Canadian cities that should have been bigger than they actually are?

[KnoxfordGuy]

Saint John and Portland, Me could be sisters due to their similar vibes. Not total population though, haha. Greater Portland is some 550,000. The city populations are basically neck and neck at 70,000 each though.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Edmonton and Calgary are pretty damned big and growing faster than most other Canadian cities.

Yes indeed. Ottawa too.
Calgary gets all of the glory but Edmonton is not that far behind in Metro growth and is undergoing a light rail expansion of ETS. And Edmonton is still really affordable to most Canadians. Not many places in Canada can you still find condos in the $200k-300k range or apartments for under $1400/month.

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[someone123]

Originally Posted by KnoxfordGuy

Saint John and Portland, Me could be sisters due to their similar vibes. Not total population though, haha. Greater Portland is some 550,000. The city populations are basically neck and neck at 70,000 each though.

Portland ME's metro goes right up to the NH border which is less than 100 km from metro Boston. I think it tends to include more separate towns and places that are a bit inside of Boston's orbit, while there's nothing comparable around Saint John.

One hint about the nature of the Portland ME metro is that it's about 550,000 but the urban area is only 205,000 or so. It's definitely bigger than SJ, but the gap maybe isn't as big as it seems from the metro populations. SJ is also very sprawly but with true commuter suburbs that definitely are not independent towns, even if they may not be in the urban area.

Had Saint John continued on a modest growth trajectory within Canada during roughly the 1920-1970 era I think the urban core of SJ would have ended up on about the same scale as the core of Portland. It might have had 250,000-300,000 people by now. Maybe more historic buildings would have been torn down, but then again it might have filled out more and some of the buildings might have been better maintained or seen some good adaptive reuse.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by LuluBobo

It's been weird to me that Southern Ontario only has one million+ person metro despite being like what, 12 million?

Windsor and Niagara kinda count, but the border isn't exactly porous. But London, KWC, and Hamilton stick out.

I think the region as a whole would have benefitted from being less Toronto-centric.

Give it time and there will be more 1 million Metros or Regional municipalities

2024 estimates city/CMA
Hamilton: 632,311/860,266
Kitchener - Cambridge - Waterloo: 696,417
London: 488,640/626,260
St. Catharines - Niagara CMA: 492,480
Windsor: 266,309/483,556
Barrie CMA: 245,586

There's another 7 CMAs under 200k in Ontario.

Of all of these, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge's growth has been astonishing. It's just growing so damn fast and towers are popping up everywhere within walking distance to the ION light rail.

I talked to a London native at what was probably the nicest dispensary in Waterloo a few years back. We both agreed that London used to be the largest city/Metro in SW Ontario, but in the 2020s it seems there was more growth, energy and vibrancy in KCW/Waterloo region now.

[J.OT13]

I'd say Winnipeg for sure, but unfortunately stunted by aforementioned reasons. Chicago is the only mid-west city that continued to thrive after railways fell out of favour.

Halifax, I'd agree is another example.

I might add Prince Rupert. Grand Trunk Railway certainly thought it had potential to rival Vancouver and other large west coast cities. They started building the Château Prince Rupert in 1913, but the project was eventually shelved. GTR lost a lot of steam after its President Charles Melville Hayes died during the sinking of the Titanic.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_Prince_Rupert

[MolsonExport]

^interesting. I did not know that.

[Pavlov]

Kingston, mostly because I live here and wish that it was bigger. Alas, its reign as the national capital only lasted three years, and its subsequent decline in national importance has been relentless (although it has had strong population growth in the past few years & it retains its title as the penitentiary capital of Canada!).

[Wigs]

What a gorgeous railway hotel that would have been. And a reason to check out Prince Rupert.

[someone123]

I wonder if Prince Rupert would have grown a lot larger if it had become a more important railway terminus, or if the Lower Mainland would have eventually won out anyway. Probably the latter, since there are just so many more accessible resources around the Lower Mainland and southeast BC, and people simply would want to live there more.

PR actually handles a decent amount of container cargo today but it hasn't really turned it into a city or resulted in a lot of spinoffs. The larger "port cities" in Canada like Montreal and Vancouver have very diversified economies with shipping being a small part.

The hotel might have just been abandoned or demolished. Or maybe it would have become sort of a niche tourism destination. It is a pretty area, but remote. It's actually a bit quicker to get there from Edmonton by car than Vancouver.

[MolsonExport]

It doesn't look like there is any space for a major city where Prince Rupert is situated

[someone123]

There's more flat land around the area than the picture suggests. There's another island where the airport is located that's bigger than the PR town area itself, and then other flat land behind those mountains.

But still, it's maybe something like 60 square kilometers of semi-easy to develop land that requires large bridges and ferries to connect. It would need Paris-like population densities to fit 1 million people. And it would be one of the most remote major cities in the world.

[Blitz]

Originally Posted by Wigs

Of all of these, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge's growth has been astonishing. It's just growing so damn fast and towers are popping up everywhere within walking distance to the ION light rail.

I talked to a London native at what was probably the nicest dispensary in Waterloo a few years back. We both agreed that London used to be the largest city/Metro in SW Ontario, but in the 2020s it seems there was more growth, energy and vibrancy in KCW/Waterloo region now.

