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Toronto vs. Vancouver: What do you have to offer for everyday life?
April 9, 2008 3:27 PM   RSS feed for this thread Subscribe

What are the things and places that make living in Vancouver and Toronto fantastic for day-to-day life? Or, to put it another way, what are the things and places that you would miss if you moved away?

I'm coming to Canada real-soon-now; but I haven't decided which city I'm going to live in. I am, however, going to spend a couple of weeks in both to figure out where I'd rather live.

In the interests of having the best experience of both cities I can wrangle, I defer to your collected wisdom for guidance towards things which are great.

I'm particularly interested in are where to find live music, delicious food/ingredients and places to go and spend time. Bonus points for things that I can get to using public transport (I don't drive).
posted by ambilevous to travel & transportation (24 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
For Toronto:
live music depends on what you like. There are tons of venues, each have slightly different line-ups and moods. I like C'est What, Hugh's Room, Cameron House, Clinton's, The Rivoli, Massey Hall, or the Music Gallery. Other's will tell you The Phoenix or Kool Haus (Guvernment) or The Horseshoe. There's lots.

Ingredients: Kensington Market or St Lawrence Market.

Restaurants I'm not so good at recommending. I only eat at what's close to me and always the same things.

Places to go: Toronto Islands, Distillery District, Kensington Market, Future's Bakery.

Everything is accessible by public transport, except if you go to the islands the boat is not included and is another $6.

To get an idea of what living in Toronto is like, you can also check out Spacing or BlogTO. The latter also has a range of maps for popular areas of the city with restaurant recommendations and such.
posted by easternblot at 3:36 PM on April 9, 2008


My dad lives in toronto, although I only visit him about four or five times a year. Down town toronto is pretty vibrant, and (as easterblot says) Toronto Island offers a lovely getaway (and a GREAT skyline, especially when there are thunderstorms.... that's a bit of another story though).

China town in Toronto is really cool, and has great fruit and veggies, and great chinese food, of course.

You might want to take a serious look at the crime rate of both cities, though. I don't know about Vancouver's, but Toronto's seems to be going up, with a shooting every couple of days (not all fatal, of course). This might be something to keep in mind when you make your final decision.
posted by Planet F at 3:45 PM on April 9, 2008


Haven't been to Vancouver, have lived in Toronto for two years (was in Florida for 6~ years before that). So all my points address Toronto, and are only my opinion, obviously.

Food: you can find at least one place of every kind of ethnic food imaginable. I think the cuisines Toronto seems to do well is sushi, and also the sort of pan-Asian mix you get in Chinatown (Chinese, Vietnamese, etc). In the east end there's little india and greektown, I'm on the other side of town so I can't opine on what you'd find there. Here in the West there's tons of Portugese, Ethiopean/Eritrean and also Little Italy and Korea town. For more ideas you might want to check out the Chow Ontario board (which is primarily Toronto-focused, it seems). There are also tons of amazing other restaurants, you can't even begin to make a dent in them all there are so many. One of my other favorite things is that there are also quite a lot of farmers markets/produce markets, many of them hosted in local parks (or the many produce stands in Chinatown) where you can get all kinds of delicious ingredients to make yourself.

Transit: while the subway system isn't as all-encompassing as, say, Manhattan (we just have a pretty simple t-line subway with a few smaller offshoots), there is also an extensive network of buses and streetcars, so you can certainly get anywhere you want fairly easily. A lot of people bike, too. I haven't wanted for lack of a vehicle in two years, my uncle's been here for 30 without owning a car. That being said, if you decide to live too far outside of the city core, you may end up having to freeze your butt off waiting for a bus in the winter on a regular basis. When you're close to a subway or frequent line that is almost never a worry though, unless you go out too late on a Saturday night coming home from say, a MeFi meetup or something and miss the last subway...

Live music: there's live music all over, depending on your tastes you can find something any given night. The summertime really shines for music as there's a lot more stuff going on and free concerts at Harborfront, etc. Lots of small venues = lots of cheap or free shows to go to. Toronto is often the main Canadian stop for large tours as well, so you can always find some big name artist performing at one of the big concert venues as well.

