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  #21  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 2:55 AM
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  #22  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 3:47 AM
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  #23  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 3:48 AM
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Calgary is invisible.
Yeah we’re constantly overshadowed by Okotoks.
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  #24  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 9:59 AM
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Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker View Post
Sydney is very absent, but... I mean? What could you say?

Charlottetown being absent I appreciate. I've been. My impression is that it's urban but outdated. It feels at times like a real city, but 10 years ago.

That said, I've had two friends who've been there. One is from Newfoundland, and loved it - found it way too cold in winter, and way too dead after-hours, but was absolutely fully satisfied by what Charlottetown had to offer when it was open.

Another, who lived here for like five years, and only visited Charlottetown in the summer, and was left the impression it was even better than here. Pains me to even remember the conversation I think he's objectively wrong, by any measure, but the fact he had that impression speaks highly of what Charlottetown has to offer.

So I'm glad it's not here showing us up lol
In many ways, Charlottetown does feel like a flatter, more orderly St. John's. It's more firmly within the Halifax/Southern NB sphere of influence and feels a bit less quirky and homegrown than St. John's in some ways, its civic identity is heavily tied to confederation and the federal government (it feels more like Ottawa in this way) and there's a seasonal beach town dimension to it, kind of like the Okanagan but without the ski resorts. The food scene is above average for the country and the nightlife and music scenes are surprisingly good but less notable than St. John's. Being at the heart of a large farming region it's also a bit more culturally "country" than people tend to expect. Mainstream retail tends to be weaker in St. John's which is why it's common for people to go to NS or NB to shop at larger big box chains (like Costco or more recently Ikea).

The original town layout was based on the same principles as Philadelphia and Adelaide Aus - it's built around a 5-on-a-die pattern of parks and civic spaces, with Province House in the middle. This is sometimes seen in civic symbols as a pixelated "X" shape.

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Sydney has been pretty stagnant for the last couple decades but I think the area will start to grow significantly again as infrastructure in Cape Breton is upgraded and Halifax deals with shocks to its housing market. I would say it's completely overlooked at the national level and often even at the regional level, but it's a metro of ~100,000 with its own airport, seaport, university, college campuses, in a nice location next to the Bras D'or Lakes and Highlands National Park. The ~4 hour drive from Sydney to Halifax is incredibly scenic and rarely feels like a burden - one of the most enjoyable sections of the Trans-Can IMO. It's also an interesting case study where there's an urban reserve (Membertou) that has been driving a lot of the better developments in the area over the last couple decades.

Last edited by Hali87; Jul 21, 2021 at 10:26 AM.
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  #25  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 11:46 AM
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Originally Posted by Peggerino View Post
I always thought it's weird there's no talk of the Ontario cities besides the big three (Hamilton, Toronto and Ottawa). Even then, it seems like Toronto is not really discussed all that much considering how massive a city it is along with its high growth rate. I'd be interested to hear more about what's going on in places like Kingston, St. Catharines or Sudbury since I assume there is stuff happening.
At least for Toronto and KW, it's largely because most of the community that is interested in this sort of stuff is centred on other forums.
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  #26  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 12:38 PM
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  #27  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 3:20 PM
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I think Charlottetown takes the cake, being a provincial capital and also particularly nice with well-preserved old school urbanity (I think) which is exactly the sort of city I'd expect to be talked about here.

(Compared to, say, Nanaimo.)
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  #28  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 3:20 PM
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At least for Toronto and KW, it's largely because most of the community that is interested in this sort of stuff is centred on other forums.
Same thing with Montreal.
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  #29  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 3:26 PM
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I guess some people are really only interested in what is happening "at home". Of course most of us are interested in our own cities, but our psychological locus of identity often goes beyond cities to provinces, countries, the places of our ethnic ancestors, and even to places that we have visited, or hope to visit.

I like a forum that has a balance of stuff at home and in other places, near and abroad. A forum only about London Ontario would get boring very quickly. Montreal of course is a much larger city with all that goes with it, but even then, there are only so many times you want to discuss the same issues with the same people, or check on the minutiae of some construction site. Besides, the smaller forums often become utterly dominated by a small number of strong personalities (e.g, MTLurb) which is off-putting to many prospective members.
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  #30  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 3:52 PM
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I found Medicine Hat very interesting when I visited some family there a few years back. It feels like an urban island in the prairie. Some great historic building stock and a surprising Arts Centre. The old DT is well preserved and walkable.
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  #31  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 4:06 PM
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For BC, Nanaimo for sure. Although to be fair the city doesn’t deserve more attention than it gets, although it’s starting to turn things around. They went the route of urban sprawl, big malls and big box stores, killing their downtown decades ago so it’s a long road back.

Elsewhere, Regina doesn’t get mentioned much outside of football, nor do a bunch for tier 2 cities in Ontario and Quebec. I’d also like to see more of Fredericton and Saint John as well.
I wish Regina would get mentioned more, but in fairness, nothing ever seems to get built there other than the odd one or two storey commercial building.

Sherbrooke also is a big enough city with little mention. As is Kingston.
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  #32  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 4:39 PM
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport View Post
I guess some people are really only interested in what is happening "at home". Of course most of us are interested in our own cities, but our psychological locus of identity often goes beyond cities to provinces, countries, the places of our ethnic ancestors, and even to places that we have visited, or hope to visit.

