The Great Canadian Skyline Thread! II

[vancityrox]

Here is a photo a snapped quickly on my way downtown from the South Shore on March 10 from the Champlain Bridge.
What a gorgeous day it was in Montreal!
I love the way Mont Royal looks in this photo.


Photo by me.

[davidivivid]

Cool, thanks I'll look at it for sure!!

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

David, you have to check this out some weekday during rush hour (which is around 3 p.m. Newfoundland Time, so 1:30 p.m. in Quebec). It's insanely busy for a town of 5,900.

http://www.cheznoo.net/saint-pierre-et-miquelon/webcams/webcam.php

[Witty Nickname]

Less chatting, more pictures.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

I mentioned before that Ottawa is the only city in Canada where all of the Newfoundlanders I know who've moved there have loved it. My FB wall is always full of, "God, X is awful!", "5 months until I'm home for two weeks! I can't wait to get out of X!", etc. But never from the ones in Ottawa. And they all say that their Newfoundlander friends there love it too. There's definitely something special about that city.

Any idea what makes you guys so fussy?

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

In all honesty, I think you could fit all of Winnipeg's functional urban neighbourhoods within old St. John's. I definitely (and oddly) feel like I'm living in a significantly bigger city since I've moved back home. The only time St. John's feels smaller to me is when I look up or have to leave downtown - everything here is short and close-by. But my life here covers a much larger and denser area than the Broadway-to-South-Osborne stretch where I spent most of my time in Winnipeg.

If you find St. John's feels significantly bigger than Winnipeg, you must have felt like Halifax was about as big as Peggy's Cove.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by vancityrox

Here is a photo a snapped quickly on my way downtown from the South Shore on March 10 from the Champlain Bridge.
What a gorgeous day it was in Montreal!
I love the way Mont Royal looks in this photo.


Photo by me.

The skyline will look better once it starts drifting more to the west. It just ends too abruptly now, dropping from the city's tallest skyscrapers in the 40-50 story range, down to 20 floorish highrises.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Any idea what makes you guys so fussy?

If you find St. John's feels significantly bigger than Winnipeg, you must have felt like Halifax was about as big as Peggy's Cove.

No idea, except the aspects of home that we love and the so-called "island mentality". I think you see the same thing on Vancouver Island as well, just not quite as strongly.

And Halifax feels plenty large. It's been years since I've been there for any extended amount of time (I think the last time was 2003). I've mentioned before that I don't find it a particularly historic city, at least not in the same, in-your-face way as St. John's and Quebec City - but I apologize if I implied it feels small. It feels like a relatively large, modern city.

Spring Garden Road alone is enough to beat Winnipeg's Osborne Village/Corydon Avenue. Downtown Halifax beats Winnipeg's downtown by several orders of magnitude, even comparing my 2003/2012 memories of both. There's no comparison whatsoever. Halifax's downtown is the bustling, lively heart of the city. Winnipeg's is deserted as soon as the workday ends.

The only places Winnipeg wins (and then, by a significant margin - at least, as far as I am aware) is skyline, city parks, population, and sports facilities. And, although it could be a bit of a stretch, I also think the Exchange is a more cohesive, uninterrupted heritage district than you could probably find in Halifax.

But in terms of which city feels bigger, Halifax wins hands down. So much so I feel like I'm arguing downtown St. John's feels older than downtown Mississauga.

[Nouvellecosse]

Interesting take. I just wish I had been to more places so I could compare for myself. But there's still time I suppose.

[SignalHillHiker]

I should add it depends on your perspective as well, obviously.

I'm sure there are people for whom Portage Avenue West feels bigger than anything in Halifax. It's a wide, 6-lane avenue lined by short commercial buildings with pockets of midrise commercial/residential buildings mixed in. It goes on forever... you couldn't even drive that far in Halifax, you'd be in Bedford already. It is endless this:


Google Streetview

And there are many other roads like that - Route 90, Pembina Highway, Nairn, North Main, etc. Any of them are longer than anything in Halifax.

