Edmonton is the capital of oil-rich province Alberta. It has land area of 9,418km2 and a population of over 1 million. It boasts some records:
-It has the largest shopping mall of North America, West Edmonton Mall.
-It has the nick name Festival City, with over 30 festivals a year.
-It is the sunniest city in Canada, with over 2300 hours of sunshine a year.
-It has the largest area of urban parks in North America (22 times the size of New York's Central Park)
-It has the largest open-air retail/entertainment complex in North America, South Edmonton Common.
The North Saskatchewan river and River Valley are big assets for the city. The river winds through the city and downtown in northeast-southwest direction, with 22 parks and 160km of trails and many rolling hills along it. Therefore, Edmonton is naturally beautiful, although it is in the middle of flat prairies.
To beat the cold in winter, downtown underground LRT stations have tunnels leading to surrounding buildings and the buildings themselves are connected to each other by a network of underground and above ground pedestrian walkways.While the bus network covers the whole city, the Light Rail Train has just one line, running from north east to south west. Churchill Square-surrounded by major attractions such as City Hall, Central Library, Art Gallery of Aberta, Winspear Musical Centre and Edmonton City Centre East(shopping mall)-is the bullseye of downtown and the success story of how to build a city square. Most streets in downtown are wide and flat, except the area close to the River Valley. This is a no stress city, as there is no traffic jam.
With average house price of 400,000 and condo price of 243,000 and no provincial sales tax, Edmontonians have strong financial advantage to Vancouverites, but eating out seems to be more expensive.
From here, you can visit 2 Canada's famous national parks: Jasper and Banff.
I have found the answer for my long-time question: how can immigrants from warm countries live in such a cold city like Edmonton? Yes, it is cold in winter but it is the sunniest, it is so lovely, so full of life the rest of the year and it is economically strong.