Molson 03

Does anyone know where best to look to find out more info about different cities/neighbourhoods?

We're looking to emigrate in the next 12 months and are starting the search for jobs/house etc (albeit a 'quick and dirty' search on the internet to help reduce time ground truthing!).

Of particular interest in Vancouver/Victoria and other cities in BC.

I've looked through MLS, but although the house may look nice - it could be in a bad area or too far to commute from the major city.

Any ideas/help would be greatly appreciated!

Iain Mc

There's probably some stuff in the Wiki on this site (link at the top of the page).

However I would strongly suggest you use the time you have in the next year to take a trip over there and have a look for yourself - you wouldn't move somewhere else in the UK without first spending some time there?

Believing what you hear on t'internet is a risky business, opinions are rarely objective!

Cheers, Iain

Molson 03

I agree that getting out there is by far the best way, I'm just looking to do some research before I get there. To look at the whole of Victoria in 2 weeks would be tough going, let alone some of the other cities that we may be interested in. If I can start to narrow it down, I'll be doing myself a huge favour.

All I'm after is something that suggests what each of the different areas are like, and ideally, a bit about commuting.

hot wasabi peas

I'm from Victoria and I can't see it taking more than a couple of days to suss up the place. If you have any questions, fire away. Plus there are quite a few other people on here who now live, or are planning to live, in Victoria.

I'm guessing that most of the 'city guides' you'll find on the net will be geared towards tourism. Here is a list of all the websites for all the local municipalities and districts in the Greater Victoria region. They might be more 'real'.

http://www.greatervictoria.com/relocationtovictoria.htm

One thing I could suggest is looking at real estate websites (eg). Still probably glossed-over but ...
http://www.callronan.com/site/about_vic.html

Judy in Calgary

When you join the Brits2Vancouver forum, they automatically e-mail you some information along the lines of what you've asked.

Their forum discussions also cover Victoria, the rest of Vancouver Island, and the southern mainland of BC.

flashman

You might get a better picture from the local media

http://www.abyznewslinks.com/canad.htm

JonboyE

These are some notes I made for an acquaintance last year. It is, of course, highly subjective.

Firstly, I am sure you won’t regret it. Vancouver is a beautiful city and a wonderful place to live. Now, where do I start?

Have you been here before? If not, it might be worth a visit to get a feel for the neighborhoods and where you might want to live. If you can’t do that, renting is an OK option. You can then spend some time to decide where to live without making much of a commitment. The vacancy rate is reasonable at the moment and you can find places in all price ranges. We don’t have the Montreal type rush so you can start a tenancy at any time. The Vancouver Sun/Province has the best classified ads and you can read them online. The local freebies also carry extensive rental listings so once you have decided where to look I can tell you which papers to look at.

Where to look depends very much on what sort of lifestyle you are looking for, how long you want to spend commuting, what size place you want, and your budget.

Greater Vancouver includes the City of Vancouver plus several suburban cities. Prices generally fall the further away you get from the centre, but it is only a general rule. Here is a whistle stop tour of Greater Vancouver:

Downtown – very hip urban living. Lots of very expensive condos. Lots of apartments ($1,000 pm and up), big gay community, drop dead gorgeous views over sea, mountains and Stanley Park.

Vancouver Westside. Expensive & exclusive. Close to the University of British Columbia. The more affordable and enjoyable part of the Westside is called Kits and is worth a look. It’s a fun, chic, and lively place to live, plenty of interesting stores, restaurants and coffee houses, and a good place to get some of the Vancouver experience while you explore the area.

Vancouver Eastside. It’s definitely a step down in price and status from the Westside, but not necessarily any worse for that. It contains the one area to avoid, called the Downtown Eastside, which is a few blocks around the intersection of Main & Hastings. This is the skid row and drug central. Otherwise, all of Greater Vancouver is quite safe. The Eastside is mixed industrial, commercial, and residential. It is attractive to younger people and creative types who like the very slight edginess. Housing ranges from run down to very good. Wonderful Asian food.

Burnaby. It is a separate city but, in effect, just a continuation of the Eastside. There are some high-end neighborhoods around Simon Fraser University, otherwise it is very mixed.

