The Whalley Factor
Technically it’s called Whalley. Although I usually say Cedar Hills (nobody knows where that is really unless you live here) or North Surrey.
The problem with living in Whalley is that, well it’s Whalley. What good has anyone ever heard about it? I suppose if anything, people might know that we have a pretty darn good Little League team and the Lions practice here. The thing about Surrey is that it’s a huge place with hundreds of thousands of residents. Inevitably there is going to be problems. But there are many lovely neighbourhoods and it’s not called the City of Parks for nothing.
I recently told someone from the Island that I lived in Surrey, expecting the usual response. He then said, ‘I like Surrey. Nice, real people there’ and I’d have to agree with him. Although there are many wealthy parts of the city, there is very little pretentiousness. You’d be hard pressed to find a pint-sized pooch being carried around in any fake or real designer purse and there is not a single Lululemon or Bebe between here and oh, Metrotown.
Now some would think that, what would now be considered an ‘inner city school’ such as ‘West Whalley’ 
would have had hallways filled with pregnant teenage girls and hardcore drug users. Not to say that our school was in anyway perfect but it was far from the stereotype. Of course it’s now called Kwantlen Park Secondary, which sounds a lot less harsh, doesn’t it?
What I’ve come to realize is that we are luckily products of our environment. My friends and family were, and are people with strong work ethics, great jobs, wonderful families and lovely homes. People that had direction in their lives and knew that things don’t come easily so we worked for them from day one. So, ya we are from Surrey and we call Whalley home and so do about 75,000 others.
del.icio.us
digg this
newsvine
reddit
magnolia
January 28th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
I feel like we’re always trying to defend Surrey. HEY I’ve seen mullets downtown too ya know
We shouldn’t have to be ashamed of where we came from, every town around here has its blemishes and it’s all we can do to rise above the stereotypes and break those preset molds cast by other Lower Mainlanders.
January 28th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
You know, I swear that I heard a kid trying to convince his mom to let him have a mullet the other day, and this was walking around the west end. I caught it while walking past them. Something along the lines of the kid saying, “…but it’d just be long in the back. I’d keep it shorter on the top. Ok?… mom?”
January 29th, 2007 at 6:04 am
haha, i love random downtown conversations that i overhear.
Anyways, i think there are two types of people in this world.
1. People who love surrey
2. People who have never been to surrey
Even the old ozone, people used to bash it and never set foot in it. But once they went there they said “OMG this place is fun”.
And at least we have free parking everywhere and huge parking lots in surrey and TWO wal marts
January 29th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
It didn’t help that we were the ‘Trojans’ either
January 29th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
I was on a baseball team called “nasty boys” back in 1990
We later learned it was also the name of a manchat phone line thingy
January 30th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
This brings back so many memories from when we were both at WW, and yes back then the building sure looked like an “inner city school” but the people (including most of the teachers) were great — typical Surrey. Even our previous school wasn’t much better off and it wasn’t _really_ in Whalley, Riverdale was right behind that strip mall which was firebombed more times than I can count.
Long live the Trojans! Long live Whalley Little League (5-time National champs)!
June 5th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
I don’t live in Surrey, but grew up in Surrey. I am a Realtor based in Surrey and Langley. There is hardly any other community that offers the diverse life style that Surrey has to offer. Even today you can find single bedroom apartment for less than 175K in Surrey, close to the Skytrain stations. On the other end, there are multi-million dollar properties as well.
In a few years, Whalley would be model that other communities would look to. No other lower mailand city does as much as Surrey to attract business.
September 15th, 2007 at 11:09 am
With the way real estate prices are going in the Vancouver area, 20-somethings like myself are hard-pressed to afford anything in Vancouver proper without making 100k a year. Even the prices in Burnaby and Richmond have become overly inflated and that’s why newer developments in Surrey, Coquitlam, and New Westminster have become so attractive. I saw an ad in the paper for a new condo development near the Gateway Skytrain station in Whalley with prices starting at $159,000. You can’t even find a 30+ year old, 500 sq ft. apartment in Vancouver for that price.
October 13th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
i used to live in whalley, i went to WW secondaray, what a school that was LOL we smoked weed in the classrooms and drank at lunchtime sold drugs and it was the funnest time of my life haha wish i could go back
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:20 pm
HI everybody, I just moved to whalley from downtown eastside, and lived in Whalley for 3 years, believe me , its not what people say and think. Better than living along hasting from commercial drive all the way to the old woodwards, chinatown area. I feel proud of telling people that I lived in Whalley, so what, what’s wrong with it. There are so many new condos are being built here , As I m not the only one that lived here, what about hundreds of thousand people that grew up and lived here all there lives.
They can’t be all drug dealers , or drug addicts, or hookers. Anyway , I like it here , and will never moved back to vancouver. pst, its also good investment here too.