MoneySense.com has written an article on Canada’s Best Places to Live in 2015. This is a snippet of the article that features Burlington, and Hamilton.
Mid-sized cities also made gains this year. Burlington, Ont., a city that constantly scores well in our report, is the top in this category, rising a few notches this year on our overall list to No. 3. Its close proximity to Toronto, Hamilton and the U.S. border is one of the main reasons families settle here, but as residents like Monica Rettig have discovered there’s much more to like about Burlington than its location. After growing up in Brampton, Ont., and spending her mid-twenties in Toronto, Rettig never envisioned returning to the burbs. In Toronto she could walk everywhere. If she was short on groceries there were plenty of dinner options at her doorstep. Everything was so close she didn’t even own a car. But then her circumstances changed. She got a job at Brock University in Saint Catharines, Ont., as a librarian while her husband worked in downtown Toronto. Burlington, being right in the middle, became the default compromise. “In the first few years we were not won over by it,” concedes Rettig. “It wasn’t easy to meet people and the whole walkability factor was a huge loss.”
Six years in, and since starting a family, Burlington has really grown on them. “When you have kids it’s a lot easier to meet other families,” she says. All of the park space and the schools help raise the appeal. But by living here they’ve also discovered things that they wouldn’t have if they had stayed in Toronto. There’s a lot going on in nearby Hamilton, says Rettig, noting that they often find themselves heading there over Toronto now when they want an evening out.
Looking back, Rettig is happy with her decision to settle in Burlington. Housing is more reasonably priced here, and she believes it would be a struggle to own a house closer to “The Big Smoke.” And in Toronto, she says, she most certainly wouldn’t have a backyard. “It’s such a suburban answer but we are really enjoying the backyard,” she says when asked what her favourite thing is about living in Burlington. “These days that’s what we’re into.” Just like Valérie Beaulieu in Boucherville, Rettig has discovered that often it’s the small, simple things that make us truly love our homes.
To read about the other Top Cities to Live in Canada click here
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