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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 7:35 AM
megadude megadude is online now
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Which Canadian Cities have Suburbs?

Was reading the Proposals thread and someone pointed out that Kelowna has suburbs. I've never thought of it that way. Though I've never been there.

So other than the obvious cities, which cities do locals consider to have suburbs or describe their town as a suburb? Like has anyone ever said I come from Innisfil, it's a suburb of Barrie? Or does someone from Grimsby (in the Hamilton CMA, though in Niagara Region) ever say I live in a suburb of Hamilton?

Which cities are on their way to being considered a regional hub that people will start to consider it having suburbs and not just towns within the CMA?

Hamilton pre-amalgamation I can picture people in Dundas, Flamboro or Ancaster occasionally telling someone from out of province that they live in a town called Ancaster, it's a suburb of Hamilton, and so on.

I've heard others in the Ontario section mention Windsor suburbs and even though I went to school there a long time ago, I never thought of those towns as suburbs, but rather towns in the same county or just nearby towns.

Speaking of counties, this is similar to a thread I started a couple of years ago where I asked if people say the live in such and such county as opposed to just saying the town or city they live in.

There are several populous and well known Ontario cities and I've talked to many people who come from nearby towns who, for example, say I'm from St. Thomas, just outside London.

Quebec I can't comment on much on due to the language thing, but how about Trois Rivieres?

Out east, there are small cities that are regional hubs or capitals. Do Saint John, Freddy, Moncton and Charlottetown have suburbs?

I assume Regina and Saskatoon have suburbs, but how much is the term suburb used there?
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 9:03 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by megadude View Post
Was reading the Proposals thread and someone pointed out that Kelowna has suburbs. I've never thought of it that way. Though I've never been there.

So other than the obvious cities, which cities do locals consider to have suburbs or describe their town as a suburb? Like has anyone ever said I come from Innisfil, it's a suburb of Barrie? Or does someone from Grimsby (in the Hamilton CMA, though in Niagara Region) ever say I live in a suburb of Hamilton?

Which cities are on their way to being considered a regional hub that people will start to consider it having suburbs and not just towns within the CMA?

Hamilton pre-amalgamation I can picture people in Dundas, Flamboro or Ancaster occasionally telling someone from out of province that they live in a town called Ancaster, it's a suburb of Hamilton, and so on.

I've heard others in the Ontario section mention Windsor suburbs and even though I went to school there a long time ago, I never thought of those towns as suburbs, but rather towns in the same county or just nearby towns.

Speaking of counties, this is similar to a thread I started a couple of years ago where I asked if people say the live in such and such county as opposed to just saying the town or city they live in.

There are several populous and well known Ontario cities and I've talked to many people who come from nearby towns who, for example, say I'm from St. Thomas, just outside London.

Quebec I can't comment on much on due to the language thing, but how about Trois Rivieres?

Out east, there are small cities that are regional hubs or capitals. Do Saint John, Freddy, Moncton and Charlottetown have suburbs?

I assume Regina and Saskatoon have suburbs, but how much is the term suburb used there?
Uh...are you confused about what a suburb is? Virtually every city has suburbs. Maybe somewhere tiny like Charlottetown doesn't but that's pretty much it.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 11:24 AM
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Uh...are you confused about what a suburb is? Virtually every city has suburbs. Maybe somewhere tiny like Charlottetown doesn't but that's pretty much it.
Virtually any community over 15-20,000 people has suburbs. Charlottetown has two decent sized suburban towns (Stratford & Cornwall)
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 11:31 AM
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Does the city of Peterborough (pop: 81K) have one? Do we consider Norwood and Havelock to be its suburb?
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 1:30 PM
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Originally Posted by MonctonRad View Post
Virtually any community over 15-20,000 people has suburbs. Charlottetown has two decent sized suburban towns (Stratford & Cornwall)
Maybe not. I mean yes nearby smaller towns, but whether or not they'd be considered a suburb ie "part of the town".

Of the top of my head, I wouldn't really say Brantford has any suburbs. Subdivisions at the edges of town yes, but I wouldn't really consider those to be "suburbs". The town of Paris is nearby but nobody considers it to be "part" of Brantford.

Same with Woodstock, it seems pretty standalone to me, Ingersoll is just the next town the road, not a "suburb" of Woodstock.

So I think that "threshold" is a little higher, at least in this part of the country with a relatively dense amount of towns and cities.

Quote:
Originally Posted by megadude
Speaking of counties, this is similar to a thread I started a couple of years ago where I asked if people say the live in such and such county as opposed to just saying the town or city they live in.
I and a lot of people I know do that. I'm from Norfolk County. My address was Norwich, but that was 10 km away, I didn't live IN Norwich. And before that I lived in LaSalette, which is a road sign and a closed church. So not particularly useful for telling anyone other than pretty local people. A few other contributing factors are that there was also only one Catholic high school for the county so there were people from all the different towns. And after de-amalgamation with Haldimand, there are no more towns or townships, only the municipality of Norfolk. Some of the sports teams use it as well, as well as events like the Norfolk County Fair.

