Hey guys. Thought you might be able to help me out.
My family and I are planning on moving to Calgary come next year once i finish my degree. Now my question is what are some nice neighborhoods to live in? Its really hard to tell that online and was hoping for some input. From what i can tell, Chestermere looks like a decent area. We will likely be looking at a townhouse/apartment, 3 br, for around $1500-$2000/mo. Is this unrealistic? Ive hear Calgary was expensive, but was just wondering If that would get a decent place. Thanks for any input guys!

 

Awsome, totally good move comin to Calgary, it's a great city to live in. Typically I prefer the NorthWest neighborhoods, they are the cleanest and safest, including lots of pathways and parks. Myself I live in Sandstone and there is 2 other cobalts in Sandstone, both ss/sc, maybe a few others i don't see too. It's really close to city transit which gives you access to pretty much the entire city. You heard right, Calgary is an expensive city to live in but take the time to shop around and find the right place to live, and at the right price. The SouthWest and far SouthEast are typically good safe neighborhoods to live in. The one place you should stay away from is the NorthEast, it's sorta the "ghetto "hood" of Calgary, including parts of the SouthEast like Forest Lawn and Dover, even Abbydale. Another place to stay away from if your raising a family is bowness in the NorthWest, it's still kinda a crack neighborhood. Chestermere is a bit outside of the city (5-10mins) but is a really good place to live, lots of happy people living there.

Well, that's my 2cents on living in Calgary, i'm sure others will be more than happy to chime in and offer any advice/knowledge they have which might help you, good luck with the final bit of school, btw what are you taking?

 

sick man! Glad to hear of another balt coming to the city!
i live in the S.W (woodlands, woodbine, canyon meadows) any of those area's seem to be pretty goood



on a side note. almost got into a major brawl at whiskey tonight... ******* guido's

 

calgary doesnt have a ghetto....

dont listen to any of that crap, dover is a GREAT place to live, i grew up there and my parents live there still, the worst **** in this city happens in the "nice" areas as blue pointed out (ie: shootings, drivebys) where do you think all the BIG drug dealers live...

jus search on craiglist.com and look for places in your price range, you can get FULL houses like me for 1450.00/mth...

i went to timmies tonight, it was pretty dead, and my buddies got pulled over on our bikes cuz "we were riding beside eachother" *cough* bullshit *cough* , he let me and 2 of buddies off with warnings... but my other friend got 3 tickets:
-failure to produce Active insurance (had the temp white card, and it had expired)
-lane change without signal
-blue rear signal lights

oh and some douchebag in a white G35 cut me off and put into the curb on 17th... ******* foreigners...

 

I went to Timmy's last night but didn't see anybody I know.
I ended up just driving through the parking lot once, then leaving.

 

i was on my bike, there were 4 bikes parked in one parking spot, that was us

 

U can call Dover a good place to live all you want but I will NEVER feel safe walking around that neighborhood, even with a group of ppl. Tons of gangs around, get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and SOL to you. Sandstone........ya......right....lol gangs. Don't get me wrong, when trying to compare Calgary with big places like New York and Chicago then no, our "ghetto" is small and barely means anything..........all the same, it's still a ghetto, ppl who can't afford to live in a nicer area live in the ghetto, many of them young angry ethnic ppl who start gangs/fights/wars for stupid little things. It happens all the time and that is why there is 10x the cops in those neighborhoods, u cannot deny the truth. I can go weeks if not months up here not seeing a single cop in my area where as if i even go 1meter into the NorthEast i've already seen at least 2 cops, and if i'm lucky they didn't see me or my front window tint, then they try and give me exhaust tickets too.

 

ok to settle this, all area's of town have their crime rate. whether it be little punks who like to vandalize homes/vehicles to the area's that have their drug dealers and yes nathan even sandstone has drug dealers living there.

 

With all this convo goin on, and there is something on the news tonight about a daytime shooting in the Northwest...

 

HAHAA SEE!!!

woot, just bought flush mount turn signals and an intergrated tail light for my R6, and getting a set of frame sliders in a couple days

 

*sigh*................if you all feel so safe in places like forest lawn why don't u all move there? it's cheeper than anywhere else in Calgary

 

i did live there!!! and i walked EVERYWHERE!!! i only moved to coventry cuz this was the biggest house i could find for cheapest (live with 3 other guys)....

 

http://www.calgarypolice.ca/news/stats_community.html

heres a link to the calgary police website, it has stats on minor crimes, such as assaults, robberies, car theft, mischeifs and what not, forest lawn's is extremely higher then any other community that i randomly looked at.

forest lawn has had 211 assaults since august 07, woodbine has has 27 since the same date.
forest lawn has had 99 vehicle thefts since august 07, sandstone valley has had 10
forest lawn has had 62 break and enters (house) since august 07, mindapore has had 11.

i think you get the picture.....

