Quote:
Originally Posted by J____
My main concern would be safety, schools, and drug problems for the kid. Are people pretty friendly and any racism towards asians? Seemed pretty good when I was visiting, but that was a decade ago. In terms of housing, heard lower mission or Glenmore is good? Thanks！
|
So for background I grew up the lower Mission, moved to Glenmore in college and currently live in the lower Mission.
Safety is quite good I think, the rough parts of downtown have gotten larger the last few years but I think that's the same everywhere. The rest of town aside from maybe a couple rough parts of Rutland is quite safe.
The schools are good, but I graduated 15+ years ago and my oldest isn't in school yet so I'm a little out of touch there. Drugs-wise again I think we've got the same spike in fentanyl issues as everywhere else but nothing special in terms of youth problems that I'm aware of.
Most people are pretty friendly, but we've probably got more Karens and stereotypical Albertans than average. Taking my kids to parks and events I've never had a problem with anyone and lots of people are open to striking up conversations. I'm about as white as it's possible to be so I can't speak to how life is here for Asians but I can't say I've heard of any of my Asian friends having problems. I do know everyone would've had their backs if they saw anything.
Finding a family doctor is apparently quite difficult. I'm not sure if it's like that everywhere or just here. Politically we've had a Conservative MP most of the time though not by too large a margin iirc.
As far as neighbourhoods go imo the lower Mission and Glenmore are the best.
Lower Mission: completely flat and very walkable/bikeable. In some areas your kids can literally walk to school from K to college, you can walk to the grocery stores, restaurants, beaches, etc. The newest pool, ice rinks and indoor fields are here too and there's the "Greenway" which is a really nice trail system that goes all the way from the lake to Gallaghers Canyon. Through the summer Autocross happens at the college. The city has also been adding lots of bike lanes all over the place. Negatives are that ideally you want to live north of at least DeHart Road because the two elementary schools on Lakeshore and Gordon completely fuck up the traffic coming from south of there in the morning. There's a very nice neighbourhood just East of OKM Secondary though. Lakeshore Road in general is very slow all the time and the city is allowing 600 new condo units to be built on Lakeshore within a block of each other near Boyce-Gyro Park which is going to make it even worse. On that note there's a very nice neighbourhood around Windermere Park, however the 55+ trailer park next to Casorso Elementary was recently purchased by a developer so those quiet streets that dead end at the side of the park might not stay very quiet depending on what they do.
Glenmore: Places like Magic Estates feel quiet and out of town but you're really quite close to everything. On the flip side parts of Wilden look close but take ages because you have to putter through tons of residential streets before you can get out. Not as much for shops and restaurants but because of how the city is laid out you can get to anywhere in no time at all and traffic flows well because there's reasons to be going in every direction vs the mission where everyone is going north because there's nothing to the south. Dilworth also has some stunning views and pretty quiet neighbourhoods. It's less walkable because it's all on a slope but that should also mean less potential for sketchy people to wander through because who wants to bike up a hill?
Other notable neighbourhoods for the price range you mentioned:
The upper Mission/Kettle Valley, my inlaws live up there and I personally don't like it. There's nothing up there except other houses, you have to drive down the hill and well into the lower Mission to really get to anything, traffic is bad because there's only 2 dinky roads out, and they keep building up the hills like crazy. I've also found the people up there more rude and it seems like that's where a lot of the stereotypical Albertans ended up (along with Wilden). It also doesn't feel that much higher but they seem to deal with a lot more snow than the lower Mission if you don't like shoveling.
Crawford and Gallaghers are a bit isolated as well but they're a little easier to get out of and they're more established neighbourhoods that haven't really expanded.
East Kelowna/South Kelowna/Southeast Kelowna are where you'd be looking if you want a really big property.
Black Mountain and Kirschner Mountain have some gorgeous views and are convenient if you want to ski but not for much else, slogging up and down the hill on highway 33 is a bit annoying.
West Kelowna has some nice areas but the city itself is kinda meh. You have to use the highway to get pretty much anywhere which is terrible, and you'll still have to come into Kelowna for a lot of things. The highschool over there was supposedly rougher than any of the ones in Kelowna when I was growing up. But if you'll be heading back to the lower mainland lots it'll save you some time.
That's all I can think of atm. Overall I like living here but I know it's not for everyone. It can get smokey in the summer and it's not going to have that much variety for people who want to go out all the time. Really specialty things that are in bigger cities are probably lacking. I'm sure the other guys here can list off some other cons I've forgotten lol. But you get pretty easy access to quite a lot of outdoors hobbies which is pretty nice. Even our worst traffic is nothing like the lower mainland. And overall the weather is quite nice.