Places to go:
- the Toronto Islands are great in the summer and even in the fall for a great day trip where you kind of get away from the city for a spell. The ferry over is cheap and you can rent a bike (or bring your own), frisbee, walk around, tool around the cheesy little amusement park or the hedge maze, etc. It's a great day, especially if you bring a picnic lunch and some beers. High Park is another great summer/fall place to walk or bike and pretend you're in nature for a bit. Overall Toronto is great for wandering around and people watching. In Toronto it is almost a recognized religion to sit outside on restaurant/bar patios and drink beers with your friends, maybe hopping from one to another at some point in the day/evening. I didn't quite follow the degree to which people loved this until after going through a winter. Now I positively thrill as I see the patios just starting to put out their outside tables again.

The only caveat is that Toronto is a much different place in the winter than the summer. While we don't get the brutal winters that my family in other parts of the province have to put up with, it *is* cold and snowy (although Canadians loooove to insist "it's not that bad!"...sorry y'all, but it is that bad). A lot of the fun outdoors stuff happens in the spring/summer/fall, and in winter you have to kind of hole up a bit more or at least stick closer to home. Some people dig it, and like to go skating in Nathan Phillips Square, etc, but if you're into wintery stuff there isn't even that much to do inside the city proper. There's still a kicking nightlife but in my experience it's often set aside for bundling up and eating soup. The rest of the year makes up for it for the most part, again it totally depends on what you like to do.
posted by SassHat at 3:54 PM on April 9, 2008


As an absurdly broad rule of thumb, Toronto is Canada's New York, while Vancouver is its San Francisco. If that helps. Try spending a winter in each and that ought to make up your mind too... It rarely snows in Vancouver. Typical winter temperatures are more like 40 F.

Vancouver has pretty excellent public transit and, depending on where you live, it's very walkable. I relocated to Vancouver from the states about four years ago and love it here.

One question you should consider is how you're going to make a living. Vancouver is a weird, weird place in that regard. It's a far bigger city than it really should be. Because it's so beautiful and so livable, well off people from around the world come here to live on money they made elsewhere. If you're rich, you'll do just fine. If you have to work for a living, it's a little more complicated. Basically, housing demand means that Vancouver is expensive. At the same time there's a big labor shortage, combined with a whole lot of unemployed people.

Every time I walk down my street, there's signs in all the shops looking for help. The problem is, if you're going to work in a coffee shop or a little exercise wear boutique, or another of those damn upscale baby stuff for hipsters joints that are spreading like fungus around here, then you can't afford to live in Vancouver. All those people wandering around without jobs don't have jobs because they don't need them, not because there aren't jobs available. They're more likely to open a little upscale retail shop themselves, and then realize how hard it is to find anyone to work there. A few industrial companies have recently moved away from Vancouver because they can't find workers - because, in turn, they can't pay them enough to live in Vancouver.

It's not like Aspen or something, where there's literally nothing going on but the tourist industry and minimum wage restaurant workers have to commute from miles away. There is some economic activity going on here. But if Vancouver was a grim dirty place in the middle of a swamp instead of a beautiful city in the mountains, it would probably have about a fifth of the population it has. Other cities are places people go to for the economic potential, even though they're crowded and unpleasant. In New York, you trade livability for opportunity and dream of getting out of town. Vancouver is more of a luxury you strive to afford. You make sacrifices to come to Vancouver because it's so livable. Does that make sense?

