Waterloo and York Regions – Two Tech Hubs compared
We wouldn’t say that they are eating our lunch exactly but a recent story on itbusiness.ca titled, “How York Region became a larger tech hub than Kitchener Waterloo” caught our interest.
The Regional Municipality of York with nine towns and cities (including Markham and Vaughan) is the home to 4,300 tech companies, second only to Toronto in raw numbers, and on a per-capita basis, York Region has more tech companies that any other region in Canada.
York Region, like Waterloo Region has geographical advantages by being close to the GTA, but offers both small city and suburban lifestyles. Businesses like to cluster around locations where talent and money are already plentiful. And people like to settle fairly close to work in order to avoid long and tedious commutes.
Relocation
We know from a relocation point of view that York Region and Waterloo Region are similar in terms of having great neighbourhoods, with good schools but still offering young urban lifestyles with coffeeshops, restaurants and nightlife.
Similarities aside, we’ve seen quite a few former York Region Residents move here as one (of many) notable advantages of Waterloo Region is that our housing is much more affordable.