Quote:
Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker
Australia is great for comparisons. Hobart for St. John’s and Perth for Vancouver and Canberra for Ottawa all make some sense.
Isolated island city, not particularly special in any way but removed enough from the rest of the country to maintain its own identity.
Isolated west coast city, one of the country’s largest, with minimal connections to the other primary cities in the opposite side of a continent.
A compromise capital between the two historically settlement regions.
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Canberra makes sense for Ottawa in some ways as you mention, but in terms of the general feel of the city Adelaide is probably the place in the world I've been to that most felt like Ottawa.
It's about the same size (Canberra is much smaller), plus like Ottawa it's a traditional style city with industries and such. Canberra is a purpose-built government town.
Adelaide being the state capital has some stately government buildings like Ottawa. It was the focus of a city master plan at one point but like Ottawa most of those elements were not fully followed and largely abandoned since that time.
It's got lots of greenery, with an outdoorsy white collar vibe but still has a more subtle blue collar industrial vibe too.
Like Ottawa it has a downtown pedestrian mall (or at least it did) and as a bonus it even has a decently expansive bus rapid transit system!
It has a meh skyline for a city of its size, and going off in a couple of directions is kind of civilization's last stand before an archipelago of small towns quickly gives way to wild, largely unpopulated areas. Whereas if you go in another direction it is connected to the country's continuously settled most populated region.
It has a large hilly wilderness and recreation area just outside the city similar to Gatineau Park and Gatineau Hills, which is peppered with small exurban settlements or cute alpine style towns. Hahndorf is basically Adelaide's Wakefield, QC.
IMO Adelaide wins this hands down, though in terms of "feel" Oslo and Helsinki are also similar to Ottawa, though perhaps a step up in terms of sophistication. Neither of them really look much like Ottawa, however.