Halifax, NS

[K Ryan]

Hello, I'm wonder if anyone has information on living in Halifax Nova Scotia, and perhaps more specifically at Dalhousie University. I'm from the absolute opposite side of North America so I'm totally in the dark. Thank you in advances!

[amentley]

Hello, I'm wonder if anyone has information on living in Halifax Nova Scotia, and perhaps more specifically at Dalhousie University. I'm from the absolute opposite side of North America so I'm totally in the dark. Thank you in advances!

I came looking for the same info. I'm from Ontario and know nothing about living on the east coast, let alone Halifax in specific lol Have you gotten your official acceptance in the mail from them yet?

[kittie]

Halifax is a great place to live!

I was there for my undergrad and for my MA and I loved it!

If you're a student at Dal then you want to be within walking distance of the university, so use Dal as your epicenter and then form a square grid around it.

The top of the square is Quinpool Road. It has tons of restaurants, a gym, a huge grocery store, an awesome video store, and it's all within a 10minute walk to campus.

The left of the square is Oxford. The corner of Oxford and Quinpool has the Oxford theatre.

The bottom of the square is South Street, which is Dal and the right of the square is Robie. The corner of Robie and Quinpool has the Holiday Inn hotel.

Within this square are many student apartments ranging from $300 in a shared house to $800 for a studio. The further you venture outside of this grid, the longer the walk and differences in rent prices, higher for downtown around Barrington, cheaper for above Quinpool, such as Chebucto and Connaught.

But one thing you have to consider is your access to grocery stores. There isn't one very close to Dal, so you'll end up paying alot more for food when you go to a corner store or you'll have to walk a long way carrying groceries, often during inclement weather.

If you're going to be on campus, I would just get a meal plan, regardless of whether you are a grad student or not.

Halifax is a very safe city but the area around South street and S.Park is a bit rough. It's by the hospital and a notorious student apartment called Fenwick towers. You do not want to live there!

I lived for years on campus in Henderson House.

One year on Chebucto and Beech.

One year on Seymour street, which was almost on campus.

Two years on Pepperell and Oxford.

Then one last year on Harvard and Oxford, so you can see I'm big fun of the Quinpool area! I'm a slow walker and it still only took me 15 minutes to walk to campus. Living in Halifax, you do a lot of walking, but it never feels like a chore!

Good luck to you!

[thepoorstockinger]

Halifax is a great place to live!

I was there for my undergrad and for my MA and I loved it!

If you're a student at Dal then you want to be within walking distance of the university, so use Dal as your epicenter and then form a square grid around it.

The top of the square is Quinpool Road. It has tons of restaurants, a gym, a huge grocery store, an awesome video store, and it's all within a 10minute walk to campus.

The left of the square is Oxford. The corner of Oxford and Quinpool has the Oxford theatre.

The bottom of the square is South Street, which is Dal and the right of the square is Robie. The corner of Robie and Quinpool has the Holiday Inn hotel.

Within this square are many student apartments ranging from $300 in a shared house to $800 for a studio. The further you venture outside of this grid, the longer the walk and differences in rent prices, higher for downtown around Barrington, cheaper for above Quinpool, such as Chebucto and Connaught.

But one thing you have to consider is your access to grocery stores. There isn't one very close to Dal, so you'll end up paying alot more for food when you go to a corner store or you'll have to walk a long way carrying groceries, often during inclement weather.

If you're going to be on campus, I would just get a meal plan, regardless of whether you are a grad student or not.

Halifax is a very safe city but the area around South street and S.Park is a bit rough. It's by the hospital and a notorious student apartment called Fenwick towers. You do not want to live there!

I lived for years on campus in Henderson House.

One year on Chebucto and Beech.

One year on Seymour street, which was almost on campus.

Two years on Pepperell and Oxford.

Then one last year on Harvard and Oxford, so you can see I'm big fun of the Quinpool area! I'm a slow walker and it still only took me 15 minutes to walk to campus. Living in Halifax, you do a lot of walking, but it never feels like a chore!

Good luck to you!

I grew up in Halifax and did my first degree there. One thing to keep in mind is that people's understanding of space in Halifax is really strange. For example, there is a grocery store literally 800 meters (a 10 minute walk) from campus but this is considered far by students.

If you are willing to commute/bike/walk a bit you can save a huge amount of money on rent and live in a near neighbourhood. The area that "kittie" is talking about is loud, expansive and often referred to as the "student ghetto", despite being mostly nice century homes. Rent in Halifax is generally a bit pricier than similar sized cities but the area between Quinpool Road and Saint Mary's University is the most overpriced part of the city due to the the fact that there are four universities within that block. I've lived there and it is super convenient but not cheap or quiet.

