I was in London, Ontario (Canada) for a race the other day. All I can say is, it is the medium-city downtown I have always been waiting for! It is superb, and the planners have really created a very urban-lifestyle, large and pleasant downtown, that has many people in it throughout the day, and nice tall office towers as well (they are way taller than photos may suggest) and it has a very urban feel- great work!

I am already planning a trip back in the near future and I plan on staying overnight and taking photos around the city.

Good work, guys!

-SP!RE

london is pretty nice for its area

Yes, London has a very nice core and lots of nice homes right by it. London is a walkable city.

I wish Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge were more like London. K-W has some positives over London, but not too many.

London is a great city. It is perfect to raise children. It has lots of different ethnic backgrounds. For an example Polish, Portuguesse, Italian, Spanish, French and it is the hub of southwestern ontario. :)

I was just reading that London is doing very well on the employment front as well.

London is pretty sweet ass... but Windsor is going to surpass it in population and importance very soon.

(aside from this, I'd still rather live and visit London)

London is pretty sweet ass... but Windsor is going to surpass it in population and importance very soon.

What are you basing this on? Windsor has to get out of its dependence on the domestic auto industry or we could have some really tough times ahead. As for London, I like the downtown area but the rest of the city is way too sprawly.

I have had some incredible times in downtown London as well, although I just heard the old Ace Arcade which was downtown closed a month ago, that's what emulators/online games will do to arcades. I used to like going to that place. But I have eaten at a considerable amount of restaurants downtown though, and have been to Laser Quest, a few bars, Cosmo City, and JLC events. Glad to hear about your good times, SP!RE in downtown London!

If only London could just stop the sprawl/big box stuff (which there is a little too much of, IMO), the downtown could definitely be on the rebound, but it is in better shape than it was five years ago.

Agreed with Blitz...outside downtown is pretty damn nasty. Ugly strip plazas, big box stores, rio-can centres. And as far as a Canadian city goes, London isn't very diverse in terms of visible minorities....however, the somali, middle eastern and latin populations are booming. It's also one of the most conservative cities in Ontario which isn't my cup of tea. Don't get me wrong, I like London and i've been living here since 1999 (for university) but I would never want to settle here permenantly. The night life is great here and the city has great parks and bike paths. The downtown revitalization has been a great success. But there still needs to be a lot done to this city. Dundas Street needs to be cleaned up and revitalized. They also have to do something about the train tracks which crosses the major thoroughfares throughout the city....it's a problem that really causes problems with the traffic. Speaking of traffic, it's pretty insane in a city for this size. This is due to many factors including the poor mass transit for commuters (however the PT is great for students), and the sprawly makeup of the city.

^ Wouldn't you agree that it's a lot better than K-W?

HELL YES!!!! K-W is just awful for any urban fan.

Traffic is the biggest issue, at least to me. I blame it more on the lack of an expressway than anything else. It's a royal pain in the arse just to get across town during peak times.

Yeah, I just cannot believe how insane the traffic on oxford street is during the afternoons....from wonderland to highbury is just insane.

HELL YES!!!! K-W is just awful for any urban fan.

I'm originally from Waterloo, and it has a good point or two, but I hate the 101 strip malls that you see all over the place and just how disorganized the city is in general. London appears to be a cut above it for sure.

Traffic is the biggest issue, at least to me. I blame it more on the lack of an expressway than anything else. It's a royal pain in the arse just to get across town during peak times.

Totally agree; that's one thing where K-W is much, much better than London. K-W has the Contesgo Parkway (an expressway).

^Kitchener and Windsor each have efficient crosstown expressways and London is bigger than both of them! Kitchener and London are similar to me - they each have a lot of highrise slabs and '70s style subdivisions. But London easily has the better downtown, no contest there.

London is also a very green city. They don't call it the ForestCity for nothing. Beautiful old brick housing because of its old wealth charm, fantastic old archetecture, great shopping and incredible nightlife and restaurants for a city that size.
London is a real gem in southern Ontario.

Not only that, but K-W is slightly closer to Toronto (90 km) and is at the west edge of the golden horseshoe, meaning it will get a considerable amount of money from the Ontario government, which is probably one reason why the Conestoga and 7/8 expressways exist in the twin cities today. Plus, there are a couple of other reasons, but we won't get into that.

As for the Oxford Street problem, I think the city should consider widening it to six lanes from four, which could probably help in a way, it can be done, there is enough space, but it is too bad the city is cash-strapped that they can't repair a lot of their roads. In fact, they should stop using asphalt and use cement for the roads if there is no urban expressway (except for Highbury Ave. south of Hamilton Road), it lasts longer, albeit it is more expensive. But in some cases, it may not be necessary to use some main arterial highways in the city, if you know your way around and can find back roads to take to avoid all those damn traffic lights, I can think of a few, although for Oxford from Wonderland to Highbury, that could be a slight problem... so if you need a faster way to get around the city from certain places, let me know, I could probably find them for you. :)

Too bad Airport Road is not going to be an expressway like it would have been, had it still been kept as an Ontario highway. Ever since the city of London amalgamated and the Ontario highways were downloaded, road construction and systems in the city have been quite a pain.

Just imagine how nice London's downtown would have been without the Galleria, and if the JLC had been built facing the other direction (ie. with the courtyard facing in the direction of Dundas and Richmond rather than towards King). The biggeset problem with London's downtown is that there is so much dead frontage in front of buildings like these, and they positively kill the shops that are on the other side of the street from them, or further down the road. The long expanses of brick walls disrupt the feeling of a walking city that London would otherwise have.

The shame about London's downtown area is that what you would expect would be the peak value intersection (Dundas and Wellington or Dundas and Richmond) isn't and instead the peak property values are found along the Strip (maybe around Richmond and Mill, and extending south from there) or across from the JLC and the Market.

Though, all of this is the west end of downtown, head a litte east on Dundas ito the east end, and its an absolute disaster...

What are you basing this on? Windsor has to get out of its dependence on the domestic auto industry or we could have some really tough times ahead. As for London, I like the downtown area but the rest of the city is way too sprawly.

Basing it on, if Windsor doesn't become a Ghost City.

^It's been growing faster than London has for like 10 years now, I just don't see it sustaining that growth rate in the future (though I'm hoping it does). Both of our major industries are in trouble - the auto plants are facing layoffs and tourism has been steadily declining since 9/11.

London has a more diversified economy than Windsor and it employment base is less cyclical.

I was reading a Canadian Economy mag the other day, it listed the top cities for growth and potential. London was ranked at or near the top due to its diverse economy, unlike most cities, London weathers a down turn in the economy better.
It also said London has the best overall ( I believe) growth, it is not as high as some cities, but in the last 20 years it has remained steady rather then peaking then dropping off. They said this was the best type of growth for a city as it allows the city to cope and plan for the growth and not always playing catchup.
When the economy starts to slow down, the Windsors will start to really struggle, yet London will only see a small blip due to the other sectors picking up the slack.