But, to me, they don't feel bigger. To me, it's like driving past a strip mall in suburban St. John's. Sure, it's endless, but it does NOT feel like a city to me.

And you only have to go half a block in any direction and you're back in among single-family, detached homes.

Granted, Winnipeg has the finest residential neighbourhoods of any city I've been in (minus the stucco, that's my only complaint) - but neighbourhoods like River Heights, even the poorer ones (excluding the neglected areas where poor First Nations families are generally funneled) like Lord Roberts, are spectacular. Here was my street in Winnipeg, for example (that's my red civic, ha!):


Google Streetview

That's about as crappy as a residential neighbourhood gets south of Portage Avenue, and it's still amazing.

But, again... it doesn't feel bigger to me. Any residential street in St. John's proper squeezes more homes into the same area, has smaller front lawns, etc. It feels denser here, and that, to me, translates as bigger. I mean, the above looks like every other lot should have a camper on it. It's cottage country.

[Beedok]

Maybe my problem with Ottawa is that I expect it's urbaness to feel like Hamilton x2 because it's twice the size for it's metro (well about twice the size), but it really doesn't seem that much more urban. I will say that I like the central business area and the Byward Market, and I also think Lebreton flats is a major scar on the cities urban feal, so that might just throw off my views.

[Martin Mtl]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

On the topic of "most urban city outside of the three biggest": its pretty clearly Quebec City. My inclination would be that Hamilton and Halifax would follow, and then Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Victoria after that (roughly in that order). I'm not sure where smaller cities like St. John's, Saint John, and Trois-Riviers would figure though - they all have highly urban cores, but those account for such small areas that they lack the critical mass necessary to allow for a significant urban lifestyle.

Quebec city is VERY underrated on the urbanity thing. The old downtown (st-Roch), plus the "haute-ville" and the walled old city itself, all this make for a very intense, condensed urban experience with a build form that really "enclosed" you (narrow streets lined with buildings that goes up from the sidewalk).

[someone123]

It would be interesting to visit Winnipeg sometime.

My sense, without ever having been there, is that Winnipeg has some exceptional buildings from the early 1900's but that the last few decades haven't been particularly kind to the city. It doesn't have a lot of newer urban buildings or a lot of residential infill for whatever reason. It kind of looks like it is stuck in 1978. Saint John NB has a similar feel -- great buildings, not a whole lot of vibrancy.

2003 was a low point for Halifax. There was a very long period of almost no new construction that started in about 1990 and ended in about 2004. So much of the city used to be shabby and de-populated, but that is changing quickly now.

[kool maudit]

winnipeg appears to have an early 20th century midwestern downtown grandeur that halifax definitely does not have.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Maybe my problem with Ottawa is that I expect it's urbaness to feel like Hamilton x2 because it's twice the size for it's metro (well about twice the size), but it really doesn't seem that much more urban. I will say that I like the central business area and the Byward Market, and I also think Lebreton flats is a major scar on the cities urban feal, so that might just throw off my views.

Ya I get where you are coming from..Ottawa itself is still under 900'000 people..It's metro is a result of a bunch of towns like Kanata, and Gatineau being added..The federal government's office towers are spread out throughout both Ottawa and Gatineau as well..Canada Post's head office is practically in a residential area..Kanata has a Hi tech corridor which also contains some office towers albeit not very tall. Had the government focused all their towers in the down town core like most cities do with their head offices than it would take on a different look.

A city like Hamilton although smaller than Ottawa is also in the midst of a much larger population area..Buffalo on one side, and Toronto on the other..More people are either in the city or going through it than in Ottawa I'm assuming.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Razor

Ya I get where you are coming from..Ottawa itself is still under 900'000 people..It's metro is a result of a bunch of towns like Kanata, and Gatineau being added..The federal government's office towers are spread out throughout both Ottawa and Gatineau as well..Canada Post's head office is practically in a residential area..Kanata has a Hi tech corridor which also contains some office towers albeit not very tall. Had the government focused all their towers in the down town core like most cities do with their head offices than it would take on a different look.

