The Great Canadian Skyline Thread!

[le calmar]

To be fair, the "level of urbanity" of Sunnyside is similar to what you will find in Centretown in Ottawa. Montreal and Toronto are obviously on a different scale...

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

So any single family housing is suburban now?

Well, yes, it's a lot more "typically suburban" than it is "typically downtowny", wouldn't you agree?

It's surprisingly low-density and suburban for such a near-the-core area.

I didn't even want to point this out but... on the Street View that I got, is that street actually a dirt road, or are my eyes deceiving me?

You guys always call us out on being too sensitive, but all I see on the recent pages is people looking for things to knock Calgary on. Our landscape isn't as pretty as Toronto, We don't have the density of Montreal, We don't have Stanley Park, the river isn't walled, the whole city outside downtown is suburban. You guys (see mostly Montreal forumers) are ridiculous!

I never said the more natural river shores weren't a good thing! It would be ridiculous to destroy the natural setting to replace it by concrete and stone walls. It's something I disliked about Paris... I'd never use that as an example to follow.

But I think we can all agree that there's no way the north shore of the Bow can possibly match the Chicago riverwalk experience in terms of urbanity (basically a river canyon set in an immediate super urban landscape), even though someone brought up that it would be nice if it kinda tried to mirror it (I disagree that it'd be nice, FWIW).

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Ashok

There, there. *hugs*

I'd wish we had a smiley for offering a hot beverage, but this will have to do

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by le calmar

To be fair, the "level of urbanity" of Sunnyside is similar to what you will find in Centretown in Ottawa. ...

Which is pretty normal for a North American city of their size.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by lio45

Well, yes, it's a lot more "typically suburban" than it is "typically downtowny", wouldn't you agree?

It's surprisingly low-density and suburban for such a near-the-core area.

I didn't even want to point this out but... on the Street View that I got, is that street actually a dirt road, or are my eyes deceiving me?

Do you not have back alleyways in Montreal? it's obviously not a road! it just isn't paved. Yes it is relatively low density in parts (these are about a century old, so demolishing houses there is usually met with much resistance), but it is becoming high density in other parts, and all new projects going in are major buildings up to about 10 storeys. It's not going to become like downtown, probably not even like the Beltline, it's going to be a mid rise area, and that's the way it should go.

I'm not even going to touch the rest of your comment as I already did a couple times.

[Beedok]

Everyone is just jealous because their hometown isn't Hamilton.

[Ashok]

Originally Posted by le calmar

To be fair, the "level of urbanity" of Sunnyside is similar to what you will find in Centretown in Ottawa. Montreal and Toronto are obviously on a different scale...

Ottawa yes, Montreal and Toronto - no. But obviously, Montreal is a much much older cities, so there were time for the the regions outside of downtown to develop its own characters and charms.

This is an area outside of downtown. It is not at the edge of downtown either. The thing with Montreal at least, a lot of its districts are very well developped with their own unique characters.

[Ashok]

More areas outside of downtown

[Acajack]

SFH right in downtown Ottawa. As you move further away from downtown they quickly become more and more predominant. This street is about where they start.

http://goo.gl/maps/yCJoL

This is not even 10 blocks south of Parliament Hill.

[VIce]

Originally Posted by Boris2k7

Calgarian never said that it should turn into something like that, he just challenged the statement that Sunnyside is "suburban."

The change is pretty stark though. I remember hearing stories about a city planning conference that was held in Calgary. Some people were wandering around away from the convention centre and were asking people if Calgary actually ended at the river, if it was a different municipality on the other side. I mean, Sunnyside/Hillhurst is right across the river from the West End, which is an extremely dense collection of condos and apartments by any standard, so the drop-off is pretty rapid.

[brentwood]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

So any single family housing is suburban now?

You guys always call us out on being too sensitive, but all I see on the recent pages is people looking for things to knock Calgary on. Our landscape isn't as pretty as Toronto, We don't have the density of Montreal, We don't have Stanley Park, the river isn't walled, the whole city outside downtown is suburban. You guys (see mostly Montreal forumers) are ridiculous!

