3b and 4a (same as Moscow) while the UK's plant hardiness zone is 8.

http://hardyfruittrees.ca/tutorials/...ardiness-zones

In Alberta, this means that people don't begin to garden until late May or early June, and then growing season is over in September once the frost returns. As a result, gardening isn't quite the year-round hobby in Alberta as it is in the UK.

Last edited by Lychee; Oct 18th 2019 at 3:12 pm.
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Old Oct 18th 2019, 11:07 pm
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Originally Posted by Lychee
"P.s. what about Canadian back gardens? Are they generally bigger than british gardens? ������ or aren't people to bothered about outdoor space next to their homes ?"

The answer is that it varies where you live in Canada. Back garden sizes range in size and are dependent upon city planning, the age of the neighbourhood, and a whole lot of other factors.

Speaking of gardens, are you interested in gardening though, or just a large plot? Something you may take for granted is the temperate climate of the UK and how that allows you to grow a diversity of plants, trees, and shrubs year-round, and that you can use your garden year-round. Alberta's long, cold winters would kill most of the plants that would normally survive a UK winter. You don't find lush gardens in Alberta, it is a dry climate, a prairie grassland ecosystem where Calgary is (think Russian Steppes). Calgary's plant hardiness zone is 3b and 4a (same as Moscow) while the UK's plant hardiness zone is 8.

Understanding cold-hardiness and hardiness zones

In Alberta, this means that people don't begin to garden until late May or early June, and then growing season is over in September once the frost returns. As a result, gardening isn't quite the year-round hobby in Alberta as it is in the UK.

Absolutley,

The choice of plants (even safe weeds to feed tortoises) is very limited, the vista of trees is very samey, not many varieties, for bedding plants rule of thumb is nothing planted before May long and then it gets so hot and dry it's likely to die by august too.

There are faster growing veggies as plenty of people have a 'garden' as it's known here. A garden is a yard and a veggie plot is a garden.
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Old Oct 22nd 2019, 12:56 am
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Default Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting

Lethbridge does service a lot of smaller towns in southern Alberta - most of these towns will be less than 10,000 residents are nice and quiet but you have to bear in mind driving 20+ minutes on single lane highways to get your groceries. I am Just saying that if you live in a high residential area in the uk you will likely find the smaller towns a little isolating.

I live in lethbridge and find it has everything day to day - mall shopping is pretty crappy but you either pop to Calgary for the day or g9 over the border to the US as we ar3 9nly an hour away from the border
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