Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

HI all,

me and my partner are thinking of moving to Alberta in few years time. We have done the initial visa requirement test so are confident we would get in the pool for Express entry visa :cool:
In a mean time, I am researching life in Alberta 😊
we are planning to visit Calgary Before we make the move, however, I was interested to see what people living there think.

we currently live in Bristol and Calgary seems to be (statistically) double the size. Edmonton doesn't sound like a place for us. While we aren't keen on living in such a large city, are there any other options? :unsure:
there are cities with 1mill+ population or 100k- population in Alberta. Are there jobs in smaller cities? Do we have any expats living in small cities in Alberta? Would love to hear from you.

Also, if it comes to working in Calgary, do you have any suggestions of nice neighbourhoods (inside and outside the calgary) that has a feeling of small town/community? Easy to commute to downtown? How is the commuting in general?

I have read several articles about neighbourshoods and commuting but everything seems to be more than 3y old information 😊
Thank you

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

We have been here for almost 13 years. The first 6 were in Calgary and then we moved to an area 15 minutes drive from the south of the city, close to High River.

IIRC, Calgary's population is similar to Birmingham's but the two locations are nothing like one another. North Amerian cities are, generally, nothing like the UK's cities, and I would imagine that Calgary will feel way less condensed than Bristol would.

There are not many places outside of the two cities that you have mentioned in Alberta that have populations of 100,000. I believe only Red Deer approaches that number.

There are many towns and at least 1 city within 40 minutes drive of Calgary and which of those may be best for you will very much depend upon where in Calgary you will be working, as will the activities you believe you will be doing on a regular basis.

The more information you can give us, the better the recommendations we will be able to make. There are no bad communities in Calgary. There are some less desirable ones but nothing that would cause people used to live in the UK to be nervous at all.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Thank you a lot.
I know Canada in general has much less crime than UK but it's so hard to imagine large city without bad areas 😊 I noticed that property prices vary greatly in Calgary depending on the area, which "suggests " (from living in UK perspective) that there must be something wrong in the cheaper areas, thank you for reassuring it is not the case in Calgary 😊

In some old articles i read that public transport doesn't reach far outside the Calgary and parking is very expensive inside the city. So people living in suburbs or further away, how do they commute? 😊 it probably sounds like silky questions and everything makes sense once you are there, but it's hard for me to imagine, if it's not like UK, how is it then? 😊

I would love to live in small city/town and work locally, but it seems like there arent many jobs outaide Calgary and Edmonton. Right know we just want a quiet community and aren't fussy about any facilities (shops, restaurants or something else) as long as they reachable by car. But we don't have any jobs lined up yet. I am working as office administrator and my partner is in busines2business sales. We are both open to change occupations as longs as it sticks to regular office hours (e.g. no accommodation or retail).

Perhaps it's best to get jobs and move to Calgary and explore areas, only then choose where is the most suitable for us 😊

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 ?

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Millionaires like to live next to millionaires, that is the same in Calgary as in the UK. However, in Calgary most professions live in the same street as each other and nobody really cares about what you do. There is no "Moss side" equivalent in Calgary and most communities will have a mixture of townhouses, and detached houses. However, you will likely not be able to find a "run down" area. You may find one or two properties in a community that such a description could be applied to but grow ops will be found in the "expensive" areas too.

Most within, and outside of, Calgary commute by car. Outside of the city there are some non car transport alternatives, but they are very few and far between. Even within Calgary, unless one lives close to a C-train station, travelling around the city using public transport is not a particularly pleasant experience, particularly when it is -20 outside It is possible, but it is nowhere as easy as I imagine it is in Bristol. Downtown parking is quite expensive but, outside of downtown, you are unlikely to have to pay for parking anywhere.