Although this is an urban forum, there certainly are a lot of individuals that cherry pick environmental issues and nail themselves to the cross over it. You would think Calgary preserving the natural state of its riverbanks to the extent it has (I am not saying it is pristine by any means) would be met with universal praise. The fact it has a dense CBD next to a river in this state should be seen as a unique feature of the city rather than calls to urbanize to the level of much, much larger cities. For the record, the Riverwalk project is urbanizing the Bow River experience in the Centre City area (as well as the Elbow River) but, of course, it will never be enough for the critics.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

Do you not have back alleyways in Montreal?

You won't find any neighborhood there that's a sea of little detached middle-class SFHs that close to the downtown core, that's for sure.

I'm not from Montreal BTW

Yes it is relatively low density in parts (these are about a century old, so demolishing houses there is usually met with much resistance)

Surprisingly low density, considering the location of that neighborhood in the very core of ~1.5M Greater Calgary.

I'm not even officially saying it's a bad thing, but can't we at least agree on that basic fact?

[Acajack]

Downtown Ottawa. A half dozen blocks from where Cpl. Cirillo was shot last week.

http://goo.gl/maps/ddFdx

[brentwood]

Originally Posted by VIce

The change is pretty stark though. I remember hearing stories about a city planning conference that was held in Calgary. Some people were wandering around away from the convention centre and were asking people if Calgary actually ended at the river, if it was a different municipality on the other side. I mean, Sunnyside/Hillhurst is right across the river from the West End, which is an extremely dense collection of condos and apartments by any standard, so the drop-off is pretty rapid.

Some historical context is required in this case. The drop-off is entirely due to the age of the city and the extremely rapid growth by Western standards. There are still mostly first generation structures in Sunnyside. Similar locations in older cities are into the third or fourth generation of structures with the natural increase in density as the previous generation is replaced.

A similar situation in a rapidly growing Chinese city would be solved simply by bulldozing the neighborhood and relocating the residents a la the Hutong areas of Beijing. But does anyone want that in Canada? In a democracy it takes decades if not more to change an area from SFH to high density.

[Calgarian]

Sunnyside is mostly SFH, but it is very urban and is extremely walkable. On the west side of the LRT you get the Kensington area with a couple of our more urban high streets (10St, Kensington road, and Kensington Crescent). Suburban areas are SFH, but are barely walkable (walkable if you are taking the dog out, not grocery shopping or going for dinner) and generally contain no high streets. To call Sunnyside suburban is very laughable!

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[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Downtown Ottawa. A half dozen blocks from where Cpl. Cirillo was shot last week.

http://goo.gl/maps/ddFdx

I love all the brick houses in inner city Ottawa, much better than most of our inner city.

[le calmar]

Originally Posted by Acajack

SFH right in downtown Ottawa. As you move further away from downtown they quickly become more and more predominant. This street is about where they start.

http://goo.gl/maps/yCJoL

This is not even 10 blocks south of Parliament Hill.

SFH becomes gradually more predominant, but the density is surprisingly higher than what I remembered. (my last visit in Ottawa was 3 years ago)

[Martin Mtl]

There are still SFH in downtown Toronto, which I always find very surprising.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

To call Sunnyside suburban is very laughable!

I think Longueuil on average (say, pre-mergers city limits) is actually more urban than Sunnyside...

Who said suburbs can't be walkable?

These days I spend a lot of time in a little town that you'd consider rural... (technically contained within metro Trois-Rivières, so in that sense, it's also a suburban place) ... and everything's within walking distance. Liquor store, supermarket, DMV, provincial health clinic, dentist, notary, car parts store, hardware store, a few restaurants, two different banks, etc. ... all of that is a couple minutes walk from my house. Even faster if I ride my bike.

So, does that somehow mean it's now "urban"? It would be ridiculous... It's definitely not urban, yet it's definitely extremely walkable.

And if you magically teleported the entire village to the middle of downtown Montreal, it would still be just as walkable, but it would now be "surprisingly suburban for such a central location", and it would also be the only neighborhood mostly made of middle-class SFHs in the core.