We're a relatively young couple (27 and 23) immigrating to Canada this summer. It's only a few months from now, and we're still thinking where to settle down in Ontario. My fiance is a city girl, so for her anything else except Toronto is out of the question. Me, on the other hand, prefer small town life, even a few hours from Toronto. So it looks like we have a problem

There are two major aspects that we're considering:
1.) Cost of living. Renting first, and than looking to buy. Definitely out of Toronto I would say, as we'd get more for our buck..
2.) Jobs. I am gonna be looking for a job in accounting, junior level for the start. My girl will be a fresh graduate, wanting to work in social services...

We're trying to find a compromise in places like Barrie, Kitchener or Guelph, but we're still not getting anywhere (it's hard to talk to woman once she's decided ), but anyway... Any advice?

Why just Ontario? Have you thought about Alberta (Calgary or Edmonton) or B.C. (Vancouver?)

Presumably you have your immigration visas.

One factor you need to think about is what qualifications you have and how these will (or won't) be recognised in the province you plan to settle in.

Immigration visas sorted, already have my PR card in my wallet...
Why Ontario? Only because we have a lot of friends and family around the Great Lakes in the States...

If you end up working downtown then renting outside the city doesn't neccessarily get you more bang for your buck because of commuting costs. For example we used to rent in Newmarket which is about an hour or so north of Toronto. We could rent a 2 bedroom apartment for $750/month inclusive which is way cheaper than a nice area of Toronto but we then had to take the GO Train to Union station, then the TTC then walk to work. So you got cheaper rent but then an extra $400+ a month in commuter costs as well as a 2 hour commute each way once you factor in waiting for trains and subways and walking etc. Even if you buy a car it will still cost you several hundred bucks a month in payments and insurance and gas and won't be any quicker if you go in rush hour.

We eventually moved downtown into a nice part of bloor west village / high park and sure the rent was way more, closer to $1250 plus utilities but we didn't have to take the GO anymore so were saving $400/month in train tickets which made the rent only a fraction more pluse it was a 30 minute commute on the subway or bus and way better access to the city and the apartment was way nicer than the one in Newmarket because while you pay more you also generally get a better quality when you pay more. I mean you could pay way less in the city but then it would be of dubious quality and in a dubious neighbourhood.

So it's worth factoring in things like that. Is it worth losing an extra 3 hours a day to commuting to live in a smaller town? Also if you have to work in the city you can't really live in a smaller town anymore, pretty much everywhere in commuter distance has morphed into sprawling suburbia with endless new subdivisions and big box stores etc. Newmarket must have doubled in size since I first visited it 7 or 8 years ago. I'm like you though, I much prefer a smaller town or rural area to living right downtown, I find it too busy and corwded and so forth. However Toronto has a lot of different areas and for example where we are in Bloor West Village I don't find much different to suburbia in that the houses are big and detached and the roads are wide and tree lined and it's quiet. Advantage is a 10 minute walk to the subway and 15 minutes to downtown. Of course you can't buy a house on our street for less than half a million dollars and most are over $650K so renting is affordable but housing isn't. We just bought a house and had to go for a denser less flashy area, but still nice and quiet, to be affordable. Could have got more outside the city but not enough to validate that nightmare of a commute.

Drew

Why is she stuck on Toronto? Of the 3 or 4 "big cities" in Canada (the others being Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary), Toronto seems the least appealling. It has little character and its economy is failing while Vancouver and Calgary are both growing substantially (I'm not sure about Montreal). If she is used to a London-style big city I'm afraid she will find Toroto a sore disappointment.

If you are looking for a mix of big-city conveniences and rural amenities you may want to give Vancouver a closer look. It has incredible scenery and outdoor-style life. It will be expensive, but probably not much more so than Toronto, where even suburbs anhbour away are getting ridiculously expensive.

I'd consider living in a smaller town outside T.O. in case we both could work there, or in a 20-30 mile radius when the daily commute would be pretty reasonable....
We're both looking to start on fairly junior or even entry level positions, considering this factor, do you think Toronto would be a better choice?

We've just taken the dog for a walk in Toronto. Something that struck me while we were out is how much green space there is in Toronto compared with the suburbs. One can go for hours by bicycle, using only trails through parks and ravines, from the Beach downtown, from downtown up to along the parkway past Sunnybrook, from downtown along the lake to Mississauga, up along the Humber.

It seems to me that once one moves out it's a long way before there are trees again, we drive north on Warden several times a week, it's desolate from Gerrard to Major Mackenzie and we take that street because, on the parallel ones, such as Woodbine or Leslie, the ugliness goes even farther up. The band between the 401 and the 407 is just ghastly to look at; the builders should be made to live there.