London, Windsor, and Chatham (low crime, home, unemployment rate)

[Fourdifferentseasons]

Can anyone provide insight on the following cities within Ontario (London, Windsor, and Chatham) for a young single professional?

Such as:
1) Accessibility of jobs that provide a livable wage
2) Presence of other young professionals (singles, couples, etc - to meet new people)
3) Culturally diverse - As I am a racialized minority, are people generally welcome to those of different ethnicities? Existence of overt racism?
4) Is it a closed society "cliquish", or more so open (allowing newcomer to meet others in the same age demographic).

Just researching different cities. Thanks.

[North 42]

Windsor is a very friendly city that is easy to make new friends, but the job situation has been a struggle. People are not clickish here at all for the most part, maybe a bit more in the upscale areas, but not most.

The city is also one of the most diverse cities in Canada, and has many great ethnic restaurants as well as ethnic neighbourhoods, like Little Italy, china town on Wyandotte St. W, the middle eastern Wyandotte St. W between DT and historic Walkerville. Ottawa St. has some Eastern European restaurants and shops also. Over 20% foreign born as of the last census.

The economy overall is improving and home values are rising, up 6% this year. There are jobs to be had here, but not really easy to find. Thousands of Windsorites work in Detroit in healthcare and IT.

[Fourdifferentseasons]

Awesome, thanks for providing me w/ a background on Windsor.

[mooguy]

Windsor is probably the friendliest and is more cosmopolitan.


London is the most attractive city and while Windsor is very much a blue collar city London is a white collar one or at least in character. London has a lot of industry but still has the old wealth mentality. London is superior for education and healthcare and has a busier downtown, better shopping and restaurants, and is a growing city. Both have nice park systems but London is the more attractive of the two and one of Ontario's nicest cities. Both have low crime rates.


Windsor has Detroit next door which has it's pluses and minuses where as London is closer to Toronto and more central and better VIA service. In terms of geography in Canada, Windsor is more isolated. Windsor gets half the snowfall of London. Windsor is as flat as a pancake while London is gently rolling.


Windsor is still economically depressed and has basically no population growth while London's unemployment rate is considerably lower and the city is growing at about 0.8% per year........the national average.


I am biased but I would say London. It's a more attractive and pleasant city, more central, better , though still limited, job availability but is still old wealth WASP in it's mentality which can be both good and bad. London is more Liberal country while Windsor is an NDP bastion.


Chatham is a lovely little city but you really can't compare it. It has just 40,000 in the city compared to greater Windsor's 330,000 and London 500,000.

[North 42]

London just can't compete with Windsors ethnic restaurants though, we have way more choices. London is also very American in that they just love their chain restaurants, they are everywhere, whereas many Windsorites prefer our many independent restaurants, especially in "little Italy" where the best Italian is found in dozens of great places.

Windsor also definately has the better location over London. We are a part of a region of 5 million people, whereas London is by itself surrounded by farms. The border is not a problem for most and Windsorites routinely go to Detroit for major sporting events, top notch shopping and amazing restaurant choices.

Some people try to judge Windsor only by its Canadian metro, separate from Detroit, but we truly are also the Canadian part of metro Detroit, and we enjoy all the trappings of a major metro without actually having to deal with all the negatives that go with it.