Grew up in North York and Brampton. Two places I very much dislike driving through now let alone going back to live. Of course, they have some perks too, but too many things I don't like. For starters, the masses of people and cars. I also lived in Mississauga, in a nice area close to the Credit but same thing, I very much dislike being met with traffic on a weekend as soon as you turn onto Mavis or Dundas or whatever road.
Then I moved to Burlington and then Oakville. Very hard for me to go anywhere else now. I'm just so used to nice downtowns that you can cover on a walk within one hour. Places big enough to keep you interested and going back more but not too big. And there's more than just DT that is interesting. Kerr Village, Bronte Village, Lowville, Kilbride, Hidden Valley, Aldershot, Burlington Beach for instance are unique in terms of housing and geography and feel like actual communities (Caledon is another town with a few unique communities but those are really spread out and at least Markham has Old Markham and Unionville).
And rush hour traffic that is relavitely tolerable. It's not as bad as elsewhere. And the LSW GO Train line that runs on weekends unlike almost all the other lines. Rush hour on Trafalgar is like Saturday traffic in Bram, Sauga, NY, Etobicoke or Scarbs.
Go grocery shopping in Brampton or most of Mississauga on a Saturday afternoon and see what the checkout lines are like. Then try that in Burlington and especially Oakville. I have seen half hour lineups in Bramton before. I've been in one. In Oakville you'd be annoyed after three minutes because you're so used to not having to weave around hoardes of people in the aisles while shopping and standing in a lineup that goes through the aisle.
Interesting hiking and walking opportunities abound. Be it by the lake, escarpment or in a river valley in the middle of the city. That includes a provincial park plus conservation areas. I touched more on the geography on the first page. For anglers, it's kind of like coastal Florida where you have saltwater or freshwater opportunties all around with canals in between. You can fish Lake O for trophy Salmon or Lake Trout by downrigging a few hundred metres or many miles offshore or fish for bass, pike, carp inland in small lakes or the several creeks and rivers (can catch those salmon and trout there too during their spawns). Though many of these small lakes aren't actually within city boundaries but are close by in the rest of Halton Region in Milton and so on.
And yeah, many times I have no snow and then head up to Brampton and there's snow. This is also the case when I take the GO train and see snow in Etobicoke for instance. That's pretty rare but it happens more often when I continue past Union heading east to Scarboro or Pickering.
As for the malls, if you're younger then you want Yorkdale or Square One. Perhaps even Sherway or Bramalea City Centre. Bigger places with fancier renovations with more stores geared towards young folks. But as you get older, you probably want to be away from the riff raff those places attract and from a sea of people. Plus you want easy parking. Not wandering around looking for parking then settling for a spot that is a few feet away from the 401 like at Yorkdale. This is where Oakville Place, Burlington Centre and Mapleview come in. For some reason, the last two are only five minutes apart. The last two days I have been to those first two malls with the kids because they had March Break events and they weren't packed with people. And parking was easy.
Two people I've worked with that live in nice houses in nice areas, in Port Credit and Oakville, both said in retirement, the farthest they'll move is to Burlington because they can better value in terms of a house itself but not give up too much on the surroundings they enjoy. One is from Northern NB. The other is from Port Stanley by Lake Erie, but he actually said he could retire to a place between Port Stanley and London but it's his wife that won't let them leave southern Halton Region.
Like you mentioned, if you want some urban experiences while being far enough from the big city but also close enough for when you want to go there, DT Burl is hard to beat.
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Originally Posted by LightingGuy
Burlington, ON:
I realize suburban living ain't for everyone, but for those that like su urban living it's pretty tough to beat Burlington. It doesn't have the soullessness that you find in large tracts of Markham and Mississauga.
- We have an actual skyline.
- nice little microclimate within the region. We get 99cm of snow per year vs 130+ cm elsewhere in the GTA. Our temperatures year round are also slightly warmer. We are comfortably in DFa territory.
- Our suburban downtown is actually interesting, and well-used by the locals. There are many pubs, and we have the best lakefront park of all the GTA suburbs. In the summer there are all kinds if festivals, with some notable ones being Sound of Music and Ribfest
- In general Burlington actually has a lot of stuff to do compared to other similar-sized suburbs. We have 2 pool halls, multiple bowling alleys, lord knows how many escape rooms, 2 large indoor malls, a YukYuks, and lots more.
- Access. We have 30 min trains to Toronto all day every day including weekends. When driving, I can get to downtown Toronto in 40 min, downtown Hamilton in 15, Niagara Falls in 50, Buffalo in an hour, KW in 45, London in 1.25hr, and Windsor in 3ish.
- A unique mix of housing stock, compared to Oakville next door at least. Burlington has a LOT of older townhouses that are actually nice, and some of them are very unique styles and frankly, just practical. Not just compound after compound of 600 sqft condos and stacked townhouse crap. Just go on Realtor.ca and check it out.
- We have a strong corporate presence, with lots of mid-sized companies' offices. If you look at Burlington on google maps, you'll notice that the commercial-industrial area around the highway and train tracks is actually quite substantial compared to Oakville next door. A lot of people who live here also work here.
- Low property taxes and the place hasn't turned into a shithole. Hamilton property taxes are double, and their roads are far worse.
- The escarpment is right beside with lots of interesting hiking trails. We have 6 conservation areas within the city, all connected to the Bruce Trail.
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