Today’s lead headline in The Sun:
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So it’s all about the money, is it? Confirming critics belief that housing is just an investment, not a home. The story says no such thing.
Asked why they live where they do, respondents were most likely to say proximity to relatives and place of employment were the determining factors. Safety of the community and housing prices were also at the top of the list.
But when Angus Reid took a closer look at what made people happiest about where they lived, they found the most important quality was a good place to raise children. While community safety was also integral to happiness, poll responses suggest two other key satisfaction drivers — like-minded people and a focus on the environment — were not top of mind for people when deciding where to live. Similarly, proximity to relatives and housing prices were the two least significant factors in determining happiness.
The responses suggest that while geographic and economic factors may be responsible for where people put down roots, the chances of being happy are determined by attributes of the community — whether it is safe, a good place to raise children and whether the neighbours have similar values. …
Also, a few comments from this guy who, it is necessary to note, is not a professor (but thanks for the upgrade):
Gordon Price, of Simon Fraser University’s city program, said one reason for Surrey’s low score on this measure could be because construction of infrastructure, including schools, has not kept pace with the booming population.
“Growth is a very tough thing to deal with in its early stages. It’s very disruptive,” Price said.
Rapid growth and transient populations tend to detract from a sense of community, an increasingly difficult thing to come by in Metro Vancouver according to a 2012 report by the Vancouver Foundation. In that survey, one in three Metro residents said they found it hard to make friends. While most knew the names of at least one neighbour, only about a quarter had ever socialized with a neighbour. Apartment and suite dwellers, as well as those who identified as Chinese, were especially unlikely to interact with neighbours. That survey also found most Metro residents generally did not participate in community-based projects or meetings.
Price noted that while almost a thousand people move to Surrey each month, the North Shore is a much older, slower-growing and more established community.
“It takes a good decade just for things to begin to settle down before you get those things that we call community — the bonds being built, the institutions functioning,” he said. “So long as people are able to stay in the same place for an extended period, particularly raising children. Those are the bonds that unite.”
Urban planning also matters, Price said. The urban part of the North Shore was originally an old streetcar city and “still has a feeling like it’s not built totally around the car,” while Surrey “is a postwar, automobile dependent (community) … and that’s not as friendly a place.”
The headline writer was probably picking up on this:
The reasons people gave for living where they do varied widely by municipality. Economical housing prices were cited as the top reason people live in Burnaby, New Westminster, Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge, Surrey, the Tri-Cities and the Fraser Valley, but just one per cent of Vancouver residents gave the same response. Poll respondents were most likely to say they lived in the City of Vancouver to be near work or family. Residents of Richmond/Delta and the North Shore were most likely to cite community safety as the top reason they live where they do.
