64 replies to this topic

[G-Man]

^ Unfortunately I am always encouraging people to move here to increase our density. Oh and relatively speaking I believe Victoria has high density at least in Canada. While we are comparing anyways... Vancouver Toronto Montreal Victoria I believe but again I could be wrong. Aastra will of course correct me.

[pherthyl]

...and as a native born 3rd generation Victorian, raised and educated here, I have to agree to a degree with Bicycles. And I am not surprised by the reactions of some posters to the results of this story. In fact I am more often than not amused by how out of joint some people become whenever any such "best" list is produced. One person's "best of" is another's poison. So what? Move on.

Frankly however I have always been somewhat embarrassed by the arrogance spouted by some Victorians; lets be clear folks - home is wherever you are from. And that includes Regina, Winnipeg and 1001 other places. I know plenty of prairie-born folks and from the Maritimes (especially) who wouldn't give you a plug nickel insofar as Victoria is concerned. Yes I know this will come as a complete shocker to some people here, but there are lots of people who do not agree this is the best (or even a moderately good) place to live or retire.

I know more people than I can count who came and lived here and could not wait to get away from Victoria. That shouldn't be taken as some sort of affront, it is merely a fact. Victoria is not, pardon the expression, everyone's cup of tea. Why worry about it as the same can likely be said for any of the cities noted in this survey? I've heard Victoria described as everything from the "City that Time Forgot" to "Mayberry RFD" to "Fantasy Island". Not surprisingly none was intended as a compliment. As one of Britain's largest travel blogs described Victoria as recently as 2010".....you know that any place that's main claim to fame is 100 year old hotel, just has to be Loserville, plain and simple". And "....barely worth a one night stay" was its final conclusion. That may not be your opinion but again everyone is entitled to an opinion and not surprisingly many will vary.

Some people here, for whatever reason, somehow cannot fathom that others born elsewhere may not feel as if they need to bow down and consider this place Utopia. So be it.

Amen. Victoria is great for us, but some people are thoroughly brainwashed by the "best place on earth" marketing line. There are tons of amazing places in Canada. Victoria is among them, but certainly not alone.

[spanky123]

Amen. Victoria is great for us, but some people are thoroughly brainwashed by the "best place on earth" marketing line. There are tons of amazing places in Canada. Victoria is among them, but certainly not alone.

I have lived in and travelled to dozens of cities over the years all over the world. Every one had aspects I liked and disliked. Every one also had people who thought that it was the best place on earth to live.

To me, what made Victoria quaint and unique is long gone. I was downtown the other night and was thinking to myself that if I was walking more than one block from the ocean I could be on any street in any one of many cities I have travelled through. No suprise to me that other people feel the same.

[eseedhouse]

To me, what made Victoria quaint and unique is long gone.

I agree, but I don't miss it.

The faster and cheaper we can travel the faster each place becomes just like all the others.

[ChrisA]

The Moneysense article methodology is silly. Aside from its complete arbitrariness and other glaring problems, if we employed the same methodology to study, say, cars, we might conclude that a broken down 1987 Lada is a higher quality car than a new BMW. Look how much cheaper the Lada is!

An econometric study of quality of life across Canadian cities was published in the academic journal _Canadian Journal of Economics_ last year (ungated earlier version). Here's a graph showing some of the key results. Victoria comes in about average in terms of productivity (horizontal axis), and is estimated to enjoy the highest quality of life (vertical axis).

[Bingo]

Victoria is too expensive.

House prices are going to skyrocket, ferry fares will double in 5 years, which will lead to the highest food prices in Canada. Global warming will mean more rain, the deer population will soon out number humans causing the Flower Count to be discontinued. A devastating earthquake is about to strike, and evacuation will be impossible due the Malahat being closed, and the airport being hampered by a shortened main runway after budget cutbacks.

So if you skeptics are thinking about moving to where the survey says is "the best place in Canada to retire", go somewhere else as we are about to batten down the hatches and close the border.

