Where to live in Calgary ?
 

Hi - we currently live 1.5 hours North of Toronto and need advice on moving to Calgary.

Over here I know which are the bad areas to avoid but don't know where would be a great place to live in Calgary.

We are looking for an area that is (somewhat) rural but not too far away from Calgary. Somewhere with a small townish attitude would be ideal.
Having a vibrant local pub would also help.

Any help would be appreciated.

Mick

Re: Where to live in Calgary ?
 

The small town crew will be along soon- I'm sure. But howabout Otokoks, Cochrane, Airdire or Chestermere?

Re: Where to live in Calgary ?
 

If you do not want to live within the city limits, then I would say your choices are Cochrane to the NW (gorgeous, obviously, look at my location ;) ), Okotoks to the south (very popular on this board), Airdrie to the North, or Chestermere/Strathmore to the east.

Depends on what you want and where you are working I guess. Some of the city suburban communities are very nice and very popular and might knock off 20 mins from your commute time.

I'm biased - but if there is anything else you would like to know about Cochrane, please shout.

Here are some other recent threads for your interest - but a quick search will reveal hundreds of threads.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ght=NE+Calgary

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ght=NE+Calgary

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ght=NE+Calgary

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...ght=NE+Calgary

Oh - and here's a picture to whet your appetite

Re: Where to live in Calgary ?
 

Hi Mick,

As a previous respondent indicated, we too are one of the small town crew! Okotoks for us. If you drop us an email (you can get that by left clicking on our Getting There profile name on the left of this post), we'll drop you across a few area guides that we are going to be publishing on our main blog (see sig line below) shortly.

ann m is right to suggest that Cochrane is a lovely spot too though.

For us personally, we would put both Okotoks and Cochrane above Airdrie (which feels to us like it is perfectly functional but maybe lacking in a little charm), Chestermere (nice, but feels to us like a sub-division of Calgary that is set apart from it) and Bragg Creek (quite picturesque but maybe lacks enough conveniences for day to day living) and Strathmore (feels to us like it is up and coming but hasn't quite discovered yet that there is tremendous value in its "historic" downtown core.

Kind regards,

Eamonn & Janet.

Re: Where to live in Calgary ?
 

If you want to be within the city, McKenzie town really feels like a bit of a separate small town, with the shops laid out to feel like a traditional high street. Apparently the pub there feels like a traditional English pub, although I've not been there myself.

If you want to be as near as possible to the countryside and the city centre, the area due west of the centre is probably the best - from about Crestmont in the north down to Discovery Ridge in the south. Calgary is a long but narrow city, so being in that central west section allows you to be near the middle and the edge, and many areas have views of the mountains and easy access to Highway One to Banff etc without going through the city centre traffic.

I've heard that Bowness, which was a separate town before being swallowed up by the city, has quite a separate village feel. That's also in the west-central area and is just off Higway One. You have to be a bit careful there, as some of the community is great but other areas are best avoided, I'm told. Much of it feels pretty urban, but the edge of it is by the river and Edworthy Park, with views of the undeveloped Paskapoo slopes to the west.