I don't know if that helps or not. If you were literally looking for tourist points of interest and restaurant recommendations, we've got a lot of those too... :-)
posted by Naberius at 3:56 PM on April 9, 2008 [6 favorites]


Also, to add in about the safety issue - Toronto is a very, very safe place to live. Not just in contrast to other large North American cities, but also in and of itself. There is absolutely not a shooting every few days, although the news media loves to sensationalize the gun violence that occurs, it is actually quite low and mostly localized outside of the downtown core. I have also walked in the "worst" neighborhoods in the GTA alone at night, and have to admit that overall it is quite safe. I find as a woman alone, the only time I feel unsafe in this city is walking past areas with a high concentration of bars to residences, especially in lower-rent neighborhoods. But as with any big city, using your common sense is key.
posted by SassHat at 4:07 PM on April 9, 2008


I'm an American ex-pat who came to Vancouver for graduate school and don't have any desire to leave. I'm working on permanent residency, and while I'm not sure I could live anywhere else in Canada, I absolutely love Vancouver. (But I love Seattle too, so maybe it's the Pacific Northwest in general that does it for me) Feel free to hit up my MeFiMail if you want some specific recommendations on things to see/do when you're here.

One major difference you might not notice visiting this time of year is the weather. Toronto winters are cold and snowy. Vancouver winters are rainy, but with relatively little snow. If four months of unceasing grey will provoke insanity, Vancouver might not be your city. Conversely, if you hate snow (and I do), Toronto's not your place.

You didn't mention work at all, but Naberius does mention something to keep in mind. I'm not sure it's quite as dire as he makes it sound, but it's certainly true that one will be living more minimally than they might elsewhere. If you've got a university degree and some experience, you'll do fine. If you're just looking to work at a coffee house or retail, things might be a little tighter.

Granted, I've got a friend who's a busser at a decent (but by no means lavish) Yaletown brewpub and he lives just fine on his wage + tips. He shares a good-sized house on Commercial Drive and certainly isn't eaten ramen and hot dogs seven nights a week.

And yes, it's hard as hell to find an apartment in Vancouver if you don't have a ton of money.

delicious food/ingredients

There are countless fantastic restaurants in Vancouver, of all types. It's got some of the best Asian food you'll find out of their homelands.

There are lots of upscale, organic-focus grocery stores (e.g. Capers) and the public market on Granville Island is quite nice.

places to go and spend time

I can probably answer this better if provided a short run-down of what kind of things suits your fancy. One things that draws a lot of people is how incredibly accessible outdoors-y things are. Stanley Park, just outside of downtown, is about 1000 acres and has plenty of biking/running/walking trails. There are three different mountains for skiing/snowboarding within 45 minutes of the city and of course, Whistler is less than two hours away.

Slightly further outside there city, there are tons of mountains to hike, coves to canoe/kayak, small islands accessed by ferry one can visit. In general, it's really damn pretty out here and you'll never run out of outdoorsy stuff to do.

The city itself is absolutely fantastic as well. It's tremendously diverse with lots of very distinct neighbourhoods. Even if you never leave downtown (and I hardly do), there a lot going on. One other thing I like is that the city is relatively compact, partially due simply to its geography. You'd don't have massive sprawl the way a lot of other cities do. I lived in Boulder, CO before coming here and Denver is *way* more sprawled than Vancouver.

Culturally, there's always something going on. There's a big folk music festival, a fringe theatre festival, Chinese New Year, four nights of fireworks over two weeks during the summer, etc.

where to find live music

Vancouver's music scene is decent, but I'll concede that Toronto's is probably better.

Bonus points for things that I can get to using public transport (I don't drive).

Vancouver's transit system is quite good. It's quite easy and expedient to get to anywhere interesting within the city limits. Even places further afield (e.g. Whistler) still have inexpensive bus options.
posted by Nelsormensch at 4:07 PM on April 9, 2008


There is absolutely not a shooting every few days, although the news media loves to sensationalize the gun violence that occurs, it is actually quite low and mostly localized outside of the downtown core.

sorry, I should've added the caveate that the media broadcasts a shooting every two days (I don't actually live in Toronto, so I just get what is shown on TV). For a city with an immalgamated 5 million person population, it's still extremely safe, and I have no problem running around some of the more "dangerous" places on my own. I just thought it deserved a mention.
posted by Planet F at 4:14 PM on April 9, 2008


If weather is the test, then Vancouver wins hands down. Infrequent snow in the winter, comfortable temperatures and (usually) sunny in the summer and most of the time light-to-no wind. If it's transit, then Toronto wins. If you're active in sports, you can windsurf and snowboard on the same day (using public transit) in Vancouver if you wanted, and the winter olympics will be held in two years time.

