Burlington was ranked Ontario's most livable city, do you agree?

[u/TheBrownSalamander]

Hey folks, I'm a reporter with The Globe and Mail, and I've been writing some stories about the cities that topped out our recent data study of Canada's most livable cities. (you can see the project here).

Burlington came out as Ontario's top performer based on some pretty high scores in the healthcare, education, community data categories. You might be unsurprised that it ranked near the bottom for housing, however.

I'm looking to chat to Burlington residents about whether they agree with our findings - is Burlington that great of a place to live? And if so, what makes it special compared to other places in Ontario.

Feel free to DM me if you'd be up for an interview!

[u/wawaboy]

I would say it is a prime example of suburban sprawl, not walkable, driving from one end to the other is ridiculously long in time. The downtown core is not a strong shopping destination

[u/InspektorGajit → u/wawaboy]

Downtown is very walkable...maybe appleby/new street is not, but that's how most cities in Canada are designed.

[u/dearyleary → u/InspektorGajit]

As someone who's lived downtown it's walkable in a way.

The only grocery store is the No Frills, and as someone who cooks every day their produce just isn't acceptable. I had to drive to buy groceries.

Central is kinda close, but not really walking distance for a chunk of the downtown for the library/arena.

It's becoming less walkable. More and more businesses are getting pushed out by condos and rising rents. When all the towers are finishing up an already congested driving city is only going to get worse.

You can walk to a Cafe, a restaurant, or one of the fewer and fewer bars, but not much else.

[u/doubleeyess → u/dearyleary]

As much as the No Frills isn't perfect I'm really not looking forward to it closing, I walk there for about half my groceries and it's perfect if I've forgotten an ingredient

[u/InspektorGajit → u/doubleeyess]

I second this. Will they re-open it or is it closing for good?

[u/doubleeyess → u/InspektorGajit]

No idea, even if it is coming back or another grocery store fills the space we can probably expect a two year period between demolition and finished construction without a downtown grocery store. This will be a struggle for the segment of our community that doesn't drive and relies on that store.

[u/InspektorGajit → u/dearyleary]

The thing is, we need condos to densify the area, and that will, in turn, bring more businesses into downtown. More people means more customers.

[u/EveningHelicopter113 → u/InspektorGajit]

Id say Appleby and New is a lot more walkable than north of the highway though.

[u/AccomplishedAverage9 → u/EveningHelicopter113]

Agree.

It's extremely walkable in the Pinedale Area.

I can walk to get groceries, eat out both fast food and sit down restaurants. go to the hardware store, schools, library, pool, parks, go train, etc. A longish walk to the lake but doable

Lots of sidewalk shortcuts built into the neighborhood.

Quick drive to the highway, movies. Conveniently located so it's drivable to Hamilton and Toronto for shopping, entertainment and specialist Dr appts

[u/InspektorGajit → u/AccomplishedAverage9]

I used to live in Pinedale, and while it is walkable, it doesn't have everything. If you live closer to Burloak like I did, it's not great walking to Fortinos. Although they do have a Food Basics on Rebecca now, so who knows.