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You should check out Welland. It is a beautiful city with amazing scenery and parks. We have the Welland Canal, the recreational canal with a great park system and trails. Merritt Island, right in the centre of the city is beautiful and we have Chippawa Park which has a huge ice skating rink in the winter, a rose garden, picnic area, playground, etc. The downtown of Welland has a nice farmer's market, the historic courthouse and a beautiful new library. The quaint village of Fonthill in the Town of Pelham is just north of Welland; a nice bike trail connects the two areas. The city is becoming more diverse with new people moving in from Toronto. It's still quite white by any standard but that is changing. North Welland has very nice communities and you can find a great house for as little as $200k; the same kind of house would cost $50k more in St. Catharines or Niagara Falls. If you need the excitement of the Falls you can be there in 20 minutes; you can get to St. Catharines in 15 minutes flat on the 406. Also, I am in downtown Buffalo in just 30 minutes. Lake Erie beaches in Wainfleet and Port Colborne are just 15 minutes away. It's a great central location in the Niagara Peninsula. Shopping isn't bad in Welland either, there is a mall (Seaway Mall), a "power centre" (big box stores) with Walmart, Rona, Canadian Tire, and all the major supermarkets and chain restaurants are here. There's a 24-hour Sobeys too. We tend to dine at asian places, there's a good sushi place downtown and a couple of okay chinese places but for anything else we drive out of town (like Pho or Thai food), but if that's your main consideration you should really stay in Markham!
Thank you so much, that has given me a lot of information. We are perfectly with European lifestyle, my kids love European cuisine, and for some reason, all their friends tend to be from European heritage families such as Greeks, Italians, Finnish or German.
We all are all native English speakers, so we don't have any language barriers. As we've mentioned, the only concern I have is the racism which I had really bad experience when I grew up in Australia, but that was 99% "Australians" instead of ethnic communities.
From your description - it seems St. Catharines is more convenient in terms of accessing to amenities, schools. Are there any areas we should avoid, is the city polluted as there are big GM plants?
There WERE big GM plants in the past. There is only one GM plant left now. There are a lot of nice areas in St. Catherines and I suppose I'm a litttle biased just because of my preferences. I don't like new areas or subdivisions so therefore I don't like the west of the city around 4th ave west of Martindale. Most of the north end of the city is nice. The north is everything north of the QEW. There is every kind of housing within that area. From very expensive to very affordable. I especially like the area from the lake south to Scott St. and from the canal right over to Martindale pond. There are many great neighbourhoods within this area.
The south end of the city also has some really nice places to live. West of the Penn center from the escartment all the way to downtown is great. For example, My wife and I were looking at a huge and totally upgraded bungalo on RAVINE a while back. Just a beautiful street. All huge trees and big lots. The house had extensive landscaping and a fantastic in ground pool and pool house. It had 3 bedrooms on the main floor and 3 bedrooms downstairs and an extra kitchen down there. That house is walking distance to Brock university and we would have rented the lower bedrooms to Chinese students for 8 to $900 a month. That house sold for $250,000. It was also walking distance to the Penn center and I have to brag that it's the nicest mall I have ever seen in Canada.
Pen Centre is a pretty nice mall, but there's more impressive malls in Canada. Like Yorkdale.
It's definitely nicer than the malls in Welland and Niagara Falls. I'd still rather go shopping in the U.S... retail really sucks here in Canada, not just for price but also selection.
My name is Joseph Kohari me and my wife find living in toronto is getting to expensive we are renting in etobicoke for around 1254.53 everything include. We loving the small city vibe my wife is from the US and we visited twice in the last month. We plan to rent and save up for a house one day, can you give me any advice on area's we should be looking into. I'm also a cook and was wondering how is the cooking scene in St Catharines? We saw a couple of place's we love the Lake St and Lakeshore area. We were looking at rental spots at West Gate Village. We are a little scared on move but some advice would help.
Hi JoeKohari: It sounds like a move to the Niagara region could be ideal for you because it's very easy access to the States. I'm from the Falls and personally don't particularly like St.Catharines but to each their own. Our housing situation in the Niagara region is very good, I've heard we have a surplus of housing. There's plenty of new neighbourhoods and houses in the Falls. A major pitfall of the Niagara region is that we have a horrible job market. It's very difficult to find work. However, if you are well qualified, have connections and have good experience then it shouldn't be as difficult. We have plenty of restaurants, you could always work in one of our many outstanding wineries that are mostly located in NOTL. Many of the wineries are not too far from St.Kits. TBH I don't know anything about West Gate Village...
St. Catharines is beautiful! It's affordable, clean, the people are much friendlier than Toronto, generally. Toronto is way too expensive, overcrowded, and definitely far too DANGEROUS and VIOLENT, especially for kids! Don't be those parents on City news..crying, grieving over something terrible happening to your kids/ family. Watch the news, Toronto's charms are long gone. Guns, knives, and lots of people who shouldn't be there have taken over. I lived therefore many years and I don't regret moving my family away in 2009. My kids are almost teens now and are very happy and are doing great! Schools are great here! Toronto is an overpriced joke!
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Moving from Markham to St Catharines
