US equivalents of Calgary?

[Docere]

Please delete

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I mean, this is an urbanist forum. All cities get villifed to an extent, but is it really mystifying why an extreme Sunbelt sprawler would get some hate, in a forum that (generally speaking) reveres classic, pre-auto form?

Nashville is a very hot city right now, but I don't think many would argue it's hot due to prewar characteristics.

Yup, pretty much what I already stated.

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

It's also ahead of Nashville because it's not Southern Baptist.

Nashville is a beautiful city. It's simply not very fun. I can't imagine that changing any time soon.

Hey, to each their own I guess, but I don't really understand how you can come to the conclusion that Nashville isn't fun. Nashville is a lot of things, but "boring" isn't one of them, in my opinion. I mean I don't know what you like to do for fun, but if you can't find it in Nashville (or really, any city of it's size whether it has Nashville's nightlife scene or not) then I'd venture to guess that either you weren't looking hard enough, or you have extremely niche taste in entertainment.

[BnaBreaker]

Again, I personally think Calgary is on another level in terms of urban muscle and skyline, but since someone else brought Nashville up, here is an up to date photo (as in, from today haha) of Nashville that shows a good 80% of it's skyline simply for comparison purposes. There is a bit more to the left not shown. It lacks the height and clustering effect that the Calgary skyline has for sure, and probably is more lacking in overall quality too, BUT it might not be quite as much of a blowout as one might have guessed... :

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

You are exactly correct:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...oked-1.3740674

Could this quirk be the key to identifying an American equivalent for Calgary? Any American cities similarly wonky?

I can't think of any off the top of my head, but there's probably a bunch of smaller cities/towns across Canada and the U.S. with weird geographical boundaries (lakes, rivers, mountains, etc) that might fight the bill?

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by Docere

...But Calgary is a lot more similar to Denver (and Vancouver to Seattle) then Toronto or Montreal are to any US cities, in my opinion.

Aside from the French thing, Montreal is quite similar to Boston and Philadelphia. I agree with you about Toronto.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

You are exactly correct:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...oked-1.3740674

Could this quirk be the key to identifying an American equivalent for Calgary? Any American cities similarly wonky?

Little Rock comes to mind, except it's even more out of whack. Looks like they tried to correct it and ended up messing up the rest of the city. Even the state capitol building is badly mis-aligned! Probably explains a lot of what's going on in that state (if you're a believer in masonic building principles, that is).

Again, this isn't to put down any of these cities, so no offense intended. All I'm saying is, you probably don't want your city to look like a surveying mistake.

[dc_denizen]

Here's a somewhat crappy shot of Nashville

Aerial Shot of the City of Nashville-July 2020 by Michael Schulz, on Flickr

better partial skyline shot

Oct 29, 2018 12_05 PM_2018-10-30_09-47-26 by Vanderbilt University, on Flickr

[memph]

Here's the change in occupied housing units in Calgary between the 2011 and 2016 census.

SFH, detached: +54,040
SFH, semi-detached: +7,590
SFH, attached: +11,805
SFH, mobile: +590
Duplex: +5,420 (probably most of these are SFHs with basement apartments)
Lowrise Apt: +13,250
Mid-Highrise Apt: +3,440
Total: 96,135

So quite a lot of SFHs, which shouldn't surprise anyone familiar with the city. There's certainly many US cities that were building a higher percentage of multi-family during that period if housing permits are anything to go by, even a couple in the sunbelt. Austin housing permits for 2011-2015 were slightly lower (92,973) but with only 46,773 detached SFHs.

However, the overwhelming majority of multi-family permits in Austin were for 5+ unit buildings with only 1489 permits for homes in 2-5 unit buildings, with Calgary, it seems like it could be up to 10x as much with all those semi-detached homes and duplexes.

Downtown highrise apartments only made up for 1.8% of the increase in occupied housing in Calgary. The majority of semi-detached, attached, duplex and lowrise apartment units were built in the outer suburbs. The outer suburbs built around 85% of these lowrise multi-family homes in Calgary during those 5 years, presumably mostly with greenfield developments.

However, the electoral districts of Calgary Centre and Calgary Confederation, which basically cover the entire inner city, still saw an increase in 6500 housing units. Some of that is from the redevelopment of a former military base, but most of it has been traditional infill redevelopment.

Some of that has been downtown highrises, but an even bigger source has been redevelopment of SFH areas outside downtown.

Downtown
mid-highrise: +1750 units
low-rise multi-family: +455 units
SFH detached: -10 units

Inner city outside downtown
mid-highrise: +1100 units
low-rise multi-family: +4795 units
SFH detached: -1545 units

So most of that is from all those rowhouses, semi-detached homes and 3-4 storey apartment buildings replacing ranch homes (hence the 1545 unit decrease in detached SFHs).

That makes Calgary more like Houston, where redevelopment of SFH neighbourhoods into higher density lowrise built forms is a major source of growth. Seattle, Denver and Nashville have a decent amount of that as well. And it makes it less like Toronto, where most of the infill is highrises built on commercial and industrial properties.

[giallo]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

You are exactly correct:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...oked-1.3740674

Could this quirk be the key to identifying an American equivalent for Calgary? Any American cities similarly wonky?

A well known example, and probably not due to error, but Vancouver's downtown can be weird for first time visitors that are trying to navigate the roads on the north/south, east/west axis.

[Pavlov]

An aerial which show the Beltline and Mission neighbourhoods (just south of the CBD) a bit better.

[dc_denizen]

interesting, here is a 2016 aerial of denver

Chasing daybreak by Vic, on Flickr

[Pavlov]

That's a great photo.

In terms of urban residential neighborhoods surrounding the CBD, I think that Denver has a slight edge in terms of size (land area) - notwithstanding that this thread doesn't have a similar aerial showing all such neighborhoods in Calgary (ie, including Bankview, Kensington, Bridgeland, East Village etc). However, I also think that Calgary has an edge in terms of the density (especially highrise density) of such neighborhoods. Also, I think Calgary's CBD is clearly bigger, denser and taller (but not by a huge margin).

Overall, I give Calgary the clear edge (in terms of urban area scale), but not by a huge margin.

[dc_denizen]

^ seems reasonable.

Denver has a couple other areas like Cherry Creek and whatever that area is east of downtown:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7320...7i16384!8i8192

plus stuff like this here and there

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7427...7i16384!8i8192

but overall, its a bit more low-rise with, actually, less 4-6 story midrises then several other us cities.

[Docere]

What's the US equivalent of Winnipeg?

[dc_denizen]

Kansas City

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by Docere

What's the US equivalent of Winnipeg?

Hartford and Providence both line up to some extents, although probably more Hartford.

[L41A]

Originally Posted by JAYNYC

Am I the only one who has noticed that "what is the X equivalent of Y" is essentially the way to disguise / create a "versus" thread that won't get shut down? Because let's be honest, that's exactly what this thread has become.

From this thread alone:

"What is the US equivalent of Calgary?"

'Denver is the US version of Calgary, but larger'

'Austin is the US version of Calgary, but more fun'

'Charlotte is the US version of Calgary, but taller'

'Nashville is the US version of Calgary, but on a smaller scale'

'Isn't Calgary Canada's version of Houston?'

"What is the US equivalent of Winnipeg?"

Seriously.

Exactly

[badrunner]

What are you guys talking about? This thread is a lovefest for Calgary

[Pavlov]

The discussion has remained pretty civil in this thread, at least.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by doglover99

Calgary is like Denver with a bigger CBD.

both sterile downtowns sadly.

Denver appears to have a far larger pre-war building stock, though, with more gracious inner residential areas.