Quote:
Originally Posted by JHikka
It's an aside, and I had nowhere good to mention it, but Halifax feels bigger than Ottawa. Ottawa's sprawl is soul-sucking, but it really feels like Halifax's downtown core and central areas are more proper big city than Canada's capital. Moving around the peninsula, taking a bridge over to Dartmouth...felt more big city than winding around Ottawa avenues. Two cents.
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I think that's probably more an issue of familiarity. In my experience, the more familiar I am with a place the smaller it seems, I think because knowing exactly where the limits of the place are make the limits seem more concrete and therefore restrictive, while still having unfamiliar places to explore gives a sense of a wealth of possibilities. Also, I can walk/drive around an unfamiliar city and pass through or near areas I've already been in without realizing it since it takes time for them to become familiar. So it can seem like I'm still experiencing new areas when I'm actually not.
I visited Ottawa for the first time in 2015, and as someone familiar with Halifax I didn't find Ottawa seemed especially large but it didn't seem smaller either. The downtown core seems larger and denser and there are more grand historic buildings. On the other hand, Parliament hill itself seems a bit empty and grassy. Space can be used to create a sense of scale and grandeur (something Washington seems to be good at) but in this case it just seemed like a big front lawn, maybe something suitable for a university campus.
But yes, crossing the bridges in Halifax is definitely a more urbane experience. I drove across one bridge in Ottawa and back across another and the only thing I remember is one of them had one of those metal grate decks that make the buzzing sound under the tires.