Great Canadian Skyline Thread II

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by 905er

ok.. that makes sense.. I would have been shocked if this was the waterfront.

It sort of is - the waterfront is less of a focal point/less developed in relative terms than places like Vancouver, Victoria, or Halifax; Charlottetown's downtown is oriented more inland towards the Province House / Confederation Centre area, and other than King & Queen Streets most of this is separated from the waterfront by several blocks of old character homes. It's somewhat more touristy/pedestrian accessible than the Saint John or St. John's waterfronts, and about the same as Sydney (Cape Breton). Early Charlottetown was built around a scaled-down version of Philadelphia's original plan, with the most intensive development focused in a rectangular area with a central square and parks at the 4 corners - the waterfront is marginal and "outside the centre" under that arrangement.

Most of the actual waterfrontage seems to be privately owned, parkland, or lined with roads - PEI is effectively made of sand, so erosion is a major concern there and I think that has shaped a lot of the planning and engineering decisions there. Overall it's an interesting (and IMO underrated) city in its own right, with a very clean urban realm and well-preserved historic building stock that stacks up well against St. John's NL or Saint John NB (while looking totally different from either of those cities). It lacks the modern flashiness of Halifax as well as any sense of grittiness, and while it doesn't have much of a skyline it has some of the best streetscapes of any of Canada's small-to-midsize cities, with excellent pre-war architecture and little-to-no urban decay or gaps/vacant storefronts in the core areas, and basically nothing that is ugly. It really flies under the radar but has some of the most textbook-ideal urban environments in the country.

Examples:

https://goo.gl/maps/eB99QGEJgCREKpP58
https://goo.gl/maps/DrekdJnqMidpLenG6
https://goo.gl/maps/4SgjcsXKtfsuvWWr6
https://goo.gl/maps/XsVAWygHs5mUtiycA
https://goo.gl/maps/TEqyuhSTUUcyKtYg7
https://goo.gl/maps/YtwFJoEhj2PmA8XK7
https://goo.gl/maps/V5zVC6h85JTjo56o8

[Hali87]

Scattered power failures just before dawn in Halifax:


Source

[MolsonExport]

I love seeing the lesser represented cities featured. Canada needs more cities, because it is a little bit tedious seeing the same 10 places featured ad nauseam, even if some of the individual pics are stupendous.

[Nouvellecosse]

It wasn't until maybe the last year-ish that Hfx was even one of those featured places. We seem to have filled the vacancy left by Calgary when Chad left. SO there's a bit of variation but yeah we don't have many cities.

What's frustrating is thinking of how many interesting Halifax, Victoria, and St. John's size places we could make out of the vast swaths of non-descript suburbia around the country (either as stand-alone cities or as interesting sub-regions). Like, Brampton (bless its heart) is literally the size of the entire Hfx metro area. So it isn't just that we need more cities but also better cities.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

https://twitter.com/ExploreEdmonton/stat...hreads%2Fedmonton-aerials.24644%2Fpage-7

Stantec + surrounding towers give a sort of "Sci-Fi version of TD Centre" vibe in this lighting.

As much as I hate the bitterly adversarial political climate of these times, part of me would find it hilarious if they put "F*CK TRUDEAU" on the roof of the arena, which looks like a giant speech bubble

[Luisito]

Very nice shot of Halifax. Taken from Brunswick towers?

Originally Posted by Hali87

Scattered power failures just before dawn in Halifax:


Source

[WhipperSnapper]

The snow coverage adds a unique perspective.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

It wasn't until maybe the last year-ish that Hfx was even one of those featured places. We seem to have filled the vacancy left by Calgary...

I find Alberta is about as present as usual but the balance is somewhat in favour of Edmonton these days whereas 5 years ago Calgary had the stronger presence.

Halifax has had a fairly strong presence on the forum for as long as I can remember but the pace of change is much faster these days and there's more to take pictures of. It's a city with a disproportionately large number of architects, planners, and photographers, so the overall number of skyline/urban realm/landscape photos is quite high. It's been nice to see Victoria's presence growing lately and there are a lot of interesting things to see there.

