The Toronto skyline has crossed a big threshold

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Who knows how different it could have been if Nova Scotia remained the 14th American colony.

or could be when canada officially joins the union

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ thank you for re-posting those; such magnificent shots!

with all of the hype surrounding "the coasts", how did the shores of the great lakes become home to the 2nd and 3rd largest skylines on the continent?

there must be something in all of that glorious freshwater.

yes and se florida would like to have a word with you both re anonymous apt towers bumping the skyline.

[M II A II R II K]

And skylines can be more recognizable at night particularly if the towers have distinctive lighting.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

yes and se florida would like to have a word with you both re anonymous apt towers bumping the skyline.

yeah, sunny isles beach has certainly exploded out of nowhere.

it's now home to 15 building over 500' tall.

that's more 500+ footers than detroit, minneapolis, cleveland, st. louis, denver, pittsburgh, cincinnati, portland, baltimore, kansas city, san antonio, salt lake city, milwaukee, buffalo, columbus, charlotte, austin, nashville, and many other US central cities.

[mrnyc]

and also nothing iconic, other than the long se florida skyline as a whole and that it is a lot of retirees!

[osmo]

Originally Posted by Mister F

At Confederation Halifax was already smaller than Montreal, Quebec City, and Toronto. Ontario already had more than 4x the the population of Nova Scotia at that point. Sorry, but geography is exactly the reason that Halifax is relatively small today.

A major port city and without meddling an important trade point to the UK and USA, no reason Halifax would not be on par with Vancouver size wise as an eastern equivalent.

[UrbanImpact]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

and also nothing iconic, other than the long se florida skyline as a whole and that it is a lot of retirees!

It's pretty impressive for being a suburb! As far as not being iconic....maybe not as iconic as billionaire's row in Manhattan, but, still iconic in it's own right for residential buildings largely designed by starchitects.

[memph]

Originally Posted by osmo

A major port city and without meddling an important trade point to the UK and USA, no reason Halifax would not be on par with Vancouver size wise as an eastern equivalent.

I think part of the reason why Vancouver is an important port is because of the fact that it's in a separate country from the Portland/Willamette and Seattle/Puget Sound regions and that it didn't have any competition within the same country as the main west coast port. I think Halifax was never going to be a major port. If not for confederation, it would've just been in Boston and New York's shadow instead of Montreal's. There's not really any reason it would've been bigger than Portland, ME.

I'd even say it was a bit lucky to be the main city of the Maritimes rather than Saint John.

[memph]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

yes and se florida would like to have a word with you both re anonymous apt towers bumping the skyline.

I kind of agree, after all several of the condos in Humber Bay Shores in Toronto have names that take inspiration from South Florida but I don't think there's much of the reverse happening.

Toronto's highrises are distributed differently, much more of them in the CBD, and then a large number stretching north along the subway lines, and then a bunch more scattered about in various inland clusters.

Although Toronto and Chicago's skylines both look like they stretch along the lake in the pictures posted earlier, the Toronto pictures are somewhat deceptive. Basically you're not looking at Toronto's skyline perpendicular to the shoreline but from an angle, so the highrises that are actually behind downtown end up looking like they're beside it.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Who knows how different it could have been if Nova Scotia remained the 14th American colony.

It would have been either the 1st American colony or the 11th. It was settled before all of the American colonies (1604) and became a British colony in 1713 before the Carolinas and Georgia. The "thirteen" are just the ones that participated in the American Revolution. Nova Scotia voted not to participate.

Something else that is forgotten is that at one point Halifax was the capital of everything that is now the Canadian Maritimes plus Maine down to Bangor. Had Nova Scotia not been subdivided it's more likely it would have had a larger primate city. Imagine if Southern Ontario had been cut up into 3 provinces instead of expanded to what it is now. A lot of stuff went "wrong" in the history of Halifax (e.g. Halifax Explosion, which destroyed almost all industry 100 years ago) and the Maritimes, kind of the opposite of Toronto. Though you could argue it's very probably that a united Southern Ontario would have had some kind of major city no matter what, maybe or maybe not the largest in Canada, but significant either way. Whether it ended up where Toronto is now or Kingston or Hamilton is not that important.