[skeptic]

I think these annual "best places" articles are silly. Not only are the criteria unlikely to line up with any individual's personal priorities, but they ignore the fact that it is national characteristics that most affect quality of life. That is, how happy you are is more likely to depend heavily on what country you live in, not whether you are in Victoria or Winnipeg.

I've lived in the UK, Ghana, five different cities in the USA and six in Canada. On my way back from the Coyotes/Canucks game last night in Phoenix (I divide my time between Victoria and Phoenix) I realized that people living in the USA or Canada are the freest, safest, most peaceful and richest people on the planet. Sure, there is some poverty and crime, but if you read any of the global news you will realize that hand-wringing over which city in Canada is "the best place to live" is a waste of time. You live in Canada, and a large proportion of the world's population would give up everything they have to be in your shoes, regardless of what city you live in.

[Baro]

That's funny, when ever I come back to Canada after travelling, Canada always seems like a 3rd world backwater.

[skeptic]

That's funny, when ever I come back to Canada after travelling, Canada always seems like a 3rd world backwater.

I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps you should move to another country. Life it too short to live in, as you say, "a 3rd world backwater."

[ZGsta]

That's funny, when ever I come back to Canada after travelling, Canada always seems like a 3rd world backwater.

I know Baro, life is so hard, everyone here feels so bad for you.

[aastra]

To me, what made Victoria quaint and unique is long gone.

I'd be interested in hearing some elaboration on this point.

[ChrisA]

I hate to pile on, but....

I know plenty of prairie-born folks and from the Maritimes (especially) who wouldn't give you a plug nickel insofar as Victoria is concerned. Yes I know this will come as a complete shocker to some people here, but there are lots of people who do not agree this is the best (or even a moderately good) place to live or retire.

De gustibus non est disputandum, as they say. Yet it still makes sense to talk about tastes in a statistical sense. And the statistical evidence tells us that the average person views quality of life in Victoria very highly relative to other cities in Canada.

If you insist on limiting attention to anecdotes, I know dozens of people who have retired here from the Prairies. I lived on the Prairies for more than a decade and never met a single person who fled the horrors of Victoria to retire in comfort on the Prairies.

The funny thing to me on the latter point is that Victoria weather by and large is average at best, plain awful at worst.

Assuming we view warmth and sunshine as good and cold, rain, snow, and extremes as bad, your claims about Victoria's weather are objectively ridiculous. We do not get "never ending" rain even in the peak of the rainy season, it is not true we get no sunshine in the Winter, and averaged over the year we get only trivially less sunshine than even the sunniest of the prairie cities. We do not get extreme highs during the Summer and, more importantly, we don't get Winter at all, as it is understood everywhere in Canada except the West coast. The claim that weather here is "average at best, plain awful at worst" is silly.

Taking your example of Winnipeg, in January in Victoria we can expect about 27% of possible daylight hours to be bright sunshine, versus 45% in Winnipeg. Yes, that's a substantial difference, but it's not zero versus 100, either.

But: Winnipeggers can expect zero days with a minimum temperate above zero, 28 days below -10, and 7 below -30. Victorians can expect 26 days above zero, five below zero, and 0 below -10. And Victorians can expect 2 days with snow depth greater than 1cm, Winnipeggers: 31.

If we're going to use terms like "bone-chilling" and "wretched" to describe one of these city's weather patterns, I know which one I'm going to pick.

Calgary contrary to the belief of people here receives far less snow than most Victorians would believe possible and it blows Victoria away in terms of the hours of sunshine received.

It is Winter, and I mean WINTER, in Calgary for seven months a year. Even when there's been no snowfall for some time, there's almost always layers of solid, dirty packed snow and ice everywhere. You have to plug your car into an electrical outlet on many, many more days per year than it even goes below zero in Victoria. Winters in Victoria are incomparably better than Winters in Calgary.

Why do imagine Victoria is such a popular retirement and tourist destination, if it's so awful here?

[aastra]

Some people are more comfortable with extreme summers and extreme winters than they are with mild weather, but those people would definitely be in the minority. Anyway, extreme weather does happen in Victoria on occasion, so it's not like you'll never experience piles of snow or a heat wave. You just won't experience that stuff every year.

