How "country" are you when there's a Starbucks a mile away? Yes, it's true we're getting brand-new Starbucks just a five-minute drive from our house. I don't think this is going to change my coffee habits too much. My garden helpers rave about my coffee. I always grind the beans fresh for our mid-morning coffee break. The two gals who help me part-time both love coffee, so this break is much appreciated.
The reason we have Starbucks (and Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire and the Future Shop) so close by is that we're located at the line where the city ends and the country begins.
This land used to be ripe for speculators, but it's now part of "The Greenbelt" (click on map to see larger), an area stretching from Niagara, through Hamilton and Toronto and past Oshawa. This is an area that is not supposed to be developed. I have no idea whether this is a good thing for our property value or not. But, then we had no choice: our land was simply slotted into the "greenbelt" without any personal notice to us because in Canada we don't have such a thing as property rights.*
The good thing about being in this no-development zone is that the 50 or so trees we planted on our 10 acres have a good chance of growing to maturity unmolested. The tree farm behind us and the golf course across from us can't be developed either, and that means good dog walking for a long time to come. My personal nightmare would be having a subdivision built around us.
That could happen one day in the future - governments can uncreate greenbelts as well as create them, but by that time I'm sure we'll not be around to care.
*By that I mean although we have a Charter Rights and Freedoms, property rights are not specifically included.
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