Of course, once you get past Brantford and Woodstock, still nobody knows where it is, and I have to revert back to "in the country south of Brantford" Unless they know Dover due to Friday the 13tth.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 2:06 PM
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Originally Posted by Spocket View Post
Uh...are you confused about what a suburb is? Virtually every city has suburbs. Maybe somewhere tiny like Charlottetown doesn't but that's pretty much it.
Uh, are you confused about my post? You're taking the question literally only and ignoring the part where I'm asking if people use the word "suburb" in practical terms.

So when I ask the question about whether those cities out east have suburbs it's implied that I mean do people actually say they have suburbs, not just technically whether they have suburbs or not.

Look at how close those NB cities are to each other, particularly Fredy and Saint John. Oromocto is town I've heard of many times and is just outside Fredy. Would anyone consider that a suburb? I mean, when I googled it, the wiki page didn't say anything about it being a suburb.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 2:10 PM
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In places that have undergone mergers between adjacent suburbs and the city proper to create a unicity or megacity, it's still common for people to refer to more peripheral, less dense parts of the new city proper as the "suburbs". For example in Ottawa places like Orleans, Kanata and Barrhaven as the suburbs. In Toronto Rob Ford was said to have been elected by suburban voters, ie people in lower density parts of Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York that are now part of Toronto proper. I think that this type of nomenclature is slowing dying out, but it's still there.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 2:15 PM
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Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
In places that have undergone mergers between adjacent suburbs and the city proper to create a unicity or megacity, it's still common for people to refer to more peripheral, less dense parts of the new city proper as the "suburbs". For example in Ottawa places like Orleans, Kanata and Barrhaven as the suburbs. In Toronto Rob Ford was said to have been elected by suburban voters, ie people in lower density parts of Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York that are now part of Toronto proper. I think that this type of nomenclature is slowing dying out, but it's still there.
Would you consider Manor Park, Alta Vista, Overbrook, Nepean, etc to be suburbs of Ottawa? I do. Heck I still remember the time I referred to the Glebe as a suburb.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 2:23 PM
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Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue View Post
Does the city of Peterborough (pop: 81K) have one? Do we consider Norwood and Havelock to be its suburb?
Good question. That's one of the cities I was wondering about given that it's the only sizable city up by cottage country. Well that and Barrie, I guess. Though Barrie is pretty much adjacent to the GTA, while Peterborough is not.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 2:31 PM
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Originally Posted by kwoldtimer View Post
Would you consider Manor Park, Alta Vista, Overbrook, Nepean, etc to be suburbs of Ottawa? I do. Heck I still remember the time I referred to the Glebe as a suburb.
Manor Park - no
Alta Vista - no
Overbrook - no

Nepean is borderline. The innermost parts of Nepean that are right up against the old city proper's borders I probably wouldn't consider to be "in the suburbs". I am thinking of areas near Baseline and Merivale, Prince of Wales and Meadowlands, and even the areas around Bayshore.

Once you go further south along Merivale and Woodroffe (near the Sportsplex) that is more "in the suburbs" to me.

Similarly, parts of the former Gloucester that are just east of St. Laurent Blvd. I wouldn't refer to as "in the suburbs".

Areas in the south end that were always part of the former Ottawa city proper like Hunt Club and Conroy feel more like you're in the suburbs than many parts of the former Nepean and Gloucester do.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 2:31 PM
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Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
In places that have undergone mergers between adjacent suburbs and the city proper to create a unicity or megacity, it's still common for people to refer to more peripheral, less dense parts of the new city proper as the "suburbs". For example in Ottawa places like Orleans, Kanata and Barrhaven as the suburbs. In Toronto Rob Ford was said to have been elected by suburban voters, ie people in lower density parts of Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York that are now part of Toronto proper. I think that this type of nomenclature is slowing dying out, but it's still there.
Ya, I've heard that too when it comes to elections. I'd say huh? Okay, I know what they mean, but it sounds odd to me when they say it.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 2:55 PM
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If you use the technical definition, Calgary doesn't have much in the way of suburbs (Airdrie, Cochrane, Okotoks and Chestermere are small and separated). But Calgary's built form is very suburban. It's a confused term.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 3:02 PM
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For Freddy, Oromocto is NOT a suburb; it is its own distinct town that services CFB Gagetown mainly and has surprisingly (and/or annoyingly) little to do with Freddy itself.

Freddy's suburbs would be places like Lincoln, New Maryland, Marysville (part of the city but semi-distinct), Silverwood and Hanwell. Some are part of the city, others are not; but they are all closely tied to the city.