Then again, I am biased.
posted by Neiltupper at 4:15 PM on April 9, 2008


Things I miss about living in Toronto:
Things I don't miss about living in Toronto:
I admit writing this has made me a bit verklempt, but Montreal is definitely the place for me.
posted by loiseau at 4:18 PM on April 9, 2008


(I guess I should qualify my post -- I lived in Toronto for about 6 years total. [1997-98, 2003-2007])
posted by loiseau at 4:22 PM on April 9, 2008


For Music: I like all sorts of things (: If you made me pick genres, I mostly listen to indie/alt rock with a side of pop/electronica/folk/classical/and so on.

Jobwise: My intention is to be working as a programmer computer-dork, rather than near the bottom of the job chain. There are a couple of places on the Toronto side I like the look of working at; but not so much on the Vancouver side.

And as for where I am now: Best as I can tell, I'm living in the equivalent of a Vancouver or San Francisco. Right now, I'm in Wellington, NZ and quite like it here. It's just a little small.
posted by ambilevous at 4:26 PM on April 9, 2008


Oh, three more for the "I'll miss" side:

posted by loiseau at 4:26 PM on April 9, 2008


If you want to see shows while you're here you can keep an eye on the show calendar here.
posted by loiseau at 4:28 PM on April 9, 2008


Main differences I have noticed regarding Toronto vs. Vancouver:

Toronto has much better nightlife. More live venues, more bars, more stuff open late in general. I was last in Vancouver in 2005, but I've had friends there who've stuck around since then, and the consensus is the city still largely shuts down after midnight. That's not to say you can't find your little late-night hidey holes, it's just a lot easier in Toronto. So if you want to party, or get into the music scene, or just walk around downtown without feeling like you're in a ghost town, Toronto's the place to be.

Vancouver has a far more pleasant climate and general atmosphere. People in Vancouver love their outdoors, and why wouldn't you when you effectively have no winter to speak of? The coldest it ever gets in Vancouver is maybe -5C/23F, and there's so little snow that the city has a fleet of one or two snowplow trucks TOTAL. Toronto, by contrast, is freezing cold in January/February and scorching hot in July/August. And because Vancouver's weather is more temperate, people spend more time outdoors too, which changes the urban landscape quite a bit. There's no place in Toronto where you can recreate the experience of waking up, going to work or school downtown for the day, and then take a detour through Stanley Park on your way home. Vancouver is the only place in Canada where I've seen palm trees grow. Vancouver even has beaches, fer cryin' out loud. If you like the concept of being able to bike around Stanley Park every day, Vancouver's the only option.

For transit, I'd put Toronto above Vancouver, though that gap narrows with every passing year (mainly because Translink has it together while the TTC doesn't so much). Toronto has much better late-night service than Vancouver, but Vancouver's building up its transit systems rapidly and it's pretty easy to get around Vancouver and even some of the outlying suburbs without hassle, whereas Toronto is so much bigger than there are still areas with poor service. Biking's pretty good in both cities but Vancouver has the edge because of a) more bike paths, b) a greater commitment to bike culture, and c) better weather. Biking all year round is a much more viable prospect in Vancouver than Toronto.

For affordability, it can be a toss up, but Toronto has a higher vacancy rate and lower housing cost. That said, neither city is exactly affordable, and as always some neighbourhoods will be cheaper to get into than others. Toronto probably has a lower crime rate than Vancouver, though even in Vancouver crime manifests itself mostly as theft and aggressive panhandling more than anything. (Also note the presence of the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, aka the poorest postal code in Canada; Toronto really has no equivalent.) Toronto is one of the business capitals of Canada, meaning there are tons of offices and industries based out of the city. Vancouver, meanwhile, is hot for certain things like video game development and film/television, but definitely isn't a big business hub, so in that sense the job market is lopsided.

