Canadian Urban Canyons

[harls]

My first time in Montreal driving I nearly missed a traffic light. You get used to it quickly, though. On smaller streets there are no lights directly overhead, only on corners.

Not a fan of the horizontal ones elsewhere in Quebec. Most of the old city of Aylmer seems to have vertical lights with a few horizontal ones here and there (mostly put in after the merger with Gatineau in 2002).

[RoshanMcG]

Halifax


Source

[someone123]

The best "canyon" in Halifax is Granville Street because it is visually terminated by the Maritime Centre, which is pretty imposing. It can look impressive with a telephoto shot but I haven't seen one like that since the Roy and Discovery Centre building have gone up. For those who don't know the city Granville is the gap visible between the row of buildings on the far right.

[TorontoDrew]

[IMG]Pearl Street at dusk by Jeremy Gilbert, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Kilgore Trout]

I think it's worth pointing out that Montreal's traffic lights are not that unusual even in a North American context.

Boston
https://goo.gl/maps/GdGtqRB6dixmPmkW7

Washington, DC
https://goo.gl/maps/EZppZZr91rNADuYs5

Seattle
https://goo.gl/maps/Zp6AmMg2zgfzf6zE9

Halifax
https://goo.gl/maps/EjWiHa1A6j8Daz719

New Orleans
https://goo.gl/maps/Nx1bZy6dzBEnGozNA

[isaidso]

I'm way more used to black traffic lights. Those yellow ones in Hamilton are unusual to me.

[Nouvellecosse]

The black ones are so much better for an urban setting. Most of the ones here are the yellow suburban car-sewer style which has no sort of charm or style to them.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Halifax = Boston
Montreal = New York
Ottawa = Washington
Toronto = Chicago
Winnipeg = Minneapolis
Calgary = Denver
Edmonton = Houston
Vancouver = Seattle

I feel like the bolded comparisons make little sense.

Not that I can come up with better comparables.

[WhipperSnapper]

The only difference between Brooklyn and Queens (outside their older centres) is that Toronto has more brick.

blind click on a random spot ... it does get much better
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6873...7i16384!8i8192

[someone123]

Granville Street, Halifax


Hollis Street


Prince Street


Bonus shot that doesn't look as canyon-ish. Barrington and Sackville:


Source

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

I feel like the bolded comparisons make little sense.

Not that I can come up with better comparables.

The Toronto and Edmonton comparables makes fairly decent sense.

I have heard people from Edmonton describe Edmonton as comparable to Portland Oregon, but I don't see it at all outside of Strathcona (neighbourhood to the south of downtown). Kansas City might be a better match, considering the number of festivals and burgeoning urbanization, and also much less offensive than Houston.

Toronto's only analog in the United States would be Chicago. The next remotely comparable would be Philadelphia.

You are right, though. Ottawa and Washington are nothing alike. However, I don't know if there is a single analog for Ottawa in the United States. Best I can think of is Richmond Virginia; grand historic architecture, relatively urbanized/dense for its size and location, relatively stunted skyline, lots of government stuff (Virginia has nearly 9 million people).

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Toronto's only analog in the United States would be Chicago. The next remotely comparable would be Philadelphia.

Disagree. Toronto's closest comparable in the US is the New York borough of Queens. They were largely built at roughly the same time so many of the streetscapes look similar. Queens even has a skyscraper node in 'Long Island City'. Toronto's downtown is much bigger/nicer of course and is becoming less similar to Queens each passing year. Chicago is very Midwestern while Toronto doesn't look or feel like that at all.

If I had to pick a global city which most closely mimics Toronto it would be Melbourne.

[MacLac]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

The Toronto and Edmonton comparables makes fairly decent sense.

I have heard people from Edmonton describe Edmonton as comparable to Portland Oregon, but I don't see it at all outside of Strathcona (neighbourhood to the south of downtown). Kansas City might be a better match, considering the number of festivals and burgeoning urbanization, and also much less offensive than Houston.

Toronto's only analog in the United States would be Chicago. The next remotely comparable would be Philadelphia.

You are right, though. Ottawa and Washington are nothing alike. However, I don't know if there is a single analog for Ottawa in the United States. Best I can think of is Richmond Virginia; grand historic architecture, relatively urbanized/dense for its size and location, relatively stunted skyline, lots of government stuff (Virginia has nearly 9 million people).