New Westminster – the old capital of BC. A bit faded round the edges these days. Again, a mix of industrial, commercial, and low-end and high-residential. Many homes have river & mountain views.

Vancouver Eastside, Burnaby and New West are linked to downtown by the Sky Train mass transit system. Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and Coquitlam are linked by a commuter line that runs four trains into town in the morning, and four trains back in the evening. A new Sky Train line is being built that links Richmond and the airport to Downtown that is due to open in 2009. Apart from these, if you need to commute the car is the only realistic option.

North of Burnaby/New West are the Tri Cities of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody. They have a good mix of housing close up under the mountains. A light rail system is promised in the next few years.

East of here is Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows. This is the cheapest area in the Greater Vancouver area because it is almost cut off by two rivers. One bridge and a ferry are the only way in and out. It is quite rural in many parts. A new road bridge is under construction which may give housing prices a boost in the next few years.

Across the Burrard Inlet from Downtown are North & West Vancouver. They are connected to Vancouver by two spectacular bridges and one commuter ferry. This is an attractive area to live – good housing, very scenic and close to Downtown. Unfortunately the prices reflect this. West Vancouver has the highest per capita income in Canada and has a plentiful selection of multi-million dollar mountain and waterfront mansions.

Just south of Vancouver is Richmond. It is industrialized in the north around the airport is but is otherwise a mixed residential and farming area. Central Richmond is known as Asia West and has a stupefying, but very welcome, selection of Asian malls, stores and restaurants.

This leaves the four cities south of the Fraser River. Delta is mixed residential and agricultural. Tsawwassen is the nicest area near to the ferry terminal to Vancouver Island. Surrey is the “Essex” of Greater Vancouver and is also referred to as Slurry or Curry. Actually, it’s not that bad. It’s just that is has a pretty grotty area across the river from New West. The rest is fine. Surrey is also mixed industrial, residential and agricultural. It is the fastest growing city in BC and if you like the idea of living in a new, reasonably priced, sub-division it’s a place to consider. Langley is like Surrey, just a bit further away and even more rural although there is a lot of residential development at the moment. Finally there is my home town of White Rock. This is a small, quiet resort town just north of the US border. It is also expensive, but I managed to avoid the worst by buying a fixer upper without much of a view. The drive to Downtown is about 50 minutes in the rush hour.

One thing to think about is the weather. Summer temperatures are at their best in August. Around 25 by the beaches and up to 40 inland. Summers are beautiful, but it does rain a bit, especially in the Fall. Still, you don’t have to shovel rain. The rain is concentrated close to the mountains so North & West Van and the Tri-Cities are the wettest, Vancouver/Burnaby next, then Surrey/Delta then White Rock. We can be out drinking cold beer in the sunshine while Vancouver is soaking in the rain.

ann m

(show offs )

newshoney

Give JonboyE a gold star (or positive karma) - spot on with those assessments... my OH lived in Kits (aka Kitsilano) in the days when you didn't need more than a million dollars to buy a hovel there. Still just about affordable for incoming Brits - Port Moody is "artistic and bohemian"= and the upper reaches of Port Coquitlam (near the golf course) have amazing views all the way down to Washington State. One of our best friends just moved from Port Coquitlam down to Surrey, which has quite a great cosmopolitan feel but a reputation for more petty crime (car breakins at the malls etc.) If you care about this sort of thing some neighbourhoods do have a predominant ethnic majority... even back in the late 1980s Delta was referred to by locals as Delhi-Delta; Surrey as Surrey-Lanka (not in a nasty racist way, just acknowledgement that most south Asians were settling in those neighbourhoods). IMHO Vancouver is one of the world's best major cities - but boy does it rain!

Judy in Calgary

You're on Candid Camera.

Thank you.

terese677

This post is fab to those of us who know nothing of the areas
Thank you Jonboy
Terese

Frank'n Sense

Good job. Useful to see what others think of different neighbourhoods.

My web site set out with good intentions for having this sort of thing but the scale of the work involved has defeated me. Still hope it has enough of general use though.

BTW our partner in Victoria sends out a newcomers guide to Victoria which is great. Wish there was one for the Vancouver area.

Warmly,

Frank