Finally, in terms of politics, Vancouver's more liberal than Toronto is—even though Toronto's got a pretty left-leaning mayor in office, the city will always be full of establishment types that resist change. Vancouver, meanwhile, is the home of Canada's only safe drug injection site. It's full of vegetarian eateries, organic groceries and upscale farmer's markets. Vancouver has been even more successful than Toronto at resisting the construction of massive highways and big box stores. The kinds of people who move to and live in Vancouver strike me as generally more laid back and granola than the people in Toronto.

As someone who's pretty sure he's more a Toronto kid than a Vancouver one, though, it's worth mentioning that even though I complained for six of the eight months I was there about how the city wasn't enough like Toronto (a trait that my Vancouver friends make fun of to this very day), in the end I was able to fashion a very nice lifestyle for myself over there, and I think the same can be true if you're more a Vancouver type and find yourself stuck in Toronto. Granted, the weather in Toronto can be a huge killjoy, but in terms of services and lifestyle the two aren't so different—just in the sense that they represent two extremes in Canadian urban culture.
posted by chrominance at 4:44 PM on April 9, 2008


On the other hand, Chrominance, I've noted a slow but unmistakable rightward drift in Vancouver since I've been here. My guess is that it's due largely to the explosive growth of Vancouver's class of well-off Chinese business owners, who are starting to get politically involved (a lot of candidates in the recent byelection here made sure to have some Chinese text on their yard signs, and Sam Sullivan is at least in part Mayor because he learned enough Cantonese (?) to get by) and tend to vote on the grounds of what's good for business.

Obviously, Vancouver's still got a long way to go before it looks like Alberta, which is kind of turning into Dick Cheney's Berchtesgaden. But still.

And yeah, I'm probably overstating the wages vs. living costs situation because my own lifestyle is skewed a little off of Vancouver's sweet spot in terms of income vs. how much space we needed. (Living in Vancouver is sort of like owning a boat. Suddenly you've got a whole lot of friends, or in-laws in my case, who want to come out and visit.) But there are definitely lifestyles that the city encourages and those it doesn't. Working in Yaletown and sharing a house on Commercial drive is one that it does. The trick is aging beyond your post college, living in a group home years into your marrying and starting a family and putting down roots years, while remaining in Vancouver and not becoming a middle manager somewhere.
posted by Naberius at 5:18 PM on April 9, 2008


Disclaimer: I lived 2 years in Vancouver for grad school and still miss it at times (all the time).
First thing to consider: Winter. Vancouver has (practically) no snow, spring comes very early. However, you can litteraly grab your skis/board, hop on the bus-skytrain-seabus and spend some time on the hills, in North Vancouver. Or you can decide to go bike on one of the many bike paths around the city, or in Stanley Park.

You get access to a wide variety of quality food, either from the huge chinatown, granville island's market, the italian markets on commercial drive and awesome restaurants dowtown and in the westend. And I drank way too much coffee because of JJBean and Turk's.

You're right by hiking paradise, couple hours from Whistler, couple hours from Tofino (think surf, awesome forests). I found public transportation to be good, especially the skytrain. Others had so-so experience with some bus lines.

However, you'll spend a lot for housing. I stayed in commercial drive, awesome neighborhood and you can still find decent places to share (nice old houses). If you prefer the westend you'll end up in an expensive apartment.

Night life is not that great, and you'll end up taking a cab home. It's not toronto or montreal, but there is a strong local music community.

You can mefimail me if you have any question. Welcome to Canada!

ps. I would also recommend spending some time in Montreal, if you haven't done so already.
posted by ddaavviidd at 5:38 PM on April 9, 2008


The things I would miss about Vancouver are more particular to living in the "West End".
Living 2 blocks from stanley park, being able to walk to work along the seawall, Riding
my bike out to 3rd beach after work in the summer, Sunset drinks at the Sylvia or Bayside.

Public transit is fairly good but if you're downtown everything is walkable.
Live music? Last time I saw a live band was at the Comodore ball room a
nice place to see a band but not the place where the cool kids go.

Ingredients? Grandville island, Bossa foods, Capers (whole foods), Urban Fare, Meinhards, T&T (super asian store), Gourmet warehouse and About half of West Broadway is produce.

