Cornwall ON – Moneysense Magazine just came out with a list of the best cities to live in. Cornwall Ontario finished at 92, but like any list of this nature you have to examine the criteria to better handle the information.
Cornwall is a beautiful city on the banks of a river that is in transition. Long an industrial town of mills and factories it’s rapidly changing into a community evolving and sprouting in many areas.
Cleaner and Greener Growth – Many of the new industries evolving in Cornwall are cleaner. We have call centres opening as well as distribution centres because of our work force; much of which is bilingual. The city of Cornwall has an edge in utility costs thanks to long term agreements and use of cheaper Quebec electricity.
Location – Very few communities can touch the ease of access to Cornwall; especially for industry. It’s situated on Highway 401, the main artery of traffic from Montreal to Toronto. Via Rail services the city, and Ottawa is less than 90 minutes away as well. The waterway and bridge to the US and nearby Massena offer a versatility rarely seen.
Like many “factory towns” the cost of housing was artificially low. While rapidly catching up with nearby cities the value is still quite amazing which is why many retirees are flocking to Cornwall after selling their homes in nearby communities like Ottawa. You can sell a $500K home in Ottawa and replace it easily in Cornwall for under $250K which adds to your nest egg with no noticeable loss in quality of life.
If anything there are a lot of benefits to living in Cornwall Ontario. Going home for lunch. How many people in Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa have long commutes? In Cornwall you generally can get anywhere in less than 10 minutes. Traffic jams just don’t exist thanks to good traffic planning.
Shopping. With the local shopping scene and shopping centres to those close by there’s plenty to see and do so that living in Cornwall really is living widely with all the area has to offer.
Moneysense uses several metrics that really don’t impact large parts of the population. University for example. While Cornwall currently doesn’t host a University there are many close by yet in the Moneysense calculations that makes Cornwall not as good as other cities.
Medical Care; now this is where Cornwall shines on the list (we’re number 38); chiefly because it’s close to Montreal and we get a lot of spill over doctors and professionals from there. Add in how the community pulled together to help fund the new Hospital and you can see why Cornwall rates so high when it comes to medical support. Yes it’s behind Kingston,but Kingston has a Medical teaching hospital.
Crime. Some have complained about high taxes in Cornwall(they actually are less than cities like Ottawa), but one of the big expenses has been in our highly skilled and acclaimed local police force. It’s led to lower crime metrics from over all crime to severe crime.
Average income for Cornwall is also skewed as we have a large group of retirees in the area. While a mecca for those who want to enjoy their golden years people generally don’t earn as much at that time of life.
Cornwall Ontario also has a key metric in that if you ever want to own your own home you’ll pay it off faster living here. According to Moneysense it takes 2.69 years of average income to own a home vs 4+ years in many other communities. The overall cost of living in Cornwall make up for some of lower average income numbers.
Family life. Lower crime; cleaner air, better medical services and amazing recreational facilities like the Aquatic Centre and the new Arena Complex being built lead to a great place to raise a family. Cornwall also has some great sports programs such as our Minor League Football program and a rapidly increasing Soccer infrastructure. You can bike for miles along the waterfront with lots of cross country skiing available in the winter as well.
Cornwall Ontario also has a great Transit System that’s getting greener by innovative uses of small more environmentally friendlier buses.
Culture. Cornwall is vibrant. It’s a true Canadian mix with a lively French Culture mixed in with all sorts of Ethnic groups. Cornwall also neighbors the First Nations community of Akwesasne.
For more information about Cornwall visit www.choosecornwall.ca – to see the entire list from Moneysense click HERE.
please visit our sponsors;
And if you’re looking to relocate to Cornwall you can give Joe Gunn a ring and let his 25 years of experience help you find exactly what you’re looking for in this hot and expanding market!
Moneysense Magazine has obviously never visited Cornwall.
Cornwall once was a great city. It has the potential of being even better city. After traveling throughout Ontario for many years, when I told people where I was from, it was usually followed by laughter. The number one radio station in Toronto, Q107(a corus company), on one occasion verbally slammed Cornwall on there very popular Derringer the Morning show, (formerly from chom FM in Montreal). It was said that if you walked into a bar called Freddy’s, the place was full of people with no job and no teeth. To this day, that bothers the hell out of me. If you look up Cornwall on wikipedia, it states Cornwall’s unusually high cancer rate. Add to that the Project Truth Inquire, that also hurts the cities image.
With Dalton and the Ontario government hammering this fine by cutting health care, why would someone want to retire in a city with limited health care.
Now, there are many positive in this city as mentioned in the above story. I moved back to Cornwall because in my opinion, it is a great city. I believe it is time for the city to start marketing this city so we can reach the full potential we once had.
if you want this city to start marketing itself try telling the city to stop turning down things that could put us on the map the people that run this city right now they don’t care about this city they just want the money in there pockets that’s all there in it for they turned down a big water park they said they didn’t want to attract certain kinds of people. we lost the Canadian tire warehouse cause of Phil Poirier. i’m actually surprised they didn’t turn the shoppers drug mart warehouse away just like the 3 major stores that they wanted to come to Cornwall but all 3 turned the city down if our city actually cared they would do something to get them here. There’s nothing here in Cornwall for kids oh so they have the aquatic Centre ba thats a piece of junk.
I love Cornwall. I’ll never leave now. We have the politest bus drivers in Canada. The cleanest streets. Next to no graffiti. Next to no street crime. Strangers say hello. Clerks actually seem to really care. A job can be had. It has newspapers, radio stations, hospitals and a growing dynamic of a living city. It’s not a small Canadian city, it’s a big county town with fun places to shop and people to talk to. It’s a focal point beneath a magnifying glass. I see lots and lots of baby strollers. People are dug in. The city got beat up for awhile. Cornwall doesn’t need to get beat up anymore. It’s a town named Sue and if you take the time to talk to the young people here you can see the embers glowing, their risk taking ability, artistic out reach and heart. Through out all the problems not just localized but nationally a lot of towns disappeared off the map with fewer issues. One does have to give credit to those who were sitting at the table making the decisions, that in the end, collectively got everyone to this point. I’d say the future of Cornwall will put Manhattan, Paris and Berlin to shame.
Roy Berger you are one of the “HONKEY TONK” Cornholites walking around blindly. There is absolutely nothing in Cornhole except for drugs and drunks and no jobs at all. People have left since many long years ago and will never ever return to such a hillbilly hole in the ground. People have no choice but to leave for better.
When someone posted about a radio station in Toronto laughing at Cornhole I am not kidding any of you I went through this on a personal basis in the federal government. Everyone laughed about Cornhole and that is the God’s truth. I lower my head so low in shame when I say that I am from Cornhole.
And people wonder why we have issues here. It’s comments like this that do not serve us any good.