Moving to Waterloo with family, need opinion from residents

[plam]

Hi everybody,

I consider moving to Waterloo with my family soon. Currently we live in Montreal area and don't like some aspects of living there, so I'd appreciate opinion of Waterloo/Kitchener residents on some questions below. There are 2 small kids in my family (2-5 years old) I and I really look for more conform for them and my wife.

1. Would you move yourself from Montreal to Waterloo? Is it worth it at all from both social and financial perspectives?

2. In our city people mostly seat at their homes, the streets look more like during and post-apocalyptic age. It's even hard to meet a bird here   People are not very friendly and hard to contact with. Neighbors don't know each other. Kids don't play outside. I know it's almost everywhere like this nowadays but still it varies. What about Waterloo?

3. We don't speak French are are not native English speakers, but still we look and behave as normal educated people. Unfortunately local people (most French speaking) turn away from us and what's worse, when our kids play on the playground and parents of other kids hear a different language they literally pull their kids from ours and go away. Some people pretend they don't see you when you start asking something in English. Can we expect something like that in Waterloo too?

4. Are there enough free winter, summer and all season activities in Waterloo for kids 2-5 years old so that they don't feel boring even during non-weekend day?

5. What can you say about local daycare and kindergarten services?

Also feel free to write whatever you feel a potential Waterloo newcomer should now upfront, especially things that can affect family life.

I grew up in Montreal and lived there from ages 0-20 until I moved away for graduate school. As a professor you don't really get to choose where to live, so here I am in Waterloo.

I don't have children but people say this is a good place to raise kids. I do have to say that if you have the $7/day daycare in Montreal that is going to be a lot cheaper than anything you'll find here. For the other things, cost of living is lower here than in Montreal (housing, etc). Your kids would eventually have to go to school in French in Montreal as well.

I'd say that it depends a lot on the kinds of people you get to know. I think it can be hard to meet people on the playground, but I think that otherwise I wouldn't expect there to be that much of a difference between different cities. There is, but there is also a lot more of the difference that is explained by who you know and how you get along with them.

I will say that my parents always identified more with the English community even though they are more francophone. (They grew up in Vietnam). Having said that, I feel that I'm well accepted in various sub-communities in Montreal. For instance I still belong to a judo club in Quebec and am active in the judo refereeing community.