I like a forum that has a balance of stuff at home and in other places, near and abroad. A forum only about London Ontario would get boring very quickly. Montreal of course is a much larger city with all that goes with it, but even then, there are only so many times you want to discuss the same issues with the same people, or check on the minutiae of some construction site. Besides, the smaller forums often become utterly dominated by a small number of strong personalities (e.g, MTLurb) which is off-putting to many prospective members.
The Vancouver section of this forum is by far the most active. Wonder why?
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  #33  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 4:40 PM
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  #34  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 4:49 PM
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Do many people look at cities in regional sections on SSP other than their own?

I personally spend my time on the SSP Atlantic section, and the national section. I don't often visit other regional sections.

Cities like Saint John & Fredericton are pretty active on the Atlantic section, but are rarely mentioned on the Canada section. I imagine this might be the case with some cities elsewhere in the country too. This might contribute to the perception that some cities are never talked about.
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  #35  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 4:57 PM
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Dryden and Elliot Lake
True, I've never really heard either of them mentioned here. I was in Elliot Lake a couple years before the mall collapse and remember commenting that the building seemed like it was in rough shape, structurally. There's a cool Atomium-like statue but otherwise it's a fairly non-descript place, surrounded by forest and lakes but less built-up than the Muskoka/Kawartha areas; seems kind of like a smaller cousin to Sudbury. Doesn't seem like there's much construction. The surrounding area is quite rust-belty (wood belt?). I really don't know much about Dryden at all except that it's sort of near Kenora and that a bunch of forestry and silviculture companies have operations there. It seems to be sort of oriented towards Manitoba.

North Bay is another one that someone mentioned; it sort of reminds me of Fredericton but in most ways looks and feels like a pretty typical small-to-midsized Ontario city. Again, I doubt there's much large-scale construction, other than maybe at the post-secondary institutions. It seems to be more or less within Sudbury's orbit.
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  #36  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 5:12 PM
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Originally Posted by Hali87 View Post
I was in Elliot Lake a couple years before the mall collapse and remember commenting that the building seemed like it was in rough shape, structurally.
Funny, me too. Elliot Lake is a near-total loss to car culture. Its downtown seemed like it might have been nice, if it weren't for that mall and the power-centre parking lot they carved out in the middle.
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  #37  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 5:36 PM
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Originally Posted by Hali87 View Post
True, I've never really heard either of them mentioned here. I was in Elliot Lake a couple years before the mall collapse and remember commenting that the building seemed like it was in rough shape, structurally. There's a cool Atomium-like statue but otherwise it's a fairly non-descript place, surrounded by forest and lakes but less built-up than the Muskoka/Kawartha areas; seems kind of like a smaller cousin to Sudbury. Doesn't seem like there's much construction. The surrounding area is quite rust-belty (wood belt?). I really don't know much about Dryden at all except that it's sort of near Kenora and that a bunch of forestry and silviculture companies have operations there. It seems to be sort of oriented towards Manitoba.

North Bay is another one that someone mentioned; it sort of reminds me of Fredericton but in most ways looks and feels like a pretty typical small-to-midsized Ontario city. Again, I doubt there's much large-scale construction, other than maybe at the post-secondary institutions. It seems to be more or less within Sudbury's orbit.
Well, Elliot Lake was a mining town previously, so the resemblance to Sudbury is not off-base. Admittedly it does have the Northern Ontario resource town "shambly" feel. The lack of development is a product of its lack of future alas; the town no longer really has any employers to lure the youth to set up families there. It essentially exists as a cheap retirement community and government service outpost.

North Bay is where the south meets the north in terms of 'feel'. It's a smaller version of Kingston sans prison population and with the university on the edge of the city versus in the core. It has always been a government town between the Ontario Northland Railway, CFB North Bay, post-secondary institutions and the hospital. These encouraged a much different development style than the other cities/towns of the North who were based around industrial/extractive employers. It's more orderly and tidy, a bastion of the PC Conservatism in a region that was much more old-school left-leaning.
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  #38  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 5:44 PM
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Elliot Lake is actually the only city I haven't been to in Northern Ontario but I feel like I know it fairly well. A number of years ago when I worked on the policy side of the building code I was attached to the mall collapse file which included a ton of research, meetings with authorities peripherally involved and closely following the hearing as it occurred. A bit later I also did a ton of work on radon - Elliot Lake is basically ground zero in Ontario for radon levels.

Unlike Sudbury which has some bones left, Elliot Lake is a 100% post-war planned community and the "downtown" was planned in accordance of that eras ideals. As the mines failed they have chosen to market themselves as a retirement community which is an interesting choice, but probably better than any other alternative.

Of the "cities" I've been in Northern Ontario I'd say Dryden is the least well known though, which is probably deserved.
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  #39  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 5:51 PM
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Dryden is quite small. I've passed through it twice driving across Canada (late 80s and early 90s). Nothing really of note (there was a Moose statue as I recall), except that it was the first larger settlement encountered after a long drive westward from Thunder Bay. I believe it had a McDonald's, where I stopped once for a Big Mac combo. I recall thinking it was a utilitarian-ugly sort of place.
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  #40  
Old Posted Jul 21, 2021, 5:52 PM
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Originally Posted by niwell View Post
As the mines failed they have chosen to market themselves as a retirement community which is an interesting choice, but probably better than any other alternative.
I heard about that, and honestly never understood it. Why would anyone want to retire in such an isolated place with such a harsh climate? Is there really a large enough niche of people who would run toward a place like that in their seventies?
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