Downtown Canada

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

?

I've heard the odd person from the suburban areas refer to the lower part of the old city as "downtown", but I don't recall the city ever defining it that way.

I've seen city maps where it was defined as Queen to Wellington, and Cannon to Hunter, with north and south extensions along James. This report has one (p.4, but with the eastern border placed just past Victoria)

To decent numbers of people on the mountain the term downtown can mean pretty much anything not on the escarpment.

[ACT7]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Population density alone is not what makes a downtown. Downtowns are the main commercial (and usually historic) centres of a region, typically including immediately adjacent residential areas. The Broadway corridor is an independent commercial area physically incongruent with downtown. An appropriate analogue to Toronto would be an area like Yonge & St. Clair - a significant, densely populated commercial centre close to but not part of downtown.

Though as far as density is concerned - the population of the 6 census tracts that make up the Broadway, Fairview, and Olympic Village areas creates a density of around 8,200/sqkm (much lower than the downtown peninsula), compared to 9,800/sqkm in the 4 census tracts around Trinity Bellwoods, and 11,000/sqkm in Regent Park-Cabbagetown-Corktown. These are also areas centred around commercial streets originating and moving seamlessly from the downtown core. Still, they're not downtown.

Thank you! The point I was trying to make all along in the other thread.

[dleung]

Time to weigh in, now that it looks like this argument isn't going away:

First off, I have to chuckle at the transparency of some of the peeps here who create arbitrary rules (ie streetview activity, density) from which they derive obviously-gerrymandered boundaries.

Second, downtown definitions aren't based on rules, they are based on natural and perceived boundaries, and has nothing to do with the overall proportion of urbanity of the metro. It has more to do with the context of the conversation, which will be unique in each city and never apples to apples. Vancouver is proportionally more polycentric than Toronto, and has a greater share of its urban-ness spread out in satellite downtowns, resulting in a smaller "main" downtown even relative to population. Intimately-scaled urban planning resulting in proportionally more people on the streets of downtown Vancouver, coupled with a proportionally large residential skyline, does do a good job of concealing the fact that there is probably less going on there than it appears.

[Echoes]

The geographical extent of Downtown Saskatoon is quite large compared to the overall size of the city, but its boundaries are widely accepted as being 25th Street to the north, Idylwyld Drive to the west, and the South Saskatchewan River to the south and east (red outline).

Saskatoon is of a size that the whole city is "the city", and no sub-area within it is referred to as such. However, what I would describe as the inner city is loosely outlined in blue.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by dleung

Time to weigh in, now that it looks like this argument isn't going away

Why does it have to be an argument? Seems like a pretty rational discussion of a very grey subject to me.

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Population density alone is not what makes a downtown. Downtowns are the main commercial (and usually historic) centres of a region, typically including immediately adjacent residential areas. The Broadway corridor is an independent commercial area physically incongruent with downtown. An appropriate analogue to Toronto would be an area like Yonge & St. Clair - a significant, densely populated commercial centre close to but not part of downtown.

What you described there sounds exactly like the Bloor/Yonge neighbourhood. I honestly don't see how the two are at all different, and I've lived at yonge and bloor for 3 years and counting and lived at 12th and arbutus for 2. They function in much the same way for the city, are similar distance from the central core (2.4km in Vancouver, 2.1km in Toronto), are considered secondary office markets by the commercial real estate sector, are located immediately adjacent to established high end residential neighbourhoods (rosedale & Shaughnessy), etc...

I certainly dont consider Broadway the core downtown, but I don't see why Yonge/Bloor is but Broadway isnt.

And with regards to St Clair it is significantly further from downtown (4.1km), more isolated from downtown less important to the city than Broadway is to vancouver etc...

Quite frankly Vancouver just doesn't have an equivalent to St Clair. Oakridge is very quickly being re-developed into Vancouver's version of Yonge/Eg, but the city just doesn't have a tertiary node like St Clair.

