Born and raised there but moved here in the late 90s. I still have a couple friends there. It’s primarily a government town with some agriculture, manufacturing, O&G, and finance/insurance mixed in. Coming from Calgary it will have a bit more of a small town feel to it but I don’t think you’d be left missing anything from a consumer perspective. Not quite double Red Deer and you have Regina.
With the small town feel comes friendly neighbours and community. For example my friend’s street has a yearly street potluck/party. Mosaic was mentioned earlier and I’d have to agree that’s a pretty amazing multicultural event I haven’t seen done to a similar scale. There was a summer dragon boat festival which was a pretty big deal too. And a winter festival in February I believe (Waskimo).
Also as mentioned above you’ll miss traffic. I always call rush hour there rush 20 minutes. We lived in the south, my dad worked in the north end and he’d be home by 5:20. Downtown parking was also a laugh when I came here. I paid $30 a month for downtown lot parking. Transit wasn’t something anyone worried about. I would image you’d miss the mountains, you might gain lakes though.
Areas: “the east end” is suburbia. University Park was the area in the 90s and now there are a bunch of communities further. I grew up in the 60s era suburbia of Albert Park in the SW being able to look up at planes as they flew overhead nearby being able to count the rivets in the underside. I like the area, I’d just be careful where I went. The new laughably named Harbour Landing further west that has sprawled I’d be careful of, it seem really close to the airport. The southern parts of Whitmore park were once a marsh and did have problems with flooding. Hillsdale by the University has some nice streets and houses. The Cathedral area is the Crescent Heights equivalent with old 191x and 192x houses and the area south of the bridge west of The Ledge had some of the biggest riches houses as I was growing up. As a south end snob, “The north end” was somewhere you didn’t want to live in. Anything just north of the tracks and west of Albert St. was a hard no. Worse than Forest Lawn, you only went through there to get to Taylor Field.
I don’t know if I’d ever really consider moving back there. I feel like I’ve done my 25 years.
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