Canada's performance is not really that spectacular. It is kind of like a country long undergone bad times suddenly going better. The same is happening with NZ - it is touted that we never have had this good since 1968 with...4.8% of unemployment and 3.5% economic growth each year from 2000 onwards. But in real monetary terms, all countries' salaries are growing by the same amount.
When you look carefully in NZ's case, people still leave home for jobs overseas, and the average Kiwi is still very poor. To illustrate my point, let me introduce Joe Average, a typical married middle class family living in Northcote in Auckland. They together earn $80,000 ( = US$56,800. This is already the upper median level income for New Zealand), and with marginal tax rate of 33% they got only $61,400. Add to it medical insurance which is very likely to run about $3000 (in NZ it is not as common to see medical insurance included under employee benefit packages), a 3 bedroom house costing at least $450,000 (=US$319,500) and two cars each costing about $40,000 to $60,000 the middle class is marginal poor by US standards. By my personal conversations with my uncle it is very similar with Canada. And the most lethal point is that consumer goods costs the same in New Zealand as in the US, even after assuming the US dollar's weakest level over the past 5 years! Anbd no, I'm not comparing with prices in WalMarts.
So what would you choose? A seemingly booming-like-never-economy that is much poorer even after all these growths, or a seemingly-in-the-tanks economy where the salary is growing at the same rate but with a much richer starting point?
I would choose to be right here in the burgeoning urban sprawl of Charlotte, North Carolina.
I had no idea housing was so expensive in Canada or New Zealand. I wonder why that is, when both countries have so much available space? My original point about US$400,000 houses in my county was not to say that houses were terribly expensive - my family of 9 lives in a new house with plenty of space for well under $200,000 - but that there are obviously a considerable number of people around here with very large incomes.