Kitchener-Waterloo is becoming culturally part of the GTA, and no longer SW Ontario. Same with Guelph. The hardcore SW Ontario is the area that isn't really influenced by Toronto (so from around Woodstock westward).

[MolsonExport]

It strikes me as strange that there is practically no development along the 401 between the two exits for Guelph (greenbelt maybe?). Right between booming KWC and the expanding sprawl of the Western GTA (Milton, Halton Hills, and Mississauga). The section between KWC and Woodstock is similarly rather bereft of development. There is a long stretch where there is but a single exit (Drumbo/Innerkip and the dreaded Master Steaks truck stop).

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

There's more flat land around the area than the picture suggests. There's another island where the airport is located that's bigger than the PR town area itself, and then other flat land behind those mountains.

But still, it's maybe something like 60 square kilometers of semi-easy to develop land that requires large bridges and ferries to connect. It would need Paris-like population densities to fit 1 million people. And it would be one of the most remote major cities in the world.

That actually sounds amazing! I wonder if it's too late to include that on the list of nation-building projects.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by giallo

Kamloops and Prince Rupert in BC. Both were set up to be the regional hubs.

Kamloops has the railway, Hwy 1 and was gifted some crown corporations like the BC Lottery, but Kelowna pulled away in the new millennium, and that's that.

Prince Rupert was to be the biggish city in Northern BC, and has the bones to prove it, but it just never took off after WW2. I blame its relative stagnation on there being no quick way to get there by car or rail. As the crow flies, it's only 700km from Vancouver, but it takes over sixteen hours to drive there. BC has no north/south Pacific highway system.

I watched an interesting video about Prince Rupert and how the railway plan kinda fell through when the developer guy died, there was a huge Hotel planned and plans to bring in large tourist/passenger ships from Asia who would then transfer to the trains to travel across/through Canada leaving from Prince Rupert.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by LuluBobo

I think the region as a whole would have benefitted from being less Toronto-centric.

And that couldn't be helped, because of geography.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Wigs

but in the 2020s it seems there was more growth, energy and vibrancy in KCW/Waterloo region now.

KWC has become the "darling" of the province. No offense intended.

[MolsonExport]

KWC gets the LRT, endless highway widening, and a freeway through the town.

London? some lousy BRT.

[Harrison]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

If you look at the history of building height limits impacting city growth, Edmonton has a story of potential growth. It could have been both the Alberta captial AND the oil capital of Canada (especially as Leduc was the first real big oil discovery in 1947), but the Downtown Airport and its proximity to downtown really impacted the private sector's ability to grow and build office towers. in the 60's onwards. Calgary also was a regional rail hub (crazy to think given looking at it today) and oil companies were already setting up shop there due to a discovery in Turner Valley before Leduc. The horse had already begun to leave the barn.

The airport and its surrounding restrictions also arguably contributed to why Edmonton, like Calgary, has a sprawl problem.

So based on timing of a developing oil economy and the Airport development, I'd say Edmonton could have been bigger and more important as an industry giant than it is today.

Great points, and I also think if Canadian Pacific chose the Yellowhead Pass route instead of Kicking Horse via Calgary, Edmonton would have grown even faster, earlier on. It's much older than Calgary, founded in 1795 vs. 1875, and with that early growth, in addition to becoming the Capital and the centre of the Alberta oil industry, it would be much larger than Calgary, today.

[TorontoDrew]

Kingston Ontario

You can tell from the grandeur of some of the architecture that this was intended to be and remain a major urban centre for Canada. In 1891 it was still the tenth largest urban area in Canada at 19,264, 2 years later in 1901 it was kicked out of the tenth spot by Vancouver which had 26,133.

source: wiki
A French trading post and military fort at a site known as "Cataraqui" (generally pronounced /kætəˈrɒkweɪ/ ka-tə-ROK-way) in 1673. The outpost, called Fort Cataraqui, and later Fort Frontenac, became a focus for settlement. After the Conquest of New France (1759–1763), the site of Kingston was relinquished to the British.[5] Cataraqui was renamed Kingston after the British took possession of the fort, and Loyalists began settling the region in the 1780s.

Population (2021)
• Total 132,485

Kingston's location at the Rideau Canal entrance to Lake Ontario made it the primary military and economic centre of Upper Canada after canal construction was completed in 1832. It was incorporated as a town in 1838; the first mayor of Kingston was Thomas Kirkpatrick.[23] Kingston had the largest population of any centre in Upper Canada until the 1840s. Kingston was incorporated as a city in 1846

Lord Sydenham, the Governor General of Canada chose Kingston as the first capital of the united Canadas, and it served in that role from 1841 to 1844. The first meeting of the Parliament of the Province of Canada on June 13, 1841, was held on the site of what is now Kingston General Hospital. The city was considered too small and lacking in amenities, however, and its location near the border made it vulnerable to American attack. Consequently, the capital was moved to Montreal in 1844,[43] and it alternated between Quebec City and Toronto from 1849 until Ottawa.

[IMG]Kingston,Ontario by Sonicgregu, on Flickr[/IMG]

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