Great Canadian Suburban Skyline Thread!

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by Martin Mtl

I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say something negative about Vancouver in my entourage. Just sayin’

I was just generalizing when the biggest or proudest isn't the best at something there is s kneejerk negative reaction to hearing it.
And for the record I've never heard one negative word about Montreal when living in Vancouver.

[Prometheus]

An interesting thing about New Westminster is that it has two downtowns (i.e., two skylines). There is Downtown, on the river’s edge (seen in the photo), and Uptown, at the top of the hill (far out of the photo’s frame to the right).

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Denscity

People in larger cities don't want to hear that Vancouver or smaller is the best in Canada at something.
This is how we are.

Don't be such a martyr - not every comment is made because someone hates your preferred city.

New Westminster isn't really a "suburb" in the commonly used sense of being a post-war bedroom community. It's an old city in its own right (older than Vancouver itself, even), that's been absorbed into metro Vancouver but is not part of the core municipality. There aren't many similar examples in Canada, but in the US there exist many such comparable municipalities - Jersey City, Newark, Hoboken/North Jersey, Cambridge, Oakland, Miami Beach, Santa Monica, etc.

Wouldn't you even you admit that's it a bit of a stretch to so quickly declare that New West is "likely" more urban than all of those?

[Denscity]

I've only been to the western cities you mentioned so can't comment on the rest but yes having been on most streets in New West I would say yes it is more urban.
And yes it is a city in its own right in fact it was once the provincial Capitol.
I am guessing you have never been on the streets of New West.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Denscity

I've only been to the western cities you mentioned so can't comment on the rest but yes having been on most streets in New West I would say yes it is more urban.
And yes it is a city in its own right in fact it was once the provincial Capitol.
I am guessing you have never been on the streets of New West.

For the record, this is Hoboken. With a density of 15,140/sqkm it's the most densely populated municipality in North America:




New West is nice, but it's hardly the most urban non-core municipality in North America. Even just in Canada it's a toss up between it and Westmount.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

New West is nice, but it's hardly the most urban non-core municipality in North America. Even just in Canada it's a toss up between it and Westmount.

Westmount is 2.5 km's from downtown Montreal. That's still the core imo. Downtown/Uptown New West is 17 km's outside dt Vancouver.

That being said, surely there are areas 17 km's outside Montreal or Toronto that are just as urban as New West.

Edit - Ok maybe not. Probly more to do with the nature of the layout of Vancouver, as it can only grow in a southeasterly direction, so you end up with dense pockets further out.

[SpongeG]

My friend's grandma grew up and lived in New West and the way she described Vancouver when she was growing up was like a city away that you made the occasional day trip to.

I quite like it
2018-04-09_07-32-55 by snub_you, on Flickr

2018-04-09_07-30-32 by snub_you, on Flickr

2018-04-09_07-28-37 by snub_you, on Flickr

[esquire]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Don't be such a martyr - not every comment is made because someone hates your preferred city.

New Westminster isn't really a "suburb" in the commonly used sense of being a post-war bedroom community. It's an old city in its own right (older than Vancouver itself, even), that's been absorbed into metro Vancouver but is not part of the core municipality. There aren't many similar examples in Canada, but in the US there exist many such comparable municipalities - Jersey City, Newark, Hoboken/North Jersey, Cambridge, Oakland, Miami Beach, Santa Monica, etc.

Wouldn't you even you admit that's it a bit of a stretch to so quickly declare that New West is "likely" more urban than all of those?

IMO Newark is the best analogue for New Westminster. Substantial in its own right, historic, but still dwarfed by its much larger and more prominent neighbour. I guess the main difference between Newark and New Westminster is that Newark was a big bustling city as far back as the 1920s while AFAIK New Westminster was still fairly small back then... a lot of the highrise development is somewhat recent.

Pictures of New Westminster are so paradoxical... on one hand it looks like the downtown of a fairly old and significant Canadian city (as opposed to say, North York Centre which has little historical character), but at the same time it still gives off a strong suburban vibe.

[SpongeG]

a lot of new west burned down in 1898 in the great fire.

My favourite part of new west is the Queens Park neighbourhood. its got a great collection of Heritage homes.


vancouversun

[someone123]

Originally Posted by esquire

IMO Newark is the best analogue for New Westminster. Substantial in its own right, historic, but still dwarfed by its much larger and more prominent neighbour. I guess the main difference between Newark and New Westminster is that Newark was a big bustling city as far back as the 1920s while AFAIK New Westminster was still fairly small back then... a lot of the highrise development is somewhat recent.

Pictures of New Westminster are so paradoxical... on one hand it looks like the downtown of a fairly old and significant Canadian city (as opposed to say, North York Centre which has little historical character), but at the same time it still gives off a strong suburban vibe.

New West is not really like Newark. Almost every highrise in New West is residential, and the people who live in those buildings and work mostly commute out of New West. This is why the skyline doesn't seem proportional to how busy or important the city is. Metrotown is a more important commercial centre than New West, but New West is more urban.

[esquire]

^ I think that's what gives it the suburban vibe I was referring to in my earlier post... it feels simultaneously urban because of the downtown-looking streets and highrises, but at the same time it's suburban because of all the residences and lack of commercial activity. I guess unlike Newark, there is no big Prudential Life campus with big towers full of office workers. But I contend that NW still has a certain Newark-like vibe in that it is an old, somewhat traditional looking downtown that looks like its own city, which just happens to be a short distance away from a much larger, more prominent city.

