Quote:
Originally Posted by Doady
If people of the USA make a bigger deal about the choosing to live in the city instead of living in the suburbs, that's because it is a bigger deal there. Canadian urban areas are not as polarized or divided. Canadian cities and their suburbs are more connected and unified, the suburbs are more extensions of the city, and that is reflected in their high transit ridership and multi-family housing. The lack of unity between cities and suburbs is the root cause, not the car culture or lack of high-rise culture. Teenagers driving and lack of high-rises are just symptoms.
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City vs suburbs are different concepts in the US and Canada due to amalgamation.
2/3 of Toronto is quite suburban,but with high rise clusters adding a lot of density. All of Calgary is basically suburban,with very few high rise clusters and low density. A Denverite moving to the suburbs of Lakewood or Aurora is just like a Calgarian moving from a single family house next to downtown to some outlying areas that still happens to be in Calgary city proper. Same for someone in Toronto moving to somewhere in the northwest corner of Toronto proper to Brampton
Montreal is the big exception in that the city proper has a vastly different built environment than the core suburbs. Similar to NYC, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other older cities, not surprisingly. Moving from Mont-Royal to Laval would be a big "deal" for someone in Montreal, in that it would entail a very different lifestyle, transit or no.
The difference in the built environment between Denver and its suburbs and Calgary is very small. the difference in their transit ridership is huge. It might come down to service, or somewhat more multinodal urban form, or cultural elements, but it's not because Denver is somehow polarized or exhibits Detroit-esque characteristics which you seem to assume all American cities do.
Conversely do you really think there is lack of unity between Boston and its inner suburbs (Charlestown/Cambridge/Brookline/Somerville etc)? They are completely seamless extensions of Bostons built environment. Yet transit ridership is lower in Boston with 2 MM people in a densely populated areas full of multifamily and tightly packed single family homes, than in Toronto. Again, its service frequency/car culture/multi-nodality and not detroit-esque urban issues driving the difference.