Quote:
Originally Posted by Ferreth
In comparison to other Canadian cities, I agree Calgary is doing quite well in terms of sprawl. My impression of the cities I've been to in Canada:
Edmonton - the city is not that much different than Calgary - it falls down on the numerous bedroom communities that increase its effective sprawl. Calgary was lucky it didn't have a bunch of small towns Airdrie distance out, or we could be in the same boat.
Winnipeg has a ring road issue - new growth has occurred around the ring road; leaving large gaps of no or under-utilized land between it and the city proper. On top of it, the slow growth of the city overall seems to have resulted in a parasitic effect of new 'burbs stealing wealth from some central older areas, turning some of them into run down areas.
Vancouver sprawls partly due to it's geography. It also has some pretty good density thanks to its geography. Constraining the growth with ocean to the west, mountains to the north, and river jump to the south helps a lot to get some density going. The Skytrain is helping too, with new high density being built where ever there is Skytrain service. Calgary needs to push more of that with LRT (but LRT capacity needs to be there too).
Ottawa - I didn't spend a lot of time here - but I get the impression, backed up by looking at maps, that the city is a quilt work of development and greenfield extending way further out than it needs to. I seem to recall an issue with multi-city governance and greenbelt attempts resulting in this patchwork of leapfrogging to the next possible development area. I give it my vote as the worst sprawl.
Toronto - it's so huge. I didn't appreciate it's size until I was stuck on on the 401. Since I had time, I'm trying to see the DT skyline. Never did through the haze. My understanding is that it's similar to looking at the Calgary skyline from the 22X. Trying to compare TO's sprawl is like comparing Saskatoon to Calgary - sure, it can be done, but what's the point?
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I agree mostly except:
1. Winnipeg does not have much development outside of the Ring Road at all, and I find the downtown is improving. The roads in the burbs are not nearly as wide as the roads in Calgary, come to think of it, most roads in winnipeg are much more narrow than ours.
2. Toronto may have been having wildfires? Or is the smog really that bad?
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