Great Canadian Skyline Thread II

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I know you're half-joking but it's funny how this is kinda true.

Montreal has and had good skyscrapers but the skyline was always very gappy.

Even Ottawa historically has had better canyons (albeit with way shorter buildings) than Montreal did.

Which is why Montreal has a skyline and Ottawa just has a little clump of buildings. Skyscrapers should be given room to breath so that can each be appreciated. Otherwise you can't see the trees for the forest.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Martin Mtl

René-Lévesque est notre premier canyon de vrais gratte-ciel, mais plusieurs rues secondaires du centre-ville sont des canyons plus considérables que ce qu'on retrouve à Ottawa: Université, Union, Metcalf, Drummond, Stanley, Peel, etc.

En fait, c'est justement René-Lévesque que j'avais en tête. Il y a plusieurs tours impressionnantes sur cette rue mais j'ai toujours trouvé que c'était très clairsemé.

Le centre-ville d'Ottawa est généralement rempli de tours de 15-25 étages seulement et qui sont assez banales, mais on les retrouve mur à mur sur plusieurs rues sur une assez longue distance (Slater, Albert, Queen, Laurier, Metcalfe, Kent, O'Connor, Bank, etc.) Quand on marche sur le trottoir et qu'on ne regarde pas trop en haut, ça donne une impression de densité qui est étonnante.

[Martin Mtl]

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[kwoldtimer]

Classic Ottawa Centretown.

[speedog]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Being a separate municipality with all of these trappings is not necessarily the defining factor in whether a place is a suburb or a true "city" (the way most people define it anyway).

In many cases, you can be both: Mississauga is arguably both a city and a suburb of Toronto. Whereas Toronto is just a city.

The definition of a true "city" - when someone flies into Pearson to visit someone in Mississauga and that someone jumps in a cab or an uber, when asked what their destination is does that someone just say xxx Street expecting that the driver will know that their passenger wants to go to Mississauga and not Toronto?

Or let's say you're flying into Vancouver to visit long lost old friends in Maple Ridge - do they identify themselves as living in the city of Vancouver or the city of Maple Ridge? What of the taxi or uber driver as well.

My definition of a city is very different from that of the associated metro area - I may fly into Toronto but my Mississaugan friends most definitely do not live in Toronto. Hell, even Toronto Pearson International Airport isn't in Toronto.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by speedog

The definition of a true "city" - when someone flies into Pearson to visit someone in Mississauga and that someone jumps in a cab or an uber, when asked what their destination is does that someone just say xxx Street expecting that the driver will know that their passenger wants to go to Mississauga and not Toronto?

Or let's say you're flying into Vancouver to visit long lost old friends in Maple Ridge - do they identify themselves as living in the city of Vancouver or the city of Maple Ridge? What of the taxi or uber driver as well.

My definition of a city is very different from that of the associated metro area - I may fly into Toronto but my Mississaugan friends most definitely do not live in Toronto. Hell, even Toronto Pearson International Airport isn't in Toronto.

This questioning is not unique to Toronto, nor to Canada. You even get it with the Vatican vs. Rome. It goes way back.

Quite a few people who live in Mississauga will tell you they are from Toronto if you ask them where they're from.

[speedog]

Originally Posted by Acajack

This questioning is not unique to Toronto, nor to Canada. You even get it with the Vatican vs. Rome. It goes way back.

Quite a few people who live in Mississauga will tell you they are from Toronto if you ask them where they're from.

That seems odd to me - I don't think there's anyone that lives in Airdrie that would say they're from Calgary or someone living in St. Albert saying they're from Edmonton.

[Rico Rommheim]

It's quite simple. Laval is its own city in every right. But when a Lavalois travels the world - he tells people he's from Montreal - or Quebec, not Laval.

Someone from Westmount is a Montrealer, even though he lives in a municipality that is not the city of Montreal. So maybe you come from Surrey, BC but when you're dining out with friends in LA, you tell them you're from Vancouver, or "near Vancouver", or BC, or Canada.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by speedog

That seems odd to me - I don't think there's anyone that lives in Airdrie that would say they're from Calgary or someone living in St. Albert saying they're from Edmonton.

As soon as they leave their immediate region they would. If you bump into someone from Okotoks in Vancouver or Ottawa, they'll say they are from Calgary. Or at least say they're from near Calgary or from the Calgary area.