I've seen a lot of Kelowna on here over the last couple of years and more recently Moncton - both of those metros are transforming rapidly, shifting their focus inward and building up modern-but-not-soulless downtowns where previously there were modest commercial strips surrounded by a lot of underused space. It feels like each of these cities has grudgingly accepted/embraced the idea of "being a city" whereas until recently they were more like settlements of 100,000+ people who disliked being in cities and wanted to live somewhere "more country" / "normal". I think both of these cities will be very interesting and will have developed stronger visual and socio-political identities 10 years from now.

I think that over the next 10 years Cape Breton and Truro will also boom with the type of large-scale construction that would end up on this site. I imagine there will be a bunch of other small/unexpected places like that across the country that will sort of "ripen" all of a sudden over the next decade or 2.

I'd be interested in seeing more of:

Kamloops
Lethbridge
Regina
Saskatoon
Thunder Bay
Sudbury/North Bay
Windsor
Guelph
Hamilton
Barrie
(Interesting parts of) Durham/York/Peel/Halton
Peterborough
Kingston
Gatineau
Quebec City (especially St-Foy and Lévis)
Sherbrooke
Fredericton
Charlottetown

CMAs I don't think I've ever seen on this site:

Chilliwack
Belleville

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

What's frustrating is thinking of how many interesting Halifax, Victoria, and St. John's size places we could make out of the vast swaths of non-descript suburbia around the country (either as stand-alone cities or as interesting sub-regions). Like, Brampton (bless its heart) is literally the size of the entire Hfx metro area. So it isn't just that we need more cities but also better cities.

There's an element of personal preference and self-sorting where living in a charming and walkable "character city" just isn't a huge priority for most of the people who would choose to move to Brampton (or Abbotsford, or Fort Mac, etc) - it seems that most of them want to live somewhere like Brampton and that trying to "improve" Brampton from an urbanist perspective would make it a worse place to live in their minds. I don't get the feeling Brampton is full of people who wish they could take the subway to work or walk to the grocery store so much as people who wish gas was cheaper and the freeways were wider.

Within the GTA I think Markham and Vaughan will be the most "SSP interesting" places for the next while, and then maybe Milton or Whitchurch-Stoufville (although I could see Milton being like Brampton). And maybe Barrie which is always a bit of a mystery to me. Oshawa/Whitby have decent bones and potential but don't seem to have a ton of interest in "being urban".

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Siriusb

This is one of four marinas and this is the smallest which is much larger than in the photo. We can't have all marinas on the waterfront as we had to leave room for cruise ships, and some are huge cruise ships at that

There is also a waterfront boardwalk area just to the north(?) east(?) of there that is pretty nice. That picture doesn't tell the whole story.

[harls]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I love seeing the lesser represented cities featured. Canada needs more cities, because it is a little bit tedious seeing the same 10 places featured ad nauseam, even if some of the individual pics are stupendous.

More Gracefield, QC, please.
More Rivers, MB, please.
More Uranium City, SK, please.
More Smoky Lake, AB, please.
More Palmquist, ON, please.
More Napadogan, NB, please.
More Tignish, PEI, please.
More Cormack, NL, please.
More Elderbank, NS, please.
More Riske Creek, BC, please.
More Keno City, YK, please.
More Behchokǫ̀, NWT, please.
More Kugaaruk, NU, please.

1,2,3,4... ok got em all.

[MonkeyRonin]

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/these-2-b-c-communities-set-high-temperature-records-saturday-1.6231696

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Very nice shot of Halifax. Taken from Brunswick towers?

Looks like it must have been! I just saw it in a few social media posts about the power outages overnight. We lost power for a few hours (around the time that photo would have been taken) but it was back by dawn.

The fact that the grass is still green mid-January is weirding me out.

