Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin
I think they make good antipodes to each other as similarly sized cities on either end of the country (and both good examples of successful, smaller urban environments); but beyond that the similarities seem to be made more along the lines of a checklist of superficial criteria than they are a comparison of the actual look, feel, function, and character of the places.
|
The checklists remind me of the "sister cities" concept. Halifax has a sister city in Japan, Hakodate, that has a star-shaped fort and naval base, is or was around the same size, has a similar climate, etc. I've never been to Hakodate but I'd assume the on-the-ground urbanism and day-to-day lifestyle there are radically more different from Halifax than a lot of North American places that don't tick as many of those boxes.
St. John's is about as much of an antipode to Victoria as Halifax is. St. John's is the second city of the region and also not on the mainland. There's the same confusion around "coast-to-coast" being Vancouver to Halifax or Victoria to St. John's.
Discussion-wise there's nothing wrong with comparing cities but the comparisons are typically one-directional as far as framing and targets go. I doubt there were a lot of Montrealers bringing up that supposed Calgary-Montreal rivalry. With Halifax there's a lot of comparison to smaller regional and national cities and it usually gets blended in with comments about being sensitive if you don't agree, the same old stuff about Statistics Canada being wrong about the size of the CMA, and so on. I think that stuff tends to keep people away from SSP or in locals; maybe they have better judgement than I do.