Though as far as density is concerned - the population of the 6 census tracts that make up the Broadway, Fairview, and Olympic Village areas creates a density of around 8,200/sqkm (much lower than the downtown peninsula), compared to 9,800/sqkm in the 4 census tracts around Trinity Bellwoods, and 11,000/sqkm in Regent Park-Cabbagetown-Corktown. These are also areas centred around commercial streets originating and moving seamlessly from the downtown core. Still, they're not downtown.

Broadway may have population densities lower than Bellwoods, but it is metro Vancouver's second largest and densest employment node, behind only the CBD, so a lot of it's built space is employment space. Toronto's financial district has a pop density of 1,160 people/sqkm and I dont think people would say that limits its designation as downtown .

The bottom line is these kinds of definitions are very arbitrary and, in addition to hard statistics, come down to very subjective metrics such as feel and general perception. Having lived more than a decade in both Toronto and Vancouver I'd say Broadway feels like Vancouver's Yonge/Bloor and is cognitively much more a part of an extended downtown than Trinity/Bellwoods is to your typical Torontonian.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by ACT7

Thank you! The point I was trying to make all along in the other thread.

No it isn't. You looked up the definition of downtown Vancouver on Wikipedia and tried to compare that to a very large definition of downtown Toronto, then incorrectly argued about the physical definition of the west end.

[logan5]

Though as far as density is concerned - the population of the 6 census tracts that make up the Broadway, Fairview, and Olympic Village areas creates a density of around 8,200/sqkm (much lower than the downtown peninsula), compared to 9,800/sqkm in the 4 census tracts around Trinity Bellwoods, and 11,000/sqkm in Regent Park-Cabbagetown-Corktown. These are also areas centred around commercial streets originating and moving seamlessly from the downtown core. Still, they're not downtown.

If I play with the numbers a little bit and exclude the OV census tract that is mostly industrial land... the 5 census tracts that make up the Central broadway corridor add up to a density of 10 785/km2. The 5 census tracts add up to 2.2 sq km's and a pop of 23 727.

[nickinacan]

Surrey is the 5th most populous city in the West at over 500,000. Long a suburb of Vancouver, it has grown tremendously in the last few decades and grows by an average of 10,000 about people per year.

In the past, the city has never had a place to call "Downtown". It is made up of 6 "Towns" (Whalley, Guildford, Newton, Fleetwood, Cloverdale and South Surrey), each with it's own "Town Centre". Though plans were first initiated in 1991, nothing really materialized. The real point of change occurred in 2006 when the council decided to review the plans and come up with a cohesive plan for a true Downtown. In 2009, they adopted the plan that created the City Centre area shown below:


Source: http://www.surrey.ca/city-services/772.aspx

The City Centre occupies about 5.81 Square Kilometers, roughly about the same size as what locals consider Downtown Vancouver (Financial District, Coal Harbour, Yaletown, West End and the Downtown East Side). It currently has a population of 33,650 people and is served by the three easternmost Skytrain stations (Gateway, Surrey Central, King George)

The area definitely has an image problem and was left to decay by former councils. Siginificant amounts of money have been pumped into the area by all three levels of government in the last few years to revitalize it. The most recent developments have been the RCMP "E" Division Headquarters, Jim Pattison Outpatient and Surgery Centre, the ongoing redevelopment of the Surrey Memorial Hospital Campus, the new City Centre Library, and brand new City Hall (Opened Last Month).

Links:
City of Surrey - Population
City of Surrey - City Centre Plan

[ue]

Originally Posted by Cambridgite

I always call it Whyte Ave, but never downtown. It's definitely "inner city". Most people I know just call it Whyte Ave, and sometimes Strathcona. Either one is fine by me.

However, I do have one friend who, even after a year of living in Edmonton, called it "downtown" and says that Edmonton's downtown is really small for its size. Even during my first weekend in the city, I was like "wuh? Downtown? What about the fact that all those tall buildings are on the other side of the river?"

Yeah, there is a contingent, small as they may be, who consider Old Strathcona to be downtown or part of downtown and Whyte Ave the or one of the main streets. It's weird.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Cambridgite

Even as the regional population reaches well into the 700,000s, a single skyline/node may only develop to be as large in scale as Regina/Halifax/London, rather than one of comparable metro-size (as of today)like Winnipeg.