Halifax's location was chosen as the capital by Britain because it was in roughly the middle of the peninsula, had a good Atlantic harbour, and had good existing and potential connections to the most densely populated agricultural and fishing areas. There isn't really an alternate but roughly as good city location in Nova Scotia. At one point Saint John was considered a good site because of water connections to the whole Fundy area, but it's not an Atlantic port and the water connections became less important when the railways were built. An analogy to Ontario would be if somebody thought that all the people from around Lake Ontario would sail to Buffalo to do business. That might have made sense as a prediction in 1840 but not 1890.

[Steely Dan]

to what extent has the fact that Maine juts so far up into canada, separating the maritimes from the vast bulk of canada's population, commerce, agriculture, and industry (the windsor to quebec city corridor), stunted the maritimes growth and development?

i know the maritimes are physically connected to quebec, but just looking at a map, Maine really does kinda rear its ugly head up between those two realms. i would imagine that might lead to a certain amount of pshycological, if not physcial, separation.

playing alternate history for a moment, let's pretend that Maine had ended up as part of new brunswick. could that have lead to a better integration of the maritimes into that larger windsor to quebec city corridor?

[memph]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

You wouldn't call Seattle or St. Louis's skylines iconic or instantly recognizable?


Quick! Which cities are these?

They are distinctive for sure, but I think it's still different from, say, the Eiffel Tower. If the average person had seen images of St. Louis' skyline a few times, they'd learn to recognize it quite quickly, but many people outside America have never seen pictures of St. Louis' skyline, so if they saw that picture, they might think it looks cool and unique but wouldn't know what city it is.

Meanwhile, everyone's seen photos of Paris and would be able to recognize the Eiffel Tower. And Tokyo has a red and white version of the Eiffel Tower but if you showed most people a picture of Tokyo's skyline most people wouldn't know what city it is.

So my definition of iconic is a building that is both famous and distinctive.

I think the mix of colours with Toronto's original CBD skyline is actually quite distinctive despite their boxy shape - the black + gold + red + green + white. Montreal and Vancouver's skyline colours are much more of a generic mix of blue-grey and light and dark grey. All the condos Toronto is building are taking away from that distinctive colour palette is used to have 20 years ago though.

I think the CN Tower is definitely very iconic, and the Skydome also added to that when it was more visible. The Royal York Hotel as well, when the view of it wasn't blocked by other buildings. I'd argue the CN Tower is more iconic than the Sears and Aon Tower, and rivals the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings in much of the world outside the USA.

I also wonder if the Statue of Liberty might actually be the most iconic man made structure in America, rather than a skyscraper?

[Laceoflight]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

to what extent has the fact that Maine juts so far up into canada, separating the maritimes from the vast bulk of canada's population, commerce, agriculture, and industry (the windsor to quebec city corridor), stunted the maritimes growth and development?

i know the maritimes are physically connected to quebec, but just looking at a map, Maine really does kinda rear its ugly head up between those two realms. i would imagine that might lead to a certain amount of pshycological, if not physcial, separation.

playing alternate history for a moment, let's pretend that Maine had ended up as part of new brunswick. could that have lead to a better integration of the maritimes into that larger windsor to quebec city corridor?

In some extent, it did. Halifax lost its geographic advantage with the development of railroads, espacially the Montreal to Portland ME railway, completed in 1853. This new road connected the port of Montreal to an all-year Atlantic port within a ~250 miles reach, instead of the traditional ~715 miles road to Halifax. Quebec city already had its deep water port too (though closed a few months in the winter). So, all the stock and ressources coming from Upper Canada / Toronto / Ottawa river could be sent to Montreal, and then shipped to the Atlantic way faster, avoiding the Maritimes.

Hence, Halifax and its port were condemned to serve a local market. Moreover, the part of the USA that is close to the Maritime provinces never was the most populated.

[memph]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

to what extent has the fact that Maine juts so far up into canada, separating the maritimes from the vast bulk of canada's population, commerce, agriculture, and industry (the windsor to quebec city corridor), stunted the maritimes growth and development?

i know the maritimes are physically connected to quebec, but just looking at a map, Maine really does kinda rear its ugly head up between those two realms. i would imagine that might lead to a certain amount of pshycological, if not physcial, separation.

playing alternate history for a moment, let's pretend that Maine had ended up as part of new brunswick. could that have lead to a better integration of the maritimes into that larger windsor to quebec city corridor?