Saint John certainly has suburbs, and effectively has a suburb problem. Most of its suburbs are communities outside of the city limits, but they still heavily commute into the city and use city resources, which is the source of much of SJ's tax base problems. SJ has to effectively service a city of 100k on a taxbase of 75k (numbers somewhat made up but that's their main problem). Every time SJ tries to get its outer communities to fairly pay for their services (like rink/ice time, or a portion of Harbour Station or whatnot), the uproar gets the local politicians to back off before they can implement it.


Moncton also has suburbs of course, but they tend to be more tightly integrated into the tri-city for the most part. Salisbury is at the edge of the Moncton sphere, but I wouldn't quite call it a suburb of the city. But going out to Sackville or Shediac, you can see suburban development along those routes.

So of NB's Big 3, they all certainly have suburbs. SJ is in the worst situation by far in trying to wrangle its suburbs, and it's paying the price for it.

Freddy for the most part has its suburbs under control, though it does have some outliers that may grow into problems if it doesn't pay attention. (The Kingswood Entertainment Centre being in Hanwell and not in the city might be one thorn for example, and the city has had issues trying to get its outer communities to fairly pay for city services in the past).

Moncton seems to be in a similar boat as Fredericton; I can't say much beyond that because I haven't heard much one way or another.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 4:55 PM
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In Southern Quebec we have a lot of regional (capitals) hubs of 50k to 100k people. Every regional hub is surrounded by small satellite cities.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 4:56 PM
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Well I'm definitely the only person in town who uses the term suburbs in Castlegar lol. If the definition is communities whose citizens have to come into town for everything then we got lots.
These places barely have a corner store so maybe they're just bedroom communities?
Tarrys
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Only half of our population live in town which is one reason we have so many.
All but Robson say Castlegar on their mailing address.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 10:54 PM
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^ That's what I was going for. I was wondering if outside the big cities people actual refer to satellite towns of small cities (but regional hubs) as suburbs.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2020, 11:50 PM
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Originally Posted by Denscity View Post
Well I'm definitely the only person in town who uses the term suburbs in Castlegar lol. If the definition is communities whose citizens have to come into town for everything then we got lots.
These places barely have a corner store so maybe they're just bedroom communities?
Tarrys
Thrums
Glade
Shoracres
Robson
Raspberry
Pass Creek
Brilliant
Ootischenia
Fairview

Only half of our population live in town which is one reason we have so many.
All but Robson say Castlegar on their mailing address.
I described Malakwa as "sort of a suburb of Revelstoke" but I don't think anyone else there would. Lake Country also feels like the combined suburbs of Vernon and Kelowna to me but I'm not sure if this is how people in the Okanogan think of it or how it functions in practice.

In NS there are areas that are considered suburbs of Halifax, suburbs of Sydney, suburbs of Truro. But there are also areas that are suburban in practice and in form but aren't really referred to as such (particularly New Minas and the cluster of towns around New Glasgow - they're all just considered distinct towns within their given regions even though they're not really different the communities that are considered suburbs)

Halifax and Sydney are somewhat unique within Canada in that most of their suburbs are not incorporated as separate communities (since the 90s). So most of their "suburbs" are technically not suburbs by some definitions, since they're not politically independent from the central urban cores. Halifax basically has two suburbs that fall partially outside HRM (Hubbards and Elmsdale) but all of the main ones are governed by the same City Hall. There are of course people who commute to Halifax from other towns outside HRM but most of these are fairly inward-focused and not really considered suburbs.

I think there are a lot of cities where the term "suburb" is very culturally engrained and others where it's not. In Halifax each successive ring of development outside of the immediate downtown was considered as suburb at one point or another. The "Old South Suburb" is one of the least suburban neighbourhoouds in Canada by today's standards. Neighbourhoods like The Annex and Kerrisdale were considered suburbs when originally conceived. Some people still consider Westmount a suburb
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  #18  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2020, 12:04 AM
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Originally Posted by megadude View Post
Quebec I can't comment on much on due to the language thing, but how about Trois Rivieres?
I'm pretty sure the municipal mergers have contributed to lowering the number of times the fringe areas are refered as suburbs (as Acajack pointed out about Ontario), and that trend is continuing from what I can perceive.

However no mergers went across the River therefore Longueuil, Bécancour and Lévis continue to exist as suburbs. Though all three of them are a bunch of previously independent cities as well, merged into an unicity.
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Old Posted Jan 15, 2020, 12:38 AM
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New Westminster, British Columbia, has suburbs which include Burnaby, Surrey, Coquitlam, and Vancouver.
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  #20  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2020, 12:44 AM
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Actually, if I recall population figures correctly, it's Surrey that has suburbs (Burnaby, Vancouver, New Westminster, Coquitlam).

(Unrelated, but holy crap, -8C right now over there according to Google Maps!)
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