Raise the Hammer

To Hamilton's credit, it's a better place to raise a kid than in many parts of Toronto. And you're not as housepoor/rentpoor. Cost of home/rent is lower, meaning families can afford being single-income home-owners (full time stay-at-homes). This depends on where you get work, but a lot of us do see more kids playing on Hamilton streets than there used to be.

For example, some parts of West Harbour areas is actually a nice and neighbourly place to raise kids, and sufficiently far enough removed from the urban expressways to be safe to play street hockey, and while house prices are up, it's not nearly as unobtainium as Toronto -- that it's actually lays reasonably competitive claim to be one of the best "urban" (suburb-within-walking-distance-of-a-downtown, and walking-distance-of-good-transit) locations in Canada to raise kids, but it really depends on what a resident is looking for.

Also, between Main-King near Sherman where Main Street is 500 meters (2-3 blocks) away from King Street, there's a lot of babies, toddlers, and kids concentrated, and the neighbourliness factor is really out-of-the-world. This is where we are -- we got apple pie when we moved into our house! Dunsmure Rd (west of Gage Park) is a lovely calm-oasis-in-the-middle-of-a-roaring-sea (between Main-King) and some speed humps are at the entrances to the roads.

As an example, this is how neighbourly: http://www.thespec.com/news-story/575194...

(Group of neighborhood residents, some with kids, ganged up to buy-out a shuttered building, and renovate it, only two blocks away from us)

(two blocks from my home, and I think my spouse knows one of these people!)

On that note, specific areas like these Hamilton is indeed one of Ontario's best /urban/ places to raise a kid, if this is what's more important -- being within 10-30 minutes walk of a downtown of real city, while also avoiding being house-poor. Granted, letting your kids near Main-King is deadly, but Dunsmure Rd area in the Sherman area is a petty safe/calm oasis, and Dunsmure goes all the way to Gage Park, so sufficiently-old kids can safely bike to Gage Park, without even touching Main/King.

(On that note, we see so many offhub SoBi bikes come and disappear....one neighbour parks it, I take it.... I park it, a different neighbour takes it....forcing me to scurry almost 0.5km to a SoBi hub....so now we need a SoBi hub installed at Sherman+Dunsmure, stat! Chelsea Cox -- if you're ready, a shout-out-to you... ;-) )

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-07-29 13:47:47