[someone123]

Downtown Dartmouth in the foreground, North End Halifax across the water:


Source

[speedog]

Originally Posted by Acajack

As soon as they leave their immediate region they would. If you bump into someone from Okotoks in Vancouver or Ottawa, they'll say they are from Calgary. Or at least say they're from near Calgary or from the Calgary area.

Guess I'm different as I'd say I was from Airdrie which is near Calgary. Of course then I'd have to explain where Calgary is and then where Alberta is and then where Vancouver is.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by speedog

Guess I'm different as I'd say I was from Airdrie which is near Calgary. Of course then I'd have to explain where Calgary is and then where Alberta is and then where Vancouver is.

Only if you're talking to an American.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by speedog

Guess I'm different as I'd say I was from Airdrie which is near Calgary. Of course then I'd have to explain where Calgary is and then where Alberta is and then where Vancouver is.

The city I live in (Gatineau) probably has the strongest "conceit" I've seen when it comes to not saying they're from the much bigger city that dominates the metro. I suppose most people on SSP Canada know why that is. It's very very uncommon for people from Gatineau to say they're "from Ottawa" unless they are themselves fairly recent transplants from Ottawa.

Even people from Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills, Michigan seem more likely to self-identify as being from "Detroit". And we all know how many issues they have down there.

The best you'll get out of most people in Gatineau is "in Quebec near Ottawa" or "Gatineau, Quebec, right across from Ottawa".

[240glt]

^ Agreed. I have lots of friends in the lower mainland who live in Burnaby, Coquitlam and North Vancouver, if you ask them where they live they'll give you those names, not a generic "Vancouver"

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by 240glt

^ Agreed. I have lots of friends in the lower mainland who live in Burnaby, Coquitlam and North Vancouver, if you ask them where they live they'll give you those names, not a generic "Vancouver"

When they're talking with someone at a Canucks game or in Metrotown, sure.

But when chatting with Verner from Dusseldorf by the pool in Vegas?

[240glt]

^ well possibly in that case, but I've run into the same issue outside Canada when telling people I am from Edmonton, I usually need to explain that it is a northern outpost town in Western Canada. So outside of Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver (and perhaps Calgary) there will be lots of people who don't know the smaller cities.

But I think people will still say they are from Burnaby, but note that it is a city "in" or "next to" Vancouver

[middeljohn]

People from St Albert or Sherwood Park probably tell non-Albertans that they're from Edmonton. Very few Ontarians know what St Albert or Sherwood Park is. In contrast most people in Canada know where Burnaby/Surrey is, or Oakville/Mississauga/Brampton for that matter.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Acajack

When they're talking with someone at a Canucks game or in Metrotown, sure.

But when chatting with Verner from Dusseldorf by the pool in Vegas?

Funny you should mention Germans.

Germans are probably the most likely people to say that they're from some obscure village in region X, rather than just name off the nearest big city.

For one, Germans have a weird relationship with large cities. Soccer teams aside, I don't think they take great pride in being from a certain city if they don't actually live within the city proper. The metropolitan area population is rarely quoted, so many Germans really think that Stuttgart or Frankfurt is what a city of 600,000 looks like, and that their village with an S-bahn station is an independent entity that would exist in its present state even if there wasn't a big city nearby.

Germans also have a good sense of small-to-medium sized cities on the other side of the country. Maybe their license plate system, which assigns plates to cities and counties (Kreis), rather than states or departments, helps them flag where people are from.

[Acajack]

I think most people who aren't from the city proper of very big well-known cities will have a variable way of saying where they are from.

If I am in francophone Canada or Eastern Ontario, I say I am from Gatineau.

Beyond that it varies depending on who I am talking to and where I am, from "Gatineau, Quebec across from Ottawa", "In Quebec near Ottawa", to Quebec (in places like France) to simply "Canada" (places further afield).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

For one, Germans have a weird relationship with large cities. Soccer teams aside, I don't think they take great pride in being from a certain city if they don't actually live within the city proper. The metropolitan area population is rarely quoted, so many Germans really think that Stuttgart or Frankfurt is what a city of 600,000 looks like, and that their village with an S-bahn station is an independent entity that would exist in its present state even if there wasn't a big city nearby.

.

Well, that's lot more likely to be closer to the reality than for Oakville vs. Toronto, or Longueuil vs. Montreal.