Cities that Halifax could learn from

[terrynorthend]

I have a friend who is spending some time in Wellington, NZ. She posted pictures this New Year's, and I was entranced by the city's beauty and cosmopolitan appearance. Upon doing a little "wikipedia" travel, I was stunned to find out that it has a population very close to that of Halifax. They have a beautiful and dense CBD on the shores of an attractive and functional harbour, an active cafe culture, four electric suburban rail lines, a new 40,000 seat waterfront stadium. Great bush trails and rural parkland interspersed throughout the urban tracts. The population - 385,000. They have focused commercial growth in the CBD and consequently 62,000 people work in the core, nearly the same as work in Auckland's CBD, a city of over 1,000,000.

Take a look. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington)

Comments? Any other cities that anyone thinks have good ideas that Halifax good benefit from?

[mmmatt]

I personally think Hali is doing very well for its size already. :)

Just for the record Wellington has an Urban population of 381,900, compared to Halifaxs urban population of 282,924. That might be why they are doing bigger things.

[MonctonRad]

I looked at the Wiki article (I love Wikipedia, both mmmatt and I are Wikipedia editors).

Wellington no doubt benefits from being a national capital and this probably helps to contribute to the urban feel and cosmopolitan development of the area.

Personally, I am a strong proponent of urban rail transportation and I think Halifax would be well placed to benefit from such a system. Wellington could be an example for you from this regard.

Halifax already has a very dense downtown. Unfortunately, the preservationists in your city seem to be contributing to a developmental paralysis in your downtown core which is quite distressing. Having said that, I firmly believe that "historical districts" are very important cultural attributes for any community and Halifax, with it's assests in this regard, could be a national leader in sustainable downtown development. All it will take is for all the players to get together around a table and, with a spirit of progressive thinking and compromise, decide what the future appearance of your downtown core will be. There has to be a place in Halifax both for skyscrapers and for significant historical buildings and districts.

Wellington seems to have made good use of their harbour. Halifax is blessed with an excellent harbour as well, which contributes greatly to the uniqueness of your downtown. The harbour should remain the focal point for downtown Halifax, but in my opinion, this focus should be on residential and commercial development rather than port or industrial facilities. In particular, Halterm should be relocated and all of it's lands given over to urban renewal. Just think, you could put a new downtown stadium there, surrounded by dense residential development with good viewplanes of the harbour. The Halterm docks could be redeveloped for additional cruise ship facilities with new waterfront boutiques and cafes. The railcut could then be used for commuter rail rather than container traffic. The possibilities are endless.

Halifax is doing well, but it could learn something from Wellington (or other cities). Hopefully Halifax will continue progressing towards greatness.

[worldlyhaligonian]

Unfortunately we have an utter lack of leadership for the next 4 years.

[someone123]

The national capital aspect probably does have a lot to do with it since it's relatively easy to require that government offices go in the core, and they might make up a larger share of overall office space in Wellington.

Something else to point out is that the situation in Halifax is actually much worse than simply not "promoting" office development downtown. Right now the HRM actively promotes office parks and tax rates in the downtown are much higher than in the suburbs, despite the fact that most infrastructure there was paid for long ago. Add development issues on top of that and the HRM is responsible for making places like Burnside a lot more attractive to businesses.

Looks like Wellington has three commuter rail lines. I think it would be totally realistic to start planning and building a light rail/streetcar type system in Halifax that could be improved over time by elevating or burying sections etc. Unfortunately, all of the rail plans I've seen from the city seem to be looking to build a transit system on the cheap - they didn't even look at building other track sections for commuter rail, for example. Apparently the idea is to sit around and wait until there is somehow a perfect series of rail lines just sitting around, waiting for trains. :rolleyes:

Wellington's metro is about 400,000. It is roughly the same size as Halifax, but Halifax may be sprawlier (or might just have a totally different density profile - the peninsula and Clayton Park are densely built up while areas like Fall River are the opposite). It is definitely the best comparison I can think of since Wellington is also a locally "major" city. There's a big difference between cities that are the biggest in their own region and cities that have bigger neighbours next door.

Hobart is another one but is significantly smaller. In the US, cities like Savannah and Charleston are kind of similar but maybe are not good ones to emulate (though they probably have much better heritage preservation rules and funding). There are tons of European cities in the same size range as Halifax that have much better transit systems and are better planned overall.

