Having lived in Paris, Copenhagen, Toronto, and Vancouver, I can honestly vouch for Windsor, Ontario, Canada as a great place to live and work. You can read why Huffington post thinks Windsor is the place for creative folks and artists here but below are some more reasons why I think you should move to Windsor and be my colleague in the Office of Open Learning at University of Windsor
10. Proximity to major centres. Easy travel to your conference destination via Porter Airlines travel to New York, Boston, Chicago, Toronto, and other big cities. Westjet direct flight to Calgary, and in summer, to Vancouver. Direct flights out of DTW to nearly anywhere.
9. No commute to work. No kidding — I used to commute 45 minutes to 1 hour to get to the University of Toronto from home, whether I took the car, the streetcar, TTC/subway, bus, or bike. Now it takes me 10 minutes by car or a scenic 25 minute bike ride along the Detroit River.
8. Events. There are lots of free or low-cost community events to attend here every weekend, such as the famous Art in the Park, Shores of Erie Wine Festival, Tecumseh Corn Festival, and many more. Event parking and crowds are civilized. Check out http://windsorite.ca/events/
7. Olympic-sized pool and international-calibre aquatic facilities. 50 metre pool for all of you competitive swimmer types. Wicked water slides, wave pools and splash pad for kids at Adventure Bay.
6. Cross-border shopping in Michigan. The fast tunnel and bridge crossings mean that Michigan is minutes away. Grocery shopping, including (mmm, cheese!) at Trader Joe’s. Terrific designer fashion outlet malls (e.g. Great Lakes Crossing Outlets). Ship US online orders to Detroit Mailbox and save a bundle on shipping/duty.
5. Great bakeries. Jerry Seinfeld took home a great loaf of Blak Bakery‘s marble rye bread to his wife. Wicked selection of rye breads (sourdough rye is my fave), pastries, doughnuts, etc. The Earnest Bagel brings the traditional Montreal-style bagel to Windsor!
4. Local wines and microbreweries. Most people have tasted local Ontario wines from Pelee Island Winery and Colio Winery from their LCBOs, but there are many smaller local wineries such as Sprucewood Shores Estate Winery and North 42 Degrees Estate Winery to check out. The latter hosts an amazing lavender festival at Serenity Lavender. For those of you who prefer beer, Walkerville Brewery has growlers of Honest Lager, Loophole Ale, Indie Pale Ale, Milk Porter, Milk Stout and others to check out.
3. Excellent restaurants. Windsor has an excellent selection of Italian and Middle Eastern restaurants, way below Toronto prices. When I told folks in the learning sciences community that I was moving here in 2011, people like Iris Tabak and Kate Bielaczyc gushed about the restaurants here.
2. Affordable real estate. Median house price in Windsor is CDN 129,900! Lovely Windsor neighbourhoods close to the University include historic Walkerville (like Annex in Toronto) and on or near the waterfront Riverside.
1. We’re here!!! Chris and I have made Windsor our home. It’s a great place to raise our kids, where they attend a nice French immersion school nearby, and we get to work on things we enjoy doing. For me, that’s working with a small but mighty team in the Office of Open Learning where we get to play with new technologies, design cool online courses, and lead pedagogical change in infusing evidence-based teaching and learning practices for online and blended learning. For Chris, he has the freedom to design and develop the cutting-edge analytical and visualization tools in collaboration with top international researchers.
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