 

assaults could jus be fights at a highschool... and there is 3 highschools in forest lawn alone...

vehicle thefts are not as high in other areas cuz most new areas, people have new vehicles with alarms, forest lawn has a lot more old cars that people done really care about...

break and enters, again, alarms in alot of the new homes...

all im saying is dont bad mouth an area cuz you read statistics, i lived there, went to school there and worked there and the worst that happened to me was a couple school yard fights and a shoplifter or two at my liquor store...

give it up

 

Thats funny my bro was in one on Friday there.

 

lets put it this way, and i want everyone here to put their "vote" in on this........you've got a 12 year old girl and you have your choice for the most part on which neighborhood you live in...............are your really going to pick forest lawn? and would u ever feel safe letting that 12 year old daughter walk the streets there alone? There are a few neighborhoods in Calgary that i would feel safe allowing that but Forest Lawn and the entire NorthEast are not one of them. Sorry dood, but i will never feel comfortable in a neighborhood where there is gangs hangin around on every block, "crews" hangin around in front yards eyeing anyone who walks by. Why do u think all the "major" "gangsters" like the Asians live in the Northwest and really nice areas? Because they have families too and want them to feel safe where they live. They also keep the majority of their "business" away from their home, again, because they want their family to feel safe where they live. Why is there 10x as many cops in Forest Lawn and the majority of the NorthEast? Because the majority of crime in this city happens over there. Alarms and all that jazz only goes so far...........even if u had an alarm, wat if someone tries to break in, sets off the alarm and runs away........yes your safe ect ect, but what about next week when someone else tries the same thing again? You just gunna keep having the home insurance pay for replacement windows and pretend u feel safe living there? I don't buy it

 

obviously every area of town has their crime rate and yes forest lawn tends to be higher stats but don't kid yourself's, every area has their problems, every area is gonna have some douche with a gun or have someone come down from the ne with their "gang" and kill someone or boot stomp someone. would i personally live in the forest lawn no because i like a nice looking house, would i live in dover or applewood or abbeydale sure. all in all if you really feel unsafe put up security camera's and buy a shotgun.

 

yes every communtiy has a crime rate, forest lawn's is just unbelievably higher then most of the other communities. theres a reason forest lawn has a rep of being a bad neighbourhood, its not random that forest lawn has a bad rep and happens to have high crime rates, they correlate with each other....

and im pretty sure the stats made by the city of calgary police are legit, forest lawn doesnt have so many assults beacuse they have 3 high schools, its because of the attidude of the people who go to these schools and live in theese neighbourhoods and low ethics and moral of these people. and trav im not saying your a bad person cause you lived there. your definatly an exeception to the prejudice.

 

screw that i'm saying he's a bad person. lol jk buddy. and i agree with you travis (tkaugh).

anyways update with the car troubles so it seem's when 5 bolts on the manifold had come loose (can't ever imagine how they would do that lol) causing an exhaust leak. so i tightened them up and the car definitely seems to be driving better. but i shall be monitoring it for the next little bit. but it did cure this nasty ******* noise i had been having.

 

I still couldn't live in Abbydale or applewood and esspecially not dover, dover is the same as forest lawn. Think of it this way.......for every 100 ppl in forest lawn that has a gun there is 1 person in sandstone that owns a gun, likely someone who goes hunting........out of all those 100 ppl in forest lawn with guns, the chances of being caught in a crossfire vs a problem with that 1 hunter in sandstone.............cmon man be realistic, your safer in sandstone than forest lawn........the same can be said for castleridge and area, most ppl there don't have guns but some do and majority has a knife on them........chances of being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time are tenfold compared to sandstone. It's the difference in attitude of the ppl who live in the NorthEast and places like Dover and Forest Lawn. The average group of teenagers from Sandstone are mostly harmless, not lookin for trouble ever just bored and hangin out like most teenagers do.............the average group of teenagers from even Castleridge are out lookin for trouble, rdy for trouble with blades and sometimes a gun.............sry but i will NEVER try and raise a kid in a neighborhood like that.

 

dude nobody said that the attitude's are the same from neighbourhood to neighbourhood. and yes its the kids that are out with knives and guns that aren't smart enough to think **** through. but enough of this already. all this is, is just a big arguement. i've lived in falconridge, forestlawn, abbeydale, applewood. i've lived in all those area's. so lets just drop it and move on.

 

sooo........does anyone else see a massive business opportunity now that race city is closed down? if someone with money could buy land, and build nice track on the outskirts of town i bet they would make a killing.

just me?

 

EEEK....I didn't mean to start a war over areas, but i do appreciate your opinions.

 

lol, somebody is already on top of this, again, lol some rich guy from Calgary, he's gunna build a state of the art track as good or better than edmonton somewhere on the outskirts of town, HOPEFULLY they'll have camping if their smart.

lol it's ok, everybody has had their say and i'm sure you have more than enough info to make a decision one way or the other. Hope everything goes well for the transition to Calgary and moving ect, we've all heard horror stories

 

ya there's also supposed to be a nice new track being built up by balzac next to the horse track