Quote:
Originally Posted by flar
I have to agree with someone123. I've lived in a few mid sized cities and there is not a huge qualitative difference between places like Ottawa, Halifax or London, ON. You don't usually get the big city critical mass until you're up past a couple million people. Is Edmonton really a "bigger" city than Winnipeg?
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Its not really, no but the difference between Halifax and Edmonton is more pronounced than "not really any difference" I feel.
That said, the same could be said between larger cities - to some people Toronto might feel larger than London even though London is in fact the (much) larger and more "world class" city, simply because of certain features like the skyline in Toronto is more grand (imo) than London's any day.
Perhaps skyline plays a big role? Calgary feels 3x larger than it really is at times, largely if not borderline exclusively due to the skyline factor. There are tons and tons of tall office towers all over the place downtown, in such a greater number than other mid sized Canadian cities that it "seems" to put Calgary in a league of its own... in fact to me Calgary feels larger than Ottawa, which also feels about the same size as Winnipeg, even though technically Ottawa has a larger CMA than either two cities.
I don't know what I meant to say, but its more along the lines of sometimes one additional landmark in a smaller city can change the entire perception of that city and make it feel larger than or more in league with another city of similar size, whereas with larger cities...I mean look at all the skyscrapers being built in Toronto...doesn't really change Toronto the way it would change a smaller city
However, there certainly is truth to there being a more discernible difference between Toronto and Halifax, than there is with Edmonton and Halifax, that I agree with
But I meant comparatively within larger or smaller cities, respectively, I feel its tougher to feel and see the difference with Toronto vs Chicago than with Edmonton vs Halifax (and Chicago's metro is more populous than Toronto's after all, much more so than the difference between Edmonton and Halifax)
Though this may just be me
Quote:
Originally Posted by ciudad_del_norte
I don't think anybody is suggesting that if you drop somebody in Ottawa or Edmonton they are going to think they are in New York... And obviously population isn't everything. There are many factors that can account for the character of a place. Halifax, for example 'feels' bigger than most other cities I have been to of a similar size. Part of the reason looking at population can be so interesting is that sometimes it doesn't line up with how a city feels. I think it is nearly impossible to take two places like Winnipeg and Edmonton and try to quantify the difference that few hundred thousand makes. But if you started in canadian cities of around 300,000-400,000, and kept going to bigger cities until you were in those around a million, I think there are trends. Certainly not finite thresholds of what population levels produce certain things. It isn't a hard set rule, but it can sure be a helpful place to start. I do think a big problem with population is just the way we think about numbers. To most 1 million just sounds way bigger than 900,000 whereas 1.2 million and 1 million sounds about the same.
In terms of the Trans-Canada thing, I could definately also see the geographical location playing a part. The portion where the Yellowhead highway splits off is also pretty far north in relation to the where the vast majority of the Canadian population is....
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This is a good point. There are "mental barriers" people do possess for sure
There is always going to be a certain population all over the place that over estimates or under estimates
That picture of QC is very nice btw
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