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Originally Posted by Good Baklava
Being a Skyscraper forum, I think many in the crowd naturally gravitate towards anything "Bigger": Bigger buildings, bigger roads, bigger transit & bike lane networks, bigger populations, bigger urban areas and so on...I agree that bigger can be better, but I find there's too much focus on the "biggest" and a lack of discussion on finding the happy medium. Perhaps some of these areas would improve the city's standing, but there are plenty of cities in the world of over a million people no one bats an eye to. The real question should be: What could make Halifax a desireable place for 1 million people, and what would actually improve the quality of life?
A lot of this discussion is based on speculation, but I suppose it's healthy and fun to let the imagination run wild. This thread is like a christmas wishlist in my eyes.
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Well, when I was a kid, I had lots on my list, and got some of it. What would be on your Halifax wish list? What could improve the city now, and be great as it grows?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good Baklava
No one loves traffic congestion. What I do love is to think about whether the solutions presented would be the best options for solving the problem.
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Would they?
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Originally Posted by someone123
I would not frame this as people fleeing other places and getting pushed to relocate to Halifax as a kind of backup. What's best for individuals depends on a bunch of preferences and even aesthetic concerns. In the overall mix of Canadian cities, Halifax adds something different; no other city is really all that similar.
When people are frustrated with Toronto or Vancouver it's usually because of problems like bad traffic and affordability (both related; people who can't afford housing get pushed farther out). I don't see this as strictly a question of city size but rather size relative to infrastructure and land supply. The US is full of large, affordable cities like Atlanta or Dallas, and there are small cities like Victoria that are much more expensive than Halifax.
Halifax is really quite well-positioned for potential development. It has plentiful land that is not used for agriculture, it has good infrastructure like a major airport and highways, it has tons of waterfront. Very different from say here in Vancouver where the choices of where to build are either ocean, mountain, or scarce farmland.
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When you look at all the other major cities, Halifax is an interesting oddity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ions_in_Canada
Lets look at some that are close to the same population:
1) K/W - Surrounded by farmland and basically a suburb of Toronto.
2) Hamilton - A lake, a mountain and farmland constraints its growth.
3) London - Surrounded by farmland.
4) St Catherines and Niagara - Prime fruit farm in Canada.
5) Oshawa - Major employer has shut down.
6) Victoria - Ocean and mountains make it horrendously expensive to live there.
7) Windsor - The lake on one side, prime farmland surround it.
8) Saskatoon - Surrounded by prime farmland.
The things that seem to slow growth are farmland, mountains, and water . Halifax is free from farmland near it's core. Halifax's terrain isn't overly challenging to build on. The ocean will prevent growth in that direction, but there is enough land to have growth fan out and have the ocean as a anchor for the city.
Halifax is ideal to grow compared with other cities of the same current size. The key is to do it in such a way that it is done smartly.
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