Edit: St. Pat's-Alexandra, one of the centrally-located defunct public schools that was supposed to be redeveloped as housing, is partially visible on the right side of the photo. There was a lot of bitter arguing (and I think lawsuits) re: "how to best develop it" and many years later, it just sits there empty as residential vacancy approaches 0%.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Within the GTA I think Markham and Vaughan will be the most "SSP interesting" places for the next while, and then maybe Milton or Whitchurch-Stoufville (although I could see Milton being like Brampton). And maybe Barrie which is always a bit of a mystery to me. Oshawa/Whitby have decent bones and potential but don't seem to have a ton of interest in "being urban".

Vaughan is high rises. There's little else of interest. Woodbridge Avenue is maybe the most neighbourly high density street in Vaughan. There's still a plaza with a ton of surface parking behind it.

Anyways, I didn't give much thought to Brampton either. I wasn't aware of all the proposed development. Queen Street is a ten kilometre long linear future skyline. I'm not one to put much stock in proposals arranged in future skylines. Brampton, is more than capable of a high rise boom as big or bigger than the other GTA suburbs.

Brampton is a post war suburb. Any villages that predated post war suburbia are hidden away. It's pretty typical post war suburb albeit at a large population scale. For that reason, i tend to push the population to the side.

[Echoes]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I'd be interested in seeing more of:

Shameless plug for my Saskatoon tour from last summer: https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=252063

[MolsonExport]

Uranium City

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Edit: St. Pat's-Alexandra, one of the centrally-located defunct public schools that was supposed to be redeveloped as housing, is partially visible on the right side of the photo. There was a lot of bitter arguing (and I think lawsuits) re: "how to best develop it" and many years later, it just sits there empty as residential vacancy approaches 0%.

That's unfortunate. They should just knock it down already. Hopefully housing gets built there soon. IMO That section of Brunswick street is one of the coolest areas on the Peninsula. The old houses,both the newer and older row houses, the old churches etc, that area has a cool vibe to it. Although it wasn't alwayst the safest area.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Hali87

There's an element of personal preference and self-sorting where living in a charming and walkable "character city" just isn't a huge priority for most of the people who would choose to move to Brampton (or Abbotsford, or Fort Mac, etc) - it seems that most of them want to live somewhere like Brampton and that trying to "improve" Brampton from an urbanist perspective would make it a worse place to live in their minds. I don't get the feeling Brampton is full of people who wish they could take the subway to work or walk to the grocery store so much as people who wish gas was cheaper and the freeways were wider.

Within the GTA I think Markham and Vaughan will be the most "SSP interesting" places for the next while, and then maybe Milton or Whitchurch-Stoufville (although I could see Milton being like Brampton). And maybe Barrie which is always a bit of a mystery to me. Oshawa/Whitby have decent bones and potential but don't seem to have a ton of interest in "being urban".

I'm sure that's true in some cases but I think a lot more of it is that places tend to be planned before individual people even arrive and people just don't have the time or energy to worry about it beyond finding the best home they can afford. These new, less interesting places are often cheaper per sq ft so people can get a foot hold in a large expensive metro more easily than if they lived more centrally. We just don't have much experience with what people would choose if presented with new interesting vs new bland options since most totally new areas in Canada are bland. So all we have are either old areas with charisma (that in prosperous cities tend to be the most pricey) and new areas without charisma which tend to be cheaper.

Yes there are plenty of people who complain about any sort of density being planned near than, but some of that is no doubt down to fear of change (a ubiquitous human trait) a fear of the other (since they commonly associate higher density with lower affluence). And sometimes they're just territorial, assuming that development will increase traffic or strain other services (which they're not always wrong about in a fast-growing city). Once you filter out all this other stuff you'd theoretically be left with people who just prefer the bland areas for their own sake. But whether there'd be many people left is hard to tell.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Uranium City

I see lots of potential here.

[WhipperSnapper]

Beinvenue a Asbestos.

I wonder if you need to sign something at the gate like buying liquor in Ontario in the 1970s.