Great Canadian Skyline Thread II

[Chadillaccc]

Sorry to start two pages in a row, but just didn't want this awesome shot of Kamloops to get lost in the shuffle. It's not much of a skyline yet, but a really beautiful setting. Lots of potential for this little city.


https://www.tourismkamloops.com/holidayevents/

https://www.rightsizingmedia.com/community/kamloops-sun-peaks/

[giallo]

Nice shots of Kamloops. It's going through its own boom at the moment. There are a couple of significant developments in the proposal stage that will offer some great density and height.

[kool maudit]

That is a magnificent and unique landscape.

[Coldrsx]

https://twitter.com/uptown_one/status/1381795333731061764

[Coldrsx]

I have always liked this angle of our skyline.


https://erh2.ca

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by giallo

Nice shots of Kamloops. It's going through its own boom at the moment. There are a couple of significant developments in the proposal stage that will offer some great density and height.

Unfortunately it's hard to imagine Kamloops growing into a major metro due to geographic constraints. You can't fit 5 million people in valleys that narrow. I doubt you could even fit 1 million. Kelowna has similar constraints although they have a little bit more land.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Unfortunately it's hard to imagine Kamloops growing into a major metro due to geographic constraints. You can't fit 5 million people in valleys that narrow. I doubt you could even fit 1 million. Kelowna has similar constraints although they have a little bit more land.

Yeah, I could see Kamloops maxing out at 300 000 before it is too restrained / becomes too big in that it destroys the landscape that makes it feel special.

Kelowna I feel can somewhat easily grow to about 600 000 within the general footprint it has without loosing too much of what makes the valley great. At most I say it could grow to 1.1 or 1.2 million, but this would involve growing up to and beyond Vernon, maybe a linear city stretching from Peachland to Salmon Arm (but that would also involve loosing a lot of the farmland and therefore character of the valley and unique economic activity).

[craner]

Do we want Kelowna and Kamloops to grow to a million ?

[giallo]

Originally Posted by craner

Do we want Kelowna and Kamloops to grow to a million ?

After WW2, Kamloops was the chosen one to become the hub of the interior, but Kelowna took off instead. On paper, Kamloops is the natural contender; Hwy 1, CP Rail hub, provincial corporations like the BC Lottery Corp. It just lacked the scenery and that 'je ne sais quoi' (ok, it's the lakes, vineyards and wineries) that the Central Okanagan possesses. I don't think one can overstate how important the wine industry is to the central Okanagan. It's been the region's best PR for decades now.

Out of the two, the Central Okanagan region probably has the best chance to have a million people with Kelowna as the economic heart. You'd have to include Summerland and Penticton in to that population estimate as well though.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by craner

Do we want Kelowna and Kamloops to grow to a million ?

Personally? No.

Kamloops will be perfect at around 200 000 and Kelowna will be perfect between 500 000 to 600 000.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by craner

Do we want Kelowna and Kamloops to grow to a million ?

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Personally? No.

Kamloops will be perfect at around 200 000 and Kelowna will be perfect between 500 000 to 600 000.

We might not want either to be massively larger because we grew up in an era when they were both small cities. Canada strikes me as a country that's still settling its territory (even in the south) and still early on in the development and growth of its regions/cities. In the evolution of our country we are sort of where the US was a century and a bit ago.

Canada will likely be a very different and vastly more populated country by 2100. It's unrealistic to think that the big metros we have now are the only ones we're ever going to have. Canada will likely have a slew of them (2 million+) rather than just the 3 we have now. Will there be 10, 15, 20 metros that size? Impossible to say but we'll surely have at least 10 like that. Which ones will they be?

Kelowna, Kamloops, Nanaimo, and Victoria are all candidates in BC. Perhaps there will even be a few in central and northern BC one day. Regarding Kelowna, people are going to keep filing into the Okanagan till the whole valley fills up. The same thing might happen in the Kamloops area. Whether we want it won't matter.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Unfortunately it's hard to imagine Kamloops growing into a major metro due to geographic constraints. You can't fit 5 million people in valleys that narrow. I doubt you could even fit 1 million. Kelowna has similar constraints although they have a little bit more land.

It would have 4.3 million in the city limits at the average density of Paris.

But seriously, though -- not every place needs to be very large and populous. A city of 100-500,000, properly done, is a wonderful thing.

While it fits Toronto at this point in its history, there is something kind of rote and mechanistic about applying the megalopolitan model to all corners of creation. You don't go to a nice, small city like Trieste and imagine just sucking up a million people from every developing country you can until the place looks like Shenzhen. Because it has its own kind of urban splendour that fits its scale.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Yeah, I could see Kamloops maxing out at 300 000 before it is too restrained / becomes too big in that it destroys the landscape that makes it feel special.

Kelowna I feel can somewhat easily grow to about 600 000 within the general footprint it has without loosing too much of what makes the valley great. At most I say it could grow to 1.1 or 1.2 million, but this would involve growing up to and beyond Vernon, maybe a linear city stretching from Peachland to Salmon Arm (but that would also involve loosing a lot of the farmland and therefore character of the valley and unique economic activity).

When the Okanagan recaches capacity what places in BC will people turn to? That valley running north from Fairmont Hot Springs to Kinbasket Lake always struck me as the widest valley in the southern BC Interior but that's only from using Google Maps. It looks 10km wide in spots and almost 200km long.

[MolsonExport]

similkameen valley...quite sparsely populated yet lovely. much narrow than the Okanagan, however.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by isaidso

When the Okanagan recaches capacity what places in BC will people turn to? That valley running north from Invermere always struck me as the widest valley in southern BC Interior but that's only from using Google Maps.

Yes, the Rocky Mountain Trench or Valley of a Thousand Peaks is the only other wide-flat valley (3 to 16 km wide) in the province outside of the Lower Mainland. It could easily house several million people and still be a major agricultural producer. It starts just south of the border in Montana and continues to just south of the Yukon Border, about 1600 km long.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

It would have 4.3 million in the city limits at the average density of Paris.

But seriously, though -- not every place needs to be very large and populous. A city of 100-500,000, properly done, is a wonderful thing.

I agree that not every place needs to be large and populous but a country this vast will eventually have 20 or more like that. My curiosity is in which presently small cities/towns will become those places.

[Peggerino]

Canada might be a bit behind the US in terms of settlement across the country but we don't have the population growth that the US did when it was expanding. Unless we take in way more immigrants for a long period of time, I thought our population isn't expected to grow all that much

[Chadillaccc]

Canada should feasibly be 55+ million by the time my generation starts to die off (2070). I would hope we reach 60+ million by 2050 though, and due to escalating environmental disasters and the disappearance of several countries between now and then, I feel like that may end up being the case. 70 million by 2070 should be the target.

[giallo]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

similkameen valley...quite sparsely populated yet lovely. much narrow than the Okanagan, however.

This is it. Once the Okanagan Valley gets too congested/played out, the Similkameen Valley will be waiting. It's already starting to see population growth, so the word is getting out.

It's an incredible area, and I'm kinda surprised it's remained so hidden from the rest of the province/country for this long.

















Photo credit: https://winebc.com/discover-bc-wine-country/similkameen-valley/

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

similkameen valley...quite sparsely populated yet lovely. much narrow than the Okanagan, however.

The Castlegar Nelson Trail tricity area can take a bunch more people with some density. There are people everywhere here but mostly quite sparse. Castlegar's tallest building is only 3 storeys at the moment. 5 in Trail. 6 in Nelson.