There is a nice little blog called beyondrobson.com that could give you a look at things.
posted by jade east at 6:03 PM on April 9, 2008


I've lived in Vancouver most of my 20-some-odd years.

As far as live music, Vancouver has alot of good indie rock bands, although from what I hear, the scene is not as vibrant or large as Toronto or Montreal. As far as big indie rock names, The New Pornographers hail from Vancouver. For a sampling of Vancouver live music, I'd recommend Beyond Robson's Concert BReak posts. Here is the post for April 3 - 10.

From Blown Speakers is another Vancouver-based live music blog to give you another indication of the music scene.

Browsing the Georgia Strait may give you a feel for Vancouver as well. It's an independent local newspaper and their events listings is pretty comprehensive in terms of music, arts, nightlife, and other events.
posted by thisisnotbruce at 11:10 PM on April 9, 2008


Oooh! Me! Me! I grew up in the fringes of Toronto but I've been in Vancouver for two years now. And I am sad that I am late to the thread because almost everything I was going to say has been said already. Both cities are great. Both have a lot going for them and a lot against them, but the cons are the sort of thing locals like to whine about, not realizing how lucky they are.

The biggest pro for Toronto is its size and general activity. If you like to be in a place where there is lots happening, it's no contest. Toronto is it, and Vancouver is quite provincial by comparison. This goes for live music, art, nightlife, economy, pretty much whatever metric you care about. In all cases Vancouver has a lot to offer -- I'm a music fan myself and there is lots to see and do out here -- but nothing compared to TO. Vancouver feels positively sleepy sometimes.

The biggest pro for Vancouver is the setting. The weather (though it rains a lot in the winter), the mountains, the water, the forests. Toronto is on Lake Ontario but it is largely cut off from the waterfront. My brother tells a story of having a nice dinner at a waterfront restaurant in Toronto; he took the subway as close as he could get, and it was still a twenty minute walk along busy streets and through a long tunnel under the railroad tracks before he even saw the lakeshore. Contrast with Vancouver where the city has water on three sides and a ring of parkland all around with bike paths etc. Toronto: endless ugly urban sprawl for an hour in every direction. Vancouver: 10 minutes drive from big big mountains.

Let me talk about the weather a bit more. No matter how sleepy or provincial this city feels, I can't stay mad at it. In Toronto you have bitterly cold winters and hot sticky smoggy summers; you don't have a lot of time to enjoy being outside. In Vancouver, yeah the rain sucks in the winter but you can go skiing so it's not that bad, and in the summer: paradise. I mean it. Warm sunny days every day, not too hot or muggy. I had so many paradise moments in the summer (canoeing trips, campfires, biking along the water, fireworks festivals, etc -- all within the city) that it would be very hard for me to leave this place.
posted by PercussivePaul at 11:47 PM on April 9, 2008


Was lucky enough to marry a Vancouverite. Speaking as someone who grew up in the British Midlands, it has it beat hands down. I love the proximity of the mountains and the sea. Getting to the local mountains for skiing is a 25 min drive and the public transport is pretty well sorted.

Admittedly, for the past few years most of my Vancouver experiences are from a vacation perspective as we come home on visits since we're expatriates at present, but Vancouver is where we call home.

Social and cultural life is good. Restaurants are diverse and quality is good.

It can be an expensive place to buy/rent as demand exceeds supply for housing. But given that, I read somewhere that people in BC have the most leisure time in Canada, leading it to be called Lotusland.

Good luck, wherever you decide to live.
posted by arcticseal at 5:06 AM on April 10, 2008


I have lived both places and I think most of the advice here is pretty right on.

In terms of eating out, Toronto's better on bakeries and pizza and general takeout, but Vancouver's better in terms of relatively cheap, really fantastic sit-down restaurants. You can eat really really well here. (My favourite is Habit). Also the quality of coffee is much higher in Vancouver if you're the kind of person who cares about these things.

If you're outdoorsy, Vancouver is totally the place for you. The weather is temperate, we have Stanley Park, it's incredibly scenic, there's the beach and lots of nearby places to go hiking.