Portland comparison makes absolute sense...since the City of Roses and YEG are both the "Hipster Capitals" of each respective country.....that's the only quantifier one needs to make!!!

[Hali87]

I've never been to Ohio but I've always gotten the impression that the cities there (especially Cinncinnati and Columbus) are a bit like Ottawa-without-Parliament. Edmonton seems much more like Minneapolis than Portland.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Disagree. Toronto's closest comparable in the US is the New York borough of Queens. They were largely built at roughly the same time so many of the streetscapes look similar.

At this point, what percentage of inner city Toronto's housing stock is condos built after 2005? Probably a lot.

Canadian cities have been going in a different direction from American cities since the 1960's or so, the era when they started to build unique developments and infrastructure rather than importing from the US and UK. These days there isn't much similarity between what's being built in New York (which as fewer subway stations than it did in the 1940's, and the biggest construction story is probably the skinny skycrapers of "Billionaire's Row") and Toronto.

[megadude]

From my perspective, Toronto and NYC are comparable for being the financial capitals of their country. For feel, it's Chicago.

My experience is two trips to NYC. One for two days and the other for 12 days in which I covered four boroughs and some suburbs on LI and NJ.

Chicago for me because I get the Great Lakes vibe, while for NYC, including Queens, the ocean is prevalent for me. Maybe that's because I'm an angler and fished a few times while there. Admittedly, the only time I spent in Queens was at the Mets game, driving through, and checking out the coastal areas.

For residential I can probably see Queens being more similar to Toronto than Chicago's housing stock, but for overall "feel" I felt like Chicago was more similar to TO.

Now Manhattan or DT Chicago? DT Chicago felt way more like TO only because the architecture. When in Manhattan I got a sore neck from looking up all the time at every little detail in every building, whether residential or commercial. Chicago has more interesting architecture than TO to me, but they are closer to each other than Manhattan to TO.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Edmonton seems much more like Minneapolis than Portland.

I can sort of see the Edmonton-Portland comparison if you look at certain outer Portland neighbourhoods. And Portland has an Alberta Street.

Portland is very spread out in a similar way. It looks like it has car-oriented or at least streetcar neighbourhoods that were very extensive even in the 1910's.

Downtown Portland is quite a bit older than Edmonton and isn't very similar. The pioneer era in the US came earlier; San Francisco began booming in the 1840's and Portland in the 1850's. Portland has substantial heritage buildings from the 1870's. The first transcontinental railway reached California in the 1860's while Canada didn't get its transcontinental railway until the 1880's. Portland had 50,000 people when Edmonton had 1,000.

[Hali87]

Edmonton doesn't really have a reputation as a hipster city outside of Alberta I'm afraid. I know enough people from there to know that it's a thing but it's not one of the city's stereotypes the way it is for say, Montreal (or Portland)

[edit: which I guess makes it all the more hip]

[megadude]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I've never been to Ohio but I've always gotten the impression that the cities there (especially Cinncinnati and Columbus) are a bit like Ottawa-without-Parliament. Edmonton seems much more like Minneapolis than Portland.

Been to Ottawa twice, Cleveland once, Columbus once and Cincy twice. I can see that. Especially C-bus because it looks cleaner than the other two and is the capital. They have the one pro sports team in the big 4.

Cleveland is dirtier and Cincy to me doesn't have a unique identity due to it being on the Mason Dixon line, but there are elements I can definitely see being relatable to Ottawa.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Hali87

Edmonton doesn't really have a reputation as a hipster city outside of Alberta I'm afraid. I know enough people from there to know that it's a thing but it's not one of the city's stereotypes the way it is for say, Montreal (or Portland)

It has always felt to me like Albertans evaluate Edmonton within an Albertan context. Of Edmonton and Calgary, Edmonton is the more hipstery city. In the wider context of the West, it is much closer to Calgary than it is to Portland. And there are a lot of aspects of American culture that barely make it north of the border and nobody seems to notice (e.g. the people freaking out at each other over whether they put up BLM posters or not and whether or not they support antifa, were there concrete-filled milkshakes that were thrown, if there were, would that have been bad, etc.). I hope some of that stays south of the border.