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Some of the nicest and most down-to-earth Ontarians I have met come from London and environs. London seems to attract a decent bunch of folks and kids raised there appear to become well-adjusted adults.
Although the downtown core was pretty tatty when I visited there 13 years ago, the people of London were very welcoming and polite. Property in the area was also ridiculously inexpensive back then, but that may no longer be the case.
Western is a fine university and the local schools seem to do a decent job of educating their charges. The research hospital affiliated with the medical school is reputed to be very good, and the mix of insurance company headquarters, Western, hospitals, and manufacturing concerns in the area seems to offer reasonably stable, if not entirely sexy, employment opportunities and a level of quiet prosperity that is unusual for a city of its size, provincial capitals excluded.
As a native Londoner I can say I miss her very much.
London is a beautiful, clean, green, white collar, WASP, university town with beautiful parks and old Victorian housing stock.
Although London has a large manufacturing sector it is still very white collar. Conservative yes but more in terms of life style not in attitude..............it's no hick town or red neck city. In fact if there was just one city in Canada that you could truly saw was the country'd old wealth city it's London. It wasn't until the mid 1950s that London got it's very first factory...............McCormicks. They actually held a city wide plebesite to see if the citizens would accept a factory in such a bastion of old wealth.
UWO is a good and large school and a very well endowed one due to it being one of Canada's old wealth schools. Before 1950 if you were from upper class Toronto or Montreal you would only send your kids to UWO, Queen's, Toronto, or McGill universities to make sure you meet the "right" kind of people.
London is a lovely city and for a city it's size it has a lot to offer.
The city has changed a lot but it is definately one of Canada's best.
London is not the kind of place that one goes to for vacation but that's is what makes London unique...........it's one of those very rare cities were you wouldn't really want to visit but would want to live there.
One major drawback, as stated before, is the city's traffic. The roads don't connect, they aren't wide, no freeways,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,it's horrific! I can honestly say that I have never been to any city with approx London's population and experienced anything like London traffic.
To me, SW Ontario(along with the Maritimes) seems like Canada's version of the South to some degree in terms of the strong rural aspect, the relatively long time time and in some cases high Black population, as well as some roots of Loyalists to the Southern US. I believe that the Eastern Townships of Quebec have some similarities in that regard too.
The town centres in many parts of the Eastern Townships can have a "New Enlandish" feel to them with white clapboard churches and town commons and also place and street names, but culturally they would be very different.
The Loyalist population there is very small these days, and totally outnumbered by French Canadians who are probably around 95% of the population now. So what little is left of true New England/Loyalist culture on the ground is largely historic and symbolic. A tiny handful of towns at the most.
Same goes for the American-origin black population, which may have been present at some point in history but has now completely disappeared. Black people in the Eastern Townships today would mostly be living in the city of Sherbrooke and would tend to be either of Haitian origin or from French-speaking African countries.
I'm from London. It's a nice little city, the people are quirky...GREAT place to raise kids, cannot stress that enough. People who chose to live there will either leave in a very short time or spend the rest of their lives there, it's one of those places.
To the person who said that London experiences pollution, I can say for a fact that that is dead wrong. It has something to do with the physical location of the city in amongst the lakes that contributes to a type of atmospheric anomally which prevents pollutants from being trapped in the lower atmosphere in and around the city. This same anomally contributes to London's reputation as the thunderstorm capital of Canada.
I have lived in London off and on for the past 6 years. It's a nice place to live - not too big and not too small. To me, the worst thing about the city is the traffic. It is a horrible experience trying to get across town at rush hour. London is the largest city in North America without a freeway. The city also sits in the Lake Huron snowbelt and can see some insane snowfalls during the winter (3 feet fell over two days in December when Kitchener saw nothing).
Some people who come to the area from bigger cities, or who are more inclined to like bigger cities in general, do not appreciate the smaller atmosphere of London or Kitchener...but I wouldn't put much stock in in what they say.
Southwestern Ontario as a region is not too different from the American midwest. It is agricultural with areas of manufacturing scattered throughout. This "isn't good enough" for people who are pro-Toronto but the majority of people who live in London like it just fine.
Comparing London with a city such as Windsor, would you say London has worse traffic? Which city has better roads and infrastructure?
As well, which city do you think is more "big city?" Windsor is next to Detroit but smaller... Some might call it a suburb of Detroit since they are linked and they are economically dependent on Detroit. London on the other hand is larger and growing... It is also closer to the fast growing GTA metropolis... What do you think?
Comparing London with a city such as Windsor, would you say London has worse traffic? Which city has better roads and infrastructure?
I will defer to a true local if I am mistaken but my impression is that London traffic is a lot worse. It is twice the size of Windsor and London's road/highway is not highly developed. Windsor is a smaller city and has better highways as well. The only significant and chronic traffic problem in Windsor is along Huron Church Road which leads to the Ambassador Bridge and is always jammed with trucks going to the border. Whereas London has lots of chronic bottlenecks all over the city.
Windsor definatly has a major issues with the back ups from the Ambassador Bridge and tunnel but it is still not even close to being in London's league.
At least they can make improvements in London - they just widened Wonderland Rd. for example - but when you are dealing with a bridge there isn't much you can do. One of the main problems with London driving is when you are lucky enough to get stuck waiting for a train crossing.
I've heard that one of the biggest negative aspects for London is unreasonably high property taxes and strange mayor/city leadership. When I had to chose between it and K-W, considering also the IT job market as criteria, I went for K-W.
Disclaimer - never been in London and currently live in Waterloo.
At least they can make improvements in London - they just widened Wonderland Rd. for example - but when you are dealing with a bridge there isn't much you can do. One of the main problems with London driving is when you are lucky enough to get stuck waiting for a train crossing.
Windsor is building a new bridge across the river to Detroit along with an extension of the 401, from what I have read. InteractiveMap Construction has already started...
That said, if traffic is such an issue in London, why not build expressways and viaducts under train crossings such as Windsor has? Seems to me this is a classic case of infrastructure underinvestment...
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