I've heard nothing but good things about Kingston (haven't been myself), and people who have been to both tell me there are a lot of similarities, maybe even more so than the other common comparison Victoria gets with Halifax.
Victoria's downtown is experiencing some major new growth, with many major projects underway and planned. It's being fueled in part by the lowest rental vacancy rates in the country at
0.6% . As well, for decades Victoria has been in the top three of Canada in terms of real estate prices, which means a starter home for most is a condo.
I travel across Canada a fair bit for work, and unlike some other cities, Victoria's downtown is truly a seven day per week downtown, for it's size, it never slows down, regardless of the season, day of the week or time of the day (except after 2:00 a.m. it wont' have the life of large Canadian city). With the high costs and mild climate, there are challenges however, with a fairly significant homeless problem.
I have posted a couple of these before, but Victoria's downtown does not photograph well from some angles, these ones show the density best to me.
First two from
C McCann on Flickr
By
Jenn Chan:
And finally a great shot by
Firat Ataman:
Lastly, here's a beauty of Kingston by
Jason Cowell, definitely some similarities