Ottawa,Ontario???

Question

From all the answers that we got,Ottawa,Ontario seemed to be a best choice for our family to move to in terms of Health Care,we've an 8 years old autistic son(not a severe case,he can speak,read,write,but sometimes having tentrum when he doesn't get what he wanted and he wanted no matter what you said to him),the weather in Ottawa seems a bit colder than city like St.Catharines,Ontario or Halifax,NS.In terms of finding a suburb outside of Ottawa to rent a reasonable price 2 bedrooms apartment when we first move there.Which suburbs outside of Ottawa is safe(less crime),good school for our autistic son,good hospital(I am also a type 2 diabetics),but not more than 1 half hour commute into downtown Ottawa by car or public transits???Please advice in all areas.Thanks so much for your help.

Answer 1

Any major city in Canada has excellent health facilities for your son. There is a childrens hospital in Ottawa, and The Toronto Sick Childrens Hospital is world renowned. There is a web site that you can visit.
www.ottawa.com/main_e.shtml
also
www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com
and this will list rentals available
http://ottawa.renting.canada.com/properties
My family lives there and I grew up there. It's a very conservative, clean safe city

Answer 2

Otawa is a great choice. We do live in a valley so the weather seems colder and we seem to get more snow it's like pouring cereal in a bowl. Nepean has a lot of apts it's out of the downtown and considered suburbia and you can get downtown by transitway quite quickly and even driving at rush hour is a joke on the highway, there really is not much traffic here( I grew up in Toronto now there's traffic) you can get from one end to the other at 5:00 in an hour.The transitway is very good and most buses to downtown are quite quick.
One area I would suggest for apt rental(houses would give you more suburban choices) is Carlingwood/Fisher/Merivale area which would put you near the Civic Hospital for schools and there is also 2 specilalized schools in that area Turnbull and Montesorri. The other area near the General Hospital would be on Main St but stay away from the Elmvale and Southvale apt rentals not a good area at all. Southkeys in south Ottawa, Blair & Ogilvie(Gloucester) is getting a reputation

Answer 3

A suburb with a short commute means living near the Transitway, I think.

See http://www.octranspo.com/mapscheds/Transitway/tway_map_menuE.htm

Somewhere like Centrepointe might be good. Definitely clean and safe, near good bus service, not too far from downtown, and near at least one hospital. (http://www.qch.on.ca/) I don't think it's too expensive, either.

Not terribly near the Children's Hospital (http://www.cheo.on.ca/) but not ridiculously far away, either, and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure why you'd need it. Centrepointe also has a few medical buildings with a good number of specialists.

There's a theatre, a library, and a skating rink in Centrepointe, too. I went to school near there; the schools I went to have since closed, but -- new ones have replaced them, which is usually a good thing. The high school has a pretty decent reputation.

The theatre:
http://www.centrepointetheatre.com/

See also:
http://www.ottawaliving.ca/community.php?community_id=38
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrepointe

Useful for rental listings:
http://ottawa.craigslist.org/
http://viewit.ca/
http://ottawa.kijiji.ca/f-housing-apartments-condos-W0QQCatIdZ37

Most rental properties are not the cheapest in the city, but they're well-priced for what you're looking for. The 95 bus (see OC Transpo map) will get you downtown quite quickly and beat driving. I'm not a fan of suburbs, but that is a decent little family area with good recreation -- it's also near the Nepean Sportsplex -- entertainment, and shopping.

Answer 4

I use to live is Orleans, Ont. It is just outside of Ottawa. It has very good school in which all students are welcome. Crime from what I know is not too bad. In rush hour i know bus rides can be longer then 1 hours but most of the time less then 30 minutes. We lived in Orleans for 5 years and my family and I loved it. People are nice and you are close to everything.

Answer 5

ottawa would be the city with the most culture - it has a european flavour to it an excellent architecture and infrastructure -