I drive to the city every morning, park up and take the c-train downtown. At the time I arrive, I don't have to pay to park but it is possible to reserve a space, which I do, to allow my daughter to use my space if she wishes to as she attends university in Calgary and would not have a parking spot if I didn't have a reserved spot. This costs $85 a month. I believe that it is possible to get parking spots in underground heated car parks for around $300 a month at the moment. I have never wanted one.

.

Okotoks, Cochrane, Chestermere, High River sound like the types of areas you will be looking at, possibly Airdrie too, which is the only one that is a city and is nothing like what you will likely think of a city. The employment opportunities available in them will be nothing like those available in the city but, if you can secure employment there, you will likely be very happy.

We had a largish 4 bedroomed detached house in the UK. It was around 1800 sq ft and was a former showhome. It's garden (Derbyshire) was about the same size as our 1600 sq ft house we had in Calgary. Clearly, whether what you will get in Calgary is bigger or smaller than what you have now is a question only you can answer but, a typical house in the city of Bristol would likely struggle to compete with the size of garden a typical house in the city of Calgary would give you.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Thank you for very helpful information! It's only good news 😊

I will definitely look up all these towns you have mentioned.

We currently have 1200sq ft house and tiny 400sq ft garden. I suppose that anything will be bigger than that 😊(according to my initial house searche and you suggestion about gardens)

I will be looking forward to visiting Calgary soon and surrounding areas, as well as moving to Alberta!

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

New builds tend to have small gardens (or 'yards' as they are known here). Downtown (City centre) will have smaller lots (not gnerally as wide as the suburbs).. it will depend on the type of housing you are looking for - and where, of course, as to the size of the lot (plot) of land you will have with it. :)

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Exactly the same as in the UK, older houses such as Victorian terraces tend to have large gardens, new builds seem to have postage stamps. I always struggle to see why on earth anybody would buy a new build with such tiny plots and neighbours looking in from all directions.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Here it's because the intended market is people from India and they tend not to want any outdoor maintenance and tend to need as much internal space as possible so as to accommodate long term visitors. Anyone wanting to swing a cat in Brampton would have to do so indoors.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Having a large garden is lovely - I swapped a 14ft x 40ft garden behind a terraced house in Essex for an acre in Newfoundland. I appreciate the space and not being cheek by jowl with my neighbours. It's a job to keep on top of it all though - as I contemplate out the window the vegetable boxes that simply didn't get planted this year because summer is too short and was too busy this year. Fitting in outdoor maintenance with a busy family life, work etc can be a challenge. One only imagine how gentlemen farmer Dbd33 copes....

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

On Sunday we mowed. That is, apart from a brief horse ride, two people with two expensive machines cut grass from getting up to going to bed, You need to have nothing else to do.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

:rofl:

AC, what's the city 40 mins from Calgary?

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

AC, what's the city 40 mins from Calgary?[/QUOTE]

Airdrie is a City

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Airdrie is a City[/QUOTE]

:blink: ok.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

:blink: ok.[/QUOTE]

Sorry if I missed a joke. Thought you were genuinely asking :o

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Sorry if I missed a joke. Thought you were genuinely asking :o[/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.

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.

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.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

What happened to the planned Southern Ontario move?

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

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 :unsure:
Lacombe, just north of Red Deer, has been a city since 2010 and has a population of 14,000.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

I didn't know the 10,000 rule. Is there talk/predictions of when Airdrie will border Calgary?

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

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.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

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.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

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.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

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

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

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.

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.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

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.

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

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

It doesn't quite work like that in Canada, although I'm not sure how to explain it.

Speaking for Edmonton, it's nowhere near as big as 'busy' as what you'd imagine for a 1m population. The downtown is fairly busy on working days, with a lot of towers, but it's not crowded if that's what you're concerned. To put things in perspective, you can live in an acreage with forest around you and be just 30mins driving commute to your downtown office - check out the edges of the city and you'll see.

Houses (outside downtown which is mostly apartments) are generally bigger than in UK - think american style. They are all much 'newer' built than UK houses as well. Around here, anything over ~50 years old is considered a historic building!

