Just spent 9 days in Lisbon. VERY different urban pattern there, though they do have their "suburban" parts. Unless you're out in the country though one to two storey buildings are rare. Much of the city is 6-floor buildings, many of which are old by our standards but "new" by theirs (the central city had to be rebuilt after a massive earthquake and tsunami in 1755). In some cases an original 4 floor building has had additions on top, which still look old but maybe by design.
Anyway, it's all very dense, interspersed by squares. And as you wander through, it makes for a very interesting feeling. Easy to get lost, but I enjoy doing so when I have that kind of time.
They have some modern towers but they're not in the central districts, and not all that tall (75 to 110m for the tallest handful... there's a hotel that is taller on account of a spire, but it's not near the core)
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=803
Hamilton would be extremely different with the same scale of architecture just because of our broader grid system of streets, that also tend to be wider. But what if we had an urban policy that demanded podiums no taller than 6 or 7 floors, with towers set back? Care more about the design of the podiums than that of the towers? Dare to imagine.
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