[hipster duck]

I wouldn’t even say that New West is the most urban suburb in Metro Vancouver. North Van has a better downtown (in terms of stores and activity centres), and the urban strip on Lonsdale is better than the strip on 6th Ave in New West.

It’s definitely not the most urban suburban municipality in North America. Places like Cambridge, MA, Miami Beach and Berkeley are just in another league.

[Acajack]

In the Canadian context the city of Gatineau (relative to Ottawa) or at least the former City of Hull that forms its urban core, probably belongs in this discussion.

In a Jersey City/Newark or Oakland kind of way.

[esquire]

^ I consider Gatineau as more of a Jersey City, an across the river type of place vs. a standalone city.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ I consider Gatineau as more of a Jersey City, an across the river type of place vs. a standalone city.

We're also a bit of a St. Paul/Fort Worth type of place.

Though I don't think there is any largish metro in Canada/USA where there is such a cultural and linguistic difference and boundary that runs right down the middle (more or less) of the urban area. While still being in the same country.

(Obviously the cross-border metros along the U.S. southern border with Mexico like San Diego/Tijuana or El Paso/Ciudad Juarez have very stark differences but they have an international border in the middle of them.)

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Why does it need to be "a game"?

Love the irony.

The usual, unfounded best in Canada or North America from you is the gun shot up into the air. Maybe tone down on the grandiose rhetoric.

[softee]

I'd say as far as Toronto suburbs go, downtown Burlington kinda looks similar to New Wesminster, just not quite as built up with residential towers (although it's got some new ones on the go). It lacks a rapid transit connection to Toronto, but it does have all day Go Train service which will eventually run at 15 minute intervals. It's quite a bit further away from the city core than New West, too.

Being an upscale suburb, Burlington does lack the sort of gritty character of New West, but that's found in spades next door in Hamilton.

[Laceoflight]

Originally Posted by someone123

I've always been surprised that Montreal doesn't have this, in St-Lambert which was the connection point for the Victoria bridge going back over 150 years.

[disgression]
Montreal had one. Its name is Saint-Jean. Though Saint-Jean was never the capital of the province, it's been home to many important institutions or events provincially and nationally. The first railroad in Canada was opened to link Montreal (via LaPrairie) to Saint-Jean in 1836 to facilitate the business between Montreal and NYC. Located on the Richelieu river, Saint-Jean was directly linked to the ports of NYC by lake Champlain, Champlain canal (opened in 1823) and the Hudson river. It became Montreal's main outer harbour and it boomed between 1836 and 1940*. Around 1840, the port was 4th in Canada in terms of merchandise transshipment. The opening of the Chambly canal and locks downtown in 1843 consolidated the place of the city as Canada's main hub for pottery manufacturing. Add to that the opening of the Royal Military College (from the former Royal Military Academy and Shipyard), the important Military garrison (where the Royal 22 was founded), the 1-line tram (le P'tit Char), the huge industrial complexes (Singer, Pirelli cables, Crane Canada, Cluett&Peabody, military R&D and manufacturing)... and you get the vibe of the place.

The city had difficult times recovering from the massive exodus of *1891-1911 (1 000 000 Quebecers moved to New England) and stagnated for a while. In the 90s, it suffered from the relocation of the textile industry too. Anyway, IMO, the town is probably what's the closest analogue to New West around Montreal. Quebecers don't like towers though, and development in Saint-Jean has been plain suburban for many decades now.
[/end of disgression].

[Martin Mtl]

Originally Posted by logan5

Westmount is 2.5 km's from downtown Montreal. That's still the core imo. Downtown/Uptown New West is 17 km's outside dt Vancouver.

That being said, surely there are areas 17 km's outside Montreal or Toronto that are just as urban as New West.

Edit - Ok maybe not. Probly more to do with the nature of the layout of Vancouver, as it can only grow in a southeasterly direction, so you end up with dense pockets further out.

To me at least, the western limit of downtown Montreal is Atwater. Westmount is one block away.

[Marshal]

Originally Posted by logan5

Westmount is 2.5 km's from downtown Montreal. That's still the core imo. Downtown/Uptown New West is 17 km's outside dt Vancouver.

That being said, surely there are areas 17 km's outside Montreal or Toronto that are just as urban as New West.

Edit - Ok maybe not. Probly more to do with the nature of the layout of Vancouver, as it can only grow in a southeasterly direction, so you end up with dense pockets further out.

It is a result of the historical and geographic particulars of the Lower Mainland. New west was originally the largest, a capital, and with the largest port. But it was a river port, which inevitably lost out to the ocean port. The competition for the railway terminus decided the competition between New West, Vancouver, and Port Moody.

Politically, New West lost its place to Victoria when the Province was combined into one.

By the time Vancouver overcame New West in size, New West was already an established city sustained by it's river based and transportation industry, the sole bridge to the rest of the country, some aspects of government (like Land Titles and Courts), and services for its own population. Before being absorbed into the current configuration, it had also expanded out into what we would now call inner city suburbs. The historic age of New West goes beyond the downtown. The New West suburban neighbourhoods are significantly older than the Burnaby neighborhoods that have grown up around them.

While there are some similar places in Canada, New West is unique, and is so because of its unique circumstance. Hull, Dartmouth, and Port Credit share some similarities. Only Hull comes close though, and it does because it also has a more complex set of conditions behind its nature: separated by provincial boundary, and because of Ottawa's unique aspect of being the National Capital. Ottawa could not take advantage of the industrial potential of the river's electrical generating capacity. Hull was able to develop riverside industries without competition. Without these types of complexity, it would likely have developed like most other small side districts of river cities; or like places like Port Credit and Dartmouth: smaller, and largely residential.