Kitchener preforming on par with London would be impressive. It's one of three cores in a metro of the same size. Yes, the region has more people, but nowhere in Niagara has a downtown core for a city of 300k despite that being the official metro population.

[someone123]

Here's a hastily-made map of Halifax. This started with Bing bird's eye view data, which is rapidly becoming outdated (and renders some towers as cut-off pyramids..). Red lines are longer commercial streets or streets with some local significance. The "inner-city" is more or less the Victorian-era core of the city where there tends to be a bigger mix of businesses and mixed uses, more apartments and rowhouses, etc.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Kitchener preforming on par with London would be impressive. It's one of three cores in a metro of the same size. Yes, the region has more people, but nowhere in Niagara has a downtown core for a city of 300k despite that being the official metro population.

Kitchener's population in the 2030s should be similar to London's at present (I think the Kitchener projection for 2031 is 330,000), so I suspect that Kitchener's skyline then should compare to that of London today, although with a stronger residential component if current trends are sustained.

[dleung]

Originally Posted by logan5

If I play with the numbers a little bit and exclude the OV census tract that is mostly industrial land... the 5 census tracts that make up the Central broadway corridor add up to a density of 10 785/km2. The 5 census tracts add up to 2.2 sq km's and a pop of 23 727.

Every time someone compares a smaller area from their city to a larger area in your city, you know they're trying to fudge density comparisons.

[matt602]

The Toronto map is fairly spot-on for the downtown part though Toronto's built urban architecture probably would extend all the way up to Eglinton in the North, High Park in the West and maybe Woodbine in the East, with various exceptions of course. I always feel like I'm in "actual" Toronto if I'm within those boundaries. A friend of mine lived near Woodbine and Danforth and I felt that East of Woodbine, it immediately felt like Scarborough especially as you get closer to Main Street. Lots of strip malls, commie blocks and townhouses.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Kitchener's population in the 2030s should be similar to London's at present (I think the Kitchener projection for 2031 is 330,000), so I suspect that Kitchener's skyline then should compare to that of London today, although with a stronger residential component if current trends are sustained.

London has a planning bylaw mandating that office developments over a certain sq footage can only be located downtown. Something like 80% of regional office space is downtown.
This could be why it has a larger skyline so to speak than other cities.

[SkydivePilot]

Definition of Downtown Canada? I'd say that would be the soul and heartbeat of any town or city.

[RWin]

Smaller towns have downtowns too. Here's my home town - Vernon BC.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by someone123

Here's a hastily-made map of Halifax. This started with Bing bird's eye view data, which is rapidly becoming outdated (and renders some towers as cut-off pyramids..). Red lines are longer commercial streets or streets with some local significance. The "inner-city" is more or less the Victorian-era core of the city where there tends to be a bigger mix of businesses and mixed uses, more apartments and rowhouses, etc.

That looks pretty accurate in my books. Well done. That area between Dalhousie University and Quinpool I'd consider downtown despite all being detached residential housing.

[kool maudit]

halifax has great geography. it's too bad it never grew large enough (pre-1930) to be truly constrained by it. there are areas that hint at what it might have been like (tower road north of inglis can be vaguely san francisco-ish, and inglis east of young/south park is somewhat boston-like), but it never really collects into a whole.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

halifax has great geography. it's too bad it never grew large enough (pre-1930) to be truly constrained by it. there are areas that hint at what it might have been like (tower road north of inglis can be vaguely san francisco-ish, and inglis east of young/south park is somewhat boston-like), but it never really collects into a whole.

You echo the views of many, I suspect. When one drives in from the airport and drives across the bridge to Halifax one feels like you're in a far larger place than it actually is. Halifax never came close to realizing its potential, but it is blessed with a fabulous foundation upon which to build an impressive sub 1 million person metro. The peninsula has huge potential and great bones.

Scotia Square needs to be re-developed so that the downtown can be re-attached to that area marked 'Gottingen' in a more successful way. The Hydrostone and Agricola area is slowly becoming more urban/denser. Bit by big, it's coming together. Give it another 30 years and Halifax will be one of the best kept secrets in the country.