A city like Hamilton although smaller than Ottawa is also in the midst of a much larger population area..Buffalo on one side, and Toronto on the other..More people are either in the city or going through it than in Ottawa I'm assuming.

I think Hamilton benefits from a mixture of higher population density and the steel mills. Heavy industry doesn't really provide high density of jobs but it certainly looks more urban than a lowrise office park or something. Also, yeah Ottawa has a lot of office towers tossed out in the middle of no where. If they had moved them a bit closer together they get could some really awesome nodes going.

[Razor]

Yes ottawa has these office parks in the middle of nowhere it seems...The government must of done this on purpose.

Take Calgary, a similiar sized city, slice off 300,000 residents and their respective infrastructure and put them on the other side of their river(The Bow I think), and then take another 100,000 residents and their respective infrastructure and stick them down their highway about twenty km one way, and 60'000 the other way, and you would have a similiar lay-out as Ottawa/Gatineau..Now, I'm actually thinking that Ottawa proper has just over 800,000 people..Not much more than Hamilton really..When you go out for dinner you have multiple cores you can go to..Gatineau being one, and Kanata or Orleans being the others if you count the Centrum in Kanata as being like a little core.Orleans not so much, as it is mostly residential with a little un-assuming strip which was their main street when it was a seperate city at one time.This is what gives Ottawa a small town vibe, but throughout a large sprawling area..

[Hybrid247]

A lot of you guys are judging Ottawa's urbanism based on the metropolitan population, but then you don't include Gatineau as part of that urbanism. Ottawa doesn't have a small urban footprint for its population (900 000). That's less than 150 000 more people than Hamilton. If you're going to compare cities like that, get the facts straight.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

then again, i have no experience of the west, really. i've been to vancouver once. i may be using an overly eastern-biased definition of what makes a place urban. i feel like the houses need to be attached. i grew up in halifax and montreal, though. i didn't realize that these sort of arrangements were somewhat atypical in canada until well after they had cemented themselves in my mind as prerequisites.

I think the triplexes and rowhouses are more urban, all else being equal, but buildings are only one part of what makes neighbourhoods interesting. In a city like Vancouver people gravitate toward neighbourhoods in relatively good locations with relatively good building stock. 4th, Commercial Drive and Main Street (south of Broadway) have modest buildings but they have become quite desirable and vibrant (except the businesses all close early here for some reason). A visitor who assumed neighbourhoods were all equivalent to the parts of Montreal with the same types of buildings would underestimate Vancouver somewhat.

In Halifax (as you know) there is only so much demand for urban neighbourhoods, restaurants, bars, etc. so the interesting stuff goes in the older neighbourhoods and does not spill out much into the Quinpool Road and Dartmouth type areas that are built up more like Commercial Drive or Main. Similarly, in Montreal, 1920's streetcar suburbs are not the most happening parts of town.

Presumably an area like Osborne/Corydon in Winnipeg follows the Vancouver pattern.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

A lot of you guys are judging Ottawa's urbanism based on the metropolitan population, but then you don't include Gatineau as part of that urbanism. Ottawa doesn't have a small urban footprint for its population (900 000). That's less than 150 000 more people than Hamilton. If you're going to compare cities like that, get the facts straight.

If you are going to cut out Gatineau from Ottawa you have to cut out Burlington from Hamilton. Quite possibly Grimsby as well. So that cuts out like 150 000 more from Hamilton.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by Beedok

If you are going to cut out Gatineau from Ottawa you have to cut out Burlington from Hamilton. Quite possibly Grimsby as well. So that cuts out like 150 000 more from Hamilton.

True. My point is if you're going to judge the urbanism of Ottawa based on the metro population, at least include the urbanism of Gatineau as well.

[entheosfog]

From east Vancouver: