Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

The Upper, Upper, Upper West Side : The New Yorker

Is fun being made, I wonder.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

The whole idea of condo living in far flung places makes no sense to me. We (or rather the younger generation) are being duped.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

They do start referring to her by her maiden name Pratt once they inform us of it.

I think this paragraph kind of sums up living in most Canadian places and the major metropolises of the world.

"Many features of today’s Upper West Side are, unfortunately, impossible to replicate. In Barrie, one of the few pizza options is called Boston Pizza; for bagels, there’s either Tim Hortons or the Great Canadian Bagel."

To her credit it is nice to see someone attempt to build creatively.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

Is she building creatively or just being "creative" in the marketing? The units in the photo bear no resemblance to UWS architecture.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

I don't know about that. If you can't afford to live where you work then a flat near a train line with a station at both ends is a way to build equity until you can move nearer to work. I think it makes less sense to buy a house in a dormitory town as that's conceding that the rest of your working life will be spent in transit while your children grow up living nowhere in particular and drifting into a life of hard drugs and, in Canada, iced hockey.

I wonder what the suicide rate is like for people who commute Milton Keynes to London, Barrie to Toronto, Cochrane to Calgary.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

Both.

With out the pizza and bagel shops you will not catch me there anytime soon.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

I agree.

Also the maintenance for a condo unit comes across as minimal to me versus that of a house.

I wouldn't want to spend my weekends cutting grass, shovelling snow or doing all the various external repairs.

Condo ownership comes across as hassle free from that perspective.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

This:goodpost:

The problem is that a lot of people feel that they should be mowing grass / shoveling snow / DIY etc so would never admit that they don't enjoy it.

Admitting that they'd rather live somewhere where they don't have to do that crap is seen as some kind of admission of failure , I think.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

Looks real, good for Barrie! I'm sure the real food will come to compliment the neighbourhood too. When I was at army camp we went to Barrie for the sin.:cool:

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

Actually, I'm all for condos, and think they make good sense in central locations for singles or couples, but when they're built in bedroom communities where space is at less of a premium, that seems to be the wrong way round. The whole idea of so called bedroom communities does mot appeal in the first place. Who's the urban planning guy on BE maybe he can comment.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

How well put...I loved living in a condo, when I did so, and really think when our son leaves home I will go back to one.

From the info given, I think they look very nice.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

This post made me find out what a Bedroom Community was as I did not know:

As a general rule, suburbs are developed in areas adjacent to main employment centres, such as a town or a city, but may or may not have many jobs locally, whereas bedroom communities have few local businesses and most residents who have jobs commute to employment centers some distance away.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

You've obviously never played sim city :)

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

No question, I found living in a condo (opposite the Yard) hassle free and also cost effective; no need for a car on weekdays, no need for a lawn mower at all. A car was needed to go out of town but not to the market or any other urban places of interest. However, a condo in Barrie fails on all of the good points; everything of interest requires a car because the trains don't run on weekends. Everything of interest is two hours away. Better a smaller condo nearer work, I think.

Re: Americans Hear of Barrie Ontario Shocker!
 

A lot of the bedroom communities however are not getting any cheaper, and for a lot of people a house is out of the question due to cost, but a condo is an option.

There is certainly a market for condos in bedroom communities simply because houses are too much money.

I'd personally prefer a house, however owning anything is never going to happen for us, but I don't think I'd ever want to own condo, everyone I know who has owned one has horror stories about owning one....