My advice to you would be to either go to Calgary or Edmonton, rent an apartment somewhere downtown that's as close as possible to your work, and use the first year to learn about the areas and pros/cons before you decide on a more permanent accommodation. This will give you the benefit of using public transport (it's pretty decent downtown) and not have to worry about a car purchase immediately.It's also best come here around May when the weather is good and you have a few good months ahead of you to settle in.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/...ts-a-big-wall/

What say you AC ?

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

I have no issue with them. Okotoks attempted to set aside an area for a such a development recently and the NIMBYs then prevented them from doing so, that was referred to in the article. I have no idea how feasible they would be in winter.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Doesn't seem that different than a mobile home park. Surprised that it was voted down.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Thank you for all the information!! :)
I am just turning 30 this year, but I am currently studying masters so have to finish that :)
a quick test on the government website said I would have 475 points (age 30 with a masters degree), but that's just a guess because I am sure things will change in a year or so.
there few things we can try to improve the score, like re-take IELTS (I got 8) or get province sponsorship (my profession is on the desired list of occupations in Alberta), as well as getting a Job. Calgary has so many jobs advertised (like 3000+ for my profession) that I hope it wouldn't be that difficult :)

The reason we are delaying the application is actually finance. 1st. I want to repay most of the credit cards we have then save £10k to for moving. Weare trying really hard but I don't think it's possible within less than a year :(
talking about finance, ost of assessment forms are asking how much money you have/ personal net wort etc. what does it really mean? do we need to have a certain amount of cash in bank account? do you need to prove it and if yes, at what stage? So let's say we save that £10k, can we use it for moving to Canada? we also have a house (mortgaged), does this count towards personal worth or anything at all?
I hope I am making sense :)

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Thank you, Lethbridge sounds liek a lovely place :)
we live in the outskirts of Bristol, we have everything around us ( mall, entertainment, etc) but we don't really tend to use anything. We are more of outdoor/family people and free entertainment :) :D maybe because everything is so expensive in UK, or maybe because we are not that bothered. we both come from rural places and enjoy time in nature instead.
Calgary is a perfect place for employment opportunities, but not for a lifestyle we are looking for (isn' it?) :) therefore, I would very much like to understand if there are any employment opportunities in small villages/cities? :D or am I looking for something that doesn't exist.

I understand that my perspective comes from so many tears living in UK and Canada is so different.I probably need to live there for few years to understand the possibilities and what we really want :)

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Thank you this sounds very reasonable plan and will probably be something that we end up dong :)

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Population densities between Southern England and Alberta are very different. You don't have a plethora of villages, towns, beaches that you can drive to within an hour or two. The mountains are great, but even then so massive and wild that you tend to go to the same areas. It's very different from rural Britain. Many in Calgary enjoy outdoors lifestyles, I don't think you will have a problem being based in or near the city. If you want to be in the mountains, maybe look at Canmore, though it will depend on the kind of work you do.

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Farmers? Street sweepers? Fishermen? Dog walkers?

Which people enjoy this "outdoors lifestyle"?

Re: Living Alberta - small towns, Calgary neighbourhoods and commuting
 

Those are some good points. To add to that for the OP, they need to bear in mind that the outdoors in Canada are not similar to the outdoors in UK.

Outdoors in alberta = bears, elk and all sorts of wild animals, topped up by wild temperatures too! It doesn't mean that it's dangerous, but it's a different kind of outdoors, much harsher than most outdoors-y options you get in the UK. A brief example: last week I was at a cabin near Red Deer and the temperatures went from +5C on Saturday noon to -11C on Monday noon, with about 15cm of snow to boot. What I'm trying to say is that you may get more than what you bargain for here! Living rural in Alberta has very different requirements than living rural in UK, that's all. Having said that, if you like the outdoors you will have a great time here, it's extremely accessible, abundant and with all kinds of options.