The two "hip" but affordable neighbourhoods are the "North End" and increasingly Downtown Dartmouth (or as some folks are now calling it DDT - Dartmouth Down Town). I'll be moving back to one of these two neighbourhoods in the fall. You can get from the "shallow" north end to campus in 20 minutes on foot or 5 minutes on a bike or in a car. Dartmouth is on the other side of the harbour so if you're downtown (and you don't want to be anywhere else in Dartmouth) looking at a 10-20 minute car commute, 30 minutes by bike depending on how fast you climb hills and about 30 minutes by public transit (DDT to Dal is well served by buses and ferries).

Two things to keep in mind: most bus routes run infrequently and Dalhousie (as well as SMU, AST, King's and NSCAD) are very much urban campuses. I took it for granted when I was there but the universities really are part of the city and you can easily leave campus for downtown very easily. This is a good thing compared to universities way out on the edge of town.

A friend (and former boss) of mine has been building this map collaboratively with a bunch of people for awhile. Its basically a map of how Haligonians view neighbourhoods in the city in terms of boundaries: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=107162203978532359265.000466ce0e68251d1937b&ll=44.664746,-63.609467&spn=0.252483,0.560989&z=11

My neighbourhood suggestions for grad students:

Central Halifax is where the previous poster is talking about living. It's convenient, filled with undergrads and expensive.

The South End also has lots of students and parts of it are even more expensive than central Halifax. You might be able to find some deals, but the area near the grain piers can get a bit sketchy.

Rosebank is expensive as well but you might be able to find a basement apartment there.

The West End is great as long as you are south of Bayers Road. Mostly residential but well served by transit and relatively affordable.

The North end is where the art school grads, musicians and working poor live on the peninsula. Some great deals on rent in older buildings can be found here, but you want to check out any place you'd move to carefully since there are also a lot of slum landlords in the area. Lots of cute shops and restos are in this area.

Bloomfield, Gladstone and the hydrostone are all very similar to the North end and good places to look.

Downtown Dartmouth is on the rebound and a lot of locals are calling it "Halifax's Brooklyn." There are a lot of cool coffee shops and restos opening here and rent is the best deal in town. It is a bit of a commute by Halifax standards (but not if you have lived in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, etc.) but might be worth it to get a decent place with an affordable rent. What's listed as "Dartmouth Shore" has a few very nice streets but also some totally sketchy ones. Austenville is super close to the Dartmouth bus terminal and downtown Dartmouth but there isn't a lot of decent stuff to rent there since it is mostly family homes. Hawthorne is also a super easy commute to Halifax (even more so if you have a car) and is one of the best school distracts if you have young children, but it is probably as far east into Dartmouth as you are going to want to get.

Anyway, that is probably more than you need to know about my opinions.

Halifax is a wonderful medium sized city, particularly if you're into things like art and music.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

[karthikeyan_aravind]

Thanks a lot for all your infos on Halifax.

I will be at Halifax from this Fall 2011 (September). If any one is coming down to Halifax this Fall 2011, please join in. It would be really helpful if we can share information and work out off-campus accommodation arrangements together.

[arash_k_90]

Hi, 

These post are for two years ago. Can anybody tell me about cost of living, specially housing in Halifax? I've heard that it's a cheap city relative to other Canadian cities, but when I check rentals online, it's not that cheap at all.

Thank you. 

[sheilarae1]

Thank you in advances!

Edited March 27, 2013 by sheilarae1

[quilledink]

Hi there! I'm living in Halifax at the moment (though moving to Vancouver shortly), and the cost of living here greatly depends on where you're living. Living on the peninsula is much more expensive than it is to live further away -- but then you have to deal with things like commute. It's a lot cheaper to rent with someone else than it is to rent on your own. A decent one bedroom apartment here goes for upwards of $800, with some utilities (commonly provided is heat and water -- don't get a place here without heat included, because you'll be screwed over in the winter). Two bedroom places usually go for anywhere upwards of 1000. These are just generalizations, though, and they're all near the Dalhousie campus. The further north you go on the peninsula, the cheaper it becomes. Also, there are some places to avoid: primarily, the Gottigen street area or in that neighbourhood (north is good, northeast, not so much). They're not horrible, but there's a lot more crime (not great at night). Also, closer to the university campuses means more noise on holidays when students are out partying. Halifax is very much a student city, at least on the peninsula, as it has something like 5 universities.

If you're thinking about moving further away and communting, be aware that we had a month long bus strike last year. They signed a contract that's supposed to go til 2016, I believe, so if you think you're going to be here then, just keep that in mind (of course, you can always move in the interim).

 

Aside from rent, food here is pretty expensive. Produce generally has to be imported, especially during the winter (I've seen avacados go up to as much as $2/each before). Tax is also 15%, so it makes a lot of things quite expensive. On the other hand, local produce tends to keep its pricing within reasonable limits (so food like apples, really...).

 

If you have any specific questions, feel free to PM me!

 

Edit: what the posters kittie and thepoorstockinger above were saying about the different neighbourhoods still holds true, for the most part

Edited March 29, 2013 by quilledink