Quote:
Originally Posted by Beedok
Honestly, apart for the size of their harbours, Victoria and Halifax surprise me more by their similarities than their differences. Both being naval towns of about the same size with a large historic core and impressive skyline for their size.
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They have some similarities but they're not really all that similar at the street level or in terms of overall layout or feel. It is subjective but I think they are at most about as similar as say an Ontario city and an Alberta city of similar size, like Ottawa and Edmonton. Or maybe Kitchener-Waterloo and Winnipeg. I think part of what is going on is that being a "coastal" city is often seen as a major salient factor in Canada since so many major cities here are inland.
Some observations:
- Halifax is older with older buildings of a different style, a quirkier/finer-grained street network, and so on.
- Victoria is more touristy/resort-ish/retirement-y and its role as provincial capital is much more significant since it's the capital of a bigger province. Halifax's capital status is like Toronto's capital status and Halifax can be as utilitarian as Toronto.
- Halifax is a regional primate city and Victoria is not. Halifax does not really have a Vancouver nearby (Halifax's Vancouver is Toronto and it's much more expensive to get to; Montreal is also a "major city for hipsters" nearby but exerts much less pressure).
- Victoria is a West Coast city and Halifax is an Atlantic city with wooden row housing, "East Coast" culture, and so on.
- The natural setting isn't all that similar, as people pointed out in here, even though both are on the ocean (like 40% of the world's population). The infrastructure matches this to some degree too, e.g. Halifax has its suspension bridges.
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