The city of Mississauga may not have much of an identity as a whole, instead being lumped into the category of suburb or bedroom community of larger Toronto, but if you were to buy real estate nearby, you would quickly find that each Mississauga neighborhood is its own community. That sense of distinctiveness that is missing in the whole can be found in its parts, as easily as if you were comparing Toronto, Guelph, London and Mississauga real estate. If you're considering buying a home here in Mississauga, here's a run down of some of the larger communities.

Cooksville

Cooksville was once a separate town designed as a staging stop on the coach road to Toronto. After urban sprawl caught up with it in the 1960s, however, Cooksville quickly transformed from quiet town into bustling innercity neighborhood. Cooksville is now the main transit hub for Mississauga and is home to a large number of high rises and new Canadians. Living in Cooksville means having to put up with more crowding, but having the best access to amenities and your workplace.

Erin Mills

If planned suburban communities are more along the lines of what you had in mind, check out the neighborhood of Erin Mills. Much of the development occurred in the 1970s, but some of the subdivisions, like Churchill Meadows, were developed just a few years ago. Erin Mills is designed so that residents shop for their groceries and mortgage rate in Mississauga in the commercial area in the center and work in the industrial land that surrounds the community.

Meadowvale

Meadowvale is another example of a former town transforming itself into a neighborhood. It was incorporated into Mississauga in 1968 rapidly changed from a farming town to a suburb. Most of the farmland is gone, replaced with real estate and manicured lawns. Living in this area gives you the best access to big box malls, as the newest portion of the neighborhood, Meadowvale Village, adjoins a business park.

Port Credit

Mississauga contains a large system of rivers, ravines, and Lake Ontario shoreline, and nowhere is it more obvious than in Port Credit. Located at the junction between the Credit River and the Lakeshore, the suburban homes here have water views. The area is also very tight as a community, coming together to host festivals and push for better infrastructure.

Streetsville

While most of the small towns that have been absorbed into greater Mississauga have turned into suburbs with strip malls, Streetsville has managed to retain its small town charm. Residents of Streetsville tend to be more wealthy than average and to think of themselves as a separate entity from the rest of the city. Unlike a planned suburb, the homes here have character.