I think it wouldn't have helped that much. The two regions would still be separated by a sparsely populated area of forested mountains and hills. I think in many ways, Ontario and Quebec feel more connected to New York State and Vermont, and I think that's because there are fairly heavily populated areas there connecting everything together, and that matters more than international borders for a lot of people.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by memph

I also wonder if the Statue of Liberty might actually be the most iconic man made structure in America, rather than a skyscraper?

The Hollywood Sign too.

Statue of Liberty and Hollywood, very iconic of America to outsiders, probably as much as if more than any particular skyscraper. But these two happen to represent the two largest US cities too.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by memph

Meanwhile, everyone's seen photos of Paris and would be able to recognize the Eiffel Tower. And Tokyo has a red and white version of the Eiffel Tower but if you showed most people a picture of Tokyo's skyline most people wouldn't know what city it is.

So my definition of iconic is a building that is both famous and distinctive.

Well if your criteria is global recognition, there are probably only a few symbols of world cities (not necessarily all skyscrapers) and even the country they represent, that you'd say find in a cartoon-ish depiction, perhaps, a kid's first book of "places all across the globe".

For example, showing Times Square, the Statue of Liberty for NYC, Hollywood sign for LA, Eiffel Tower for Paris, Big Ben for London, or the UK, Sydney Opera House for Sydney or Australia in general. Then there are the old/ancient ones, often representing a country as a whole like the pyramids of Egypt, Parthenon, Colosseum, Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, etc.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

to what extent has the fact that Maine juts so far up into canada, separating the maritimes from the vast bulk of canada's population, commerce, agriculture, and industry (the windsor to quebec city corridor), stunted the maritimes growth and development?

It's definitely a negative. Toronto and Fredericton NB are actually about equidistant from Montreal. But the drive from Fredericton along the Trans-Canada that avoids Maine takes 8 hours while the drive from Toronto takes only 5.5 hours. The highways going to NB from Quebec and Maine also aren't fully twinned, whereas the major highways inside the Maritimes are.

The train is even crazier. It takes 22 hours to go from Montreal to Halifax by train. They're under 500 miles apart as the crow flies, maybe 600 once you take into account having to go around the Bay of Fundy. You can take a train from Toronto to Montreal in under 5 hours.

So geography is a bit of a factor, but bad transportation links are the much bigger factor.

[Mister F]

The whole debate about how iconic a building is ridiculous. How famous a building is often has nothing to do with the quality of the architecture or how distinctive the building is.

In any case, the way that Sears and Hancock, two similarly scaled buildings with twin antennae on top, bookend the skyline give Chicago a symmetry that makes the skyline instantly recognizable. Toronto's skyline is more about a single exclamation point. Buildings like the One and the Mirvish/Gehry towers will be huge and distinctive but will still always be in the CN Tower's shadow.

Originally Posted by someone123

It's definitely a negative. Toronto and Fredericton NB are actually about equidistant from Montreal. But the drive from Fredericton along the Trans-Canada that avoids Maine takes 8 hours while the drive from Toronto takes only 5.5 hours. The highways going to NB from Quebec and Maine also aren't fully twinned, whereas the major highways inside the Maritimes are.

The train is even crazier. It takes 22 hours to go from Montreal to Halifax by train. They're under 500 miles apart as the crow flies, maybe 600 once you take into account having to go around the Bay of Fundy. You can take a train from Toronto to Montreal in under 5 hours.

So geography is a bit of a factor, but bad transportation links are the much bigger factor.

You make a good point, but the distance from Montreal to Toronto still is quite a bit shorter than to Halifax even as the crow flies. Plus the Bay of Fundy gets in the way so the absolute shortest land route to Halifax with no political borders would be well over 900 km, almost twice the distance as to Toronto. The trains to Toronto travel a lot faster too thanks to an easier landscape to build on and higher population.

[memph]

I mean the Twin Towers were kind of iconic. They were definitely a distinctive and recognizable part of the Manhattan skyline. But they were just two big white boxes. However, twin towers aren't that common, especially at such a size, and looming over all neighbouring buildings the way they did.

[ThePhun1]

The Twin Towers were wholly iconic, one of the most notable collective symbols of any kind anywhere.