[Haliguy]

Unfortunately we have an utter lack of leadership for the next 4 years.

True..although I have noticed a bit more leadership from Kelly lately.

I have also noticed the Chamber of Commerce have been keeping a close eye on the mayor and council and have been publicly scolding them when they see they don't like what they see from council.

[mmmatt]

Wellington's metro is about 400,000. It is roughly the same size as Halifax,

Wellington metro is 473,700 in an area of 8140km²
Hali is 372,679 in a 5577km² area

[Keith P.]

Unfortunately we have an utter lack of leadership for the next 4 years.

Maybe we could convince Wellington to swap mayors with us for a few years as an experiment.

[Dmajackson]

Maybe we could convince Wellington to swap mayors with us for a few years as an experiment.

I don't think they'd be able to understand Kelly....:haha:

We don't want anybody else to be doomed....its just not the Haligonian way :yes:

[Barrington south]

and I was entranced by the city's beauty and cosmopolitan appearance.
Many part's of Halifax, to me, have a serious Blue Collar feeling to them. especially the suburbs. Part of the reason for that is that many of the local industries both past and present have been things like the armed services, oil and natural gas exploration, fishing, and in the past ship building,forestry and coal mining. Which all contribute to the city's aesthetically. while they don't all take place directly in the city itself, they do happen in the Provence. and in turn they influence Halifax. Halifax does however have a moderate financial sector due to it's size and the number of people living in the Provence. It had to happen. Add to this the different levels of government and the regional hospitals that we are blessed with and that is reason we are not a giant country town. We are however a working man's town. And it feels that way. So unless you wanted to build Halifax all over again brick by brick (opposed to vinyl siding)it will never have the feeling of a richer cities of a similar size. That does not however excuse city hall from encouraging growth in the suburbs like the RIM development for example. Something like that should have been built in the core...we can't change Halifax's past but we can alter it's future and part of the way we can do that is to emulate city's we admire. There's no shame in recreating what is successful....we don't need to be trendsetters or innovators...we do however need to make the right decisions so that 20 years from now we will all look back and admire the positive growth that has happened in Halifax. Maybe if we do that, be a little like more like Wellington, in terms of growth and urban development, than people will be a little more entranced by Halifax' beauty and cosmopolitan feeling...if we make it happen

[Haliguy]

Wellington metro is 473,700 in an area of 8140km²
Hali is 372,679 in a 5577km² area

Yes but we are talking about metropliton area and Halifax Metro area has 385,000 according to statcan 2007 population count of metro areas . Not to many people live down along the eastern shore.

http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/demo05a-eng.htm

[Haliguy]

Many part's of Halifax, to me, have a serious Blue Collar feeling to them. especially the suburbs. Part of the reason for that is that many of the local industries both past and present have been things like the armed services, oil and natural gas exploration, fishing, and in the past ship building,forestry and coal mining. Which all contribute to the city's aesthetically. while they don't all take place directly in the city itself, they do happen in the Provence. and in turn they influence Halifax. Halifax does however have a moderate financial sector due to it's size and the number of people living in the Provence. It had to happen. Add to this the different levels of government and the regional hospitals that we are blessed with and that is reason we are not a giant country town. We are however a working man's town. And it feels that way. So unless you wanted to build Halifax all over again brick by brick (opposed to vinyl siding)it will never have the feeling of a richer cities of a similar size. That does not however excuse city hall from encouraging growth in the suburbs like the RIM development for example. Something like that should have been built in the core...we can't change Halifax's past but we can alter it's future and part of the way we can do that is to emulate city's we admire. There's no shame in recreating what is successful....we don't need to be trendsetters or innovators...we do however need to make the right decisions so that 20 years from now we will all look back and admire the positive growth that has happened in Halifax. Maybe if we do that, be a little like more like Wellington, in terms of growth and urban development, than people will be a little more entranced by Halifax' beauty and cosmopolitan feeling...if we make it happen

It may have a blue collar feel in a lot of areas it has really turned into a white collar town more so than blue collar.

[Barrington south]

It may have a blue collar feel in a lot of areas it has really turned into a white collar town more so than blue collar.

I agree

[Barrington south]

I meant to imply Halifax roots are a large part blue collar, so the city itself, remains blue collar in a physical sense, but you are right, the modern pop. has transformed into white collar for the most part