[Dimitrios]

Some people are more comfortable with extreme summers and extreme winters than they are with mild weather, but those people would definitely be in the minority. Anyway, extreme weather does happen in Victoria on occasion, so it's not like you'll never experience piles of snow or a heat wave. You just won't experience that stuff every year.

So true. I moved here in fall 2010, and was pretty surprised at the weather in late November that year. I remember biking home one day when it was about -8 out, with several cm of snow on the ground and a fierce wind blowing. I felt like I was still in Calgary!

I can't remember if it was Nov. 23 or 24.
http://www.climate.w...&cmdB2=Go&Day=1

The same couple of days in Calgary, it got down to -30.
http://www.climate.w...Month=11&Day=01

[lumix]

Thank you ASE

It is Winter, and I mean WINTER

W.I.N.T.E.R.......Oh dear god! Not WINTER!!!! How could millions of people live through this thing called winter.

Victoria is pretty darn rainy in the winter. When there is no blue sky for a week, that makes for a pretty grey and depressing time (SADD).

Also, this is St. Albert's core, they actually have a very nice looking downtown: http://maps.google.n...4,,0,14.44&z=17

[eseedhouse]

W.I.N.T.E.R.......Oh dear god! Not WINTER!!!! How could millions of people live through this thing called winter.

I prefer to avoid it by living here, where it doesn't happen much. I didn't mind winter so much when I lived in T.O., but the heat of the summer, that was real bad. You can always put more clothes on, but once you are nekkid ain't much you can do unless you can afford the A.C.

Victoria is pretty darn rainy in the winter. When there is no blue sky for a week, that makes for a pretty grey and depressing time (SADD).

Technically Victoria's climate is close to the "Mediterranean" classification which has basically only two seasons, the dry season and the rainy season. If you really do suffer from S.A.D. D. you don't want to put up with the rainy season in Victoria. Personally I don't suffer from that and actually enjoy cool and cloudy days even if there is a bit of rain.

[ChrisA]

W.I.N.T.E.R.......Oh dear god! Not WINTER!!!! How could millions of people live through this thing called winter.

Since we're talking about pleasant various places are, noting that it's possible to spend the Winter on the prairies without dying is not exactly high praise. It's also somewhat misleading, as living in places with extreme temperatures is actually non-trivially more likely to kill you, as has been very well-documented by epidemiologists (e.g., here).

Again, there's no accounting for tastes---there's nothing `wrong' with preferring cold, snow, and sun and to warmth, rain, and clouds. But most people prefer the latter to the former.

[G-Man]

^ As apparently some have missed it. Victoria is the sixth sunniest city in Canada and as discussed sunnier than Toronto and Kelowna.

[pherthyl]

The question is fundamentally stupid no matter the methodology. Even the economic analysis isn't answering the question of what is the best place to live. It is perhaps giving us a clue of what is the most desirable place, but that is a different thing.
The "willingness to pay" measure only works when there are no distortions to the market. And it measures desireability, not goodness or quality of life.

[Layne French]

It is Winter, and I mean WINTER, in Calgary for seven months a year. Even when there's been no snowfall for some time, there's almost always layers of solid, dirty packed snow and ice everywhere. You have to plug your car into an electrical outlet on many, many more days per year than it even goes below zero in Victoria. Winters in Victoria are incomparably better than Winters in Calgary.

Hyperbole much? I can honestly attest that I have a completely bare lawn right at this moment and for the past two weeks even. Infact I have never had to plug my truck in during the winter here.

I tend to disagree and will take a winter in Calgary over a winter in Victoria anyday of the week. After spending 20 years in Victoria, I can honestly say everytime I'm back in the winter I do notice how grey and wet it is. However the largest thing I notice is how dark it is during a Victoria winter.

While it is not so much the rain, however, lets face it snow has a higher spectral reflectance than saturated earth matter; couple this will generally less areas of shade and for me the winters are much more bare-able than a winter there.

While I'm glad I made the move away from Victoria, there are many things I did give up in leaving. However, the smugness of Victorian's is what really interests me in regards to this best city crap..