But honestly, I like Toronto better. There's more shopping, more used bookstores (Vancouver has some great ones but they're a little harder to find), more nightlife, more bands come through, more bars that are fun and not snooty (cf. Sneaky Dees, The Silver Dollar Room on Wednesday nights (bluegrass! I haven't been in years, but it was always fun in an undergrad kind of way), and just generally there is more going on. It's also a wee bit cheaper to live in and more walkable.

One thing that might be hard to deal with is Vancouver's kind of crappy underbelly; I have never been more aware of the gap between the rich and the poor than I have been living here. Example: this past summer there was a garbage collector's strike -- most of the rich people live in condos with private pickup and in some neighbourhoods you wouldn't even know -- it went on for months. In poor neighbourhoods (the east side), it got gross, and pest populations skyrocketed. As soon as work stopped the city started making statements to the press about what they were going to do with all the money they were going to save by not paying these workers, instead of, you know, how they were going to get this service that is pretty essential to public health back up and running. In general there is way more homelessness, drug use (like, scary drugs like heroin) and crime in Vancouver (there are obvious reasons like it's a port city so there are more drugs, also the temperate weather means you can be homeless here 365 days a year without dying of exposure or heat exhaustion like you would in T.O. or most other Canadian cities and more poverty and drugs = more crime) -- there are neighbourhoods I don't like to walk around in here, I never felt that in Toronto, and I also never saw needles on the sidewalk in Toronto. I'm mentioning it not necessarily to discourage you, there's a lot of things I like about Vancouver (Granville Island! Main Street! Stanley Park! the Pacific Ocean!) but it was a HUGE shock to me and my boyfriend when we moved out here from Toronto and it is part of the culture that you should be prepared for should you decide to move here.
posted by SoftRain at 10:44 AM on April 10, 2008


Also note the presence of the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, aka the poorest postal code in Canada; Toronto really has no equivalent... Toronto's got a pretty left-leaning mayor in office, the city will always be full of establishment types that resist change. Vancouver, meanwhile, is the home of Canada's only safe drug injection site.

Please note that these are essentially the same point. One reason that Toronto doesn't have a safe injection site is that there's no neighbourhood with the required critical mass of addicts. Vancouver has a neighbourhood that's perfect for it. Kudos to them for actually getting InSite up and running, but kudos to Toronto for not having an equivalent of the downtown east side.

I've been living in downtown Toronto for the last few years. I don't have a car and I don't intend on getting a car. If you need to use a car for a few hours (e.g. IKEA trip), you can use car-share services like ZipCar or AutoShare. I get all my groceries in Chinatown and Kensington Market, where fresh produce is plentiful and far cheaper than processed food. Toronto can be a bit cold, but it has a playful side to it (e.g. newmindspace and Trampoline Hall). We don't have Stanley Park, but we have a farm downtown and High Park is gorgeous.
posted by heatherann at 11:45 AM on April 10, 2008


Seconding others that mentioned the multitude of options in Vancouver for playing in the outdoors without a car. For high tech job options in Vancouver check out Tech Careers on T-Net.
posted by metaname at 3:03 PM on April 10, 2008


The things I would miss about Vancouver are more particular to living in the "West End". Living 2 blocks from stanley park, being able to walk to work along the seawall, Riding my bike out to 3rd beach after work in the summer, Sunset drinks at the Sylvia or Bayside.

I don't think I ever did drinks at the Sylvia or Bayside (nor even remember where those places are), but everything else is spot on. If I ever move back to Vancouver I'd move right back into the West End and hope the rent hadn't gone up too much.

This may be a bit outside the scope of the question, but one of the books I found really helpful in sorting out my Vancouver experience after the fact was Dream City: Vancouver and the Global Imagination. It's definitely not a nuts-and-bolts guide book, but rather a considered analysis of why urban life in Vancouver has evolved the way it has—from the way its neighbourhoods have shaped up to the reasons why Vancouver loves its beaches and parks but not so much tall buildings.
posted by chrominance at 11:50 PM on April 11, 2008


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