Regional differences in urban form/typology

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

One built form that's on its way out here as most of these places are on their last generation: car-free outports. These are mostly located on the south coast between Burgeo and Harbour Breton, both of which are connected to the rest of the province by road.

This one (via FB) is Grey River, population 95.

This is one of the things about NL I find, for lack of a better word, extremely northern. There is something in the built form of its rural areas that seems almost reminiscent of remote Scandinavian communities, especially Norway: the physical orientation to the ocean, the housing constrained by the extremes of the landscape, the fairly dense but single-family built form, the use of colour, the irregular street layouts. There is something in the sub-Arctic world that NL seems to just be edging into being a part of. I remember a few years ago, walking around Reykjavik, and thinking about how strongly it reminded me of being in Nain, an Inuit town that is also the northernmost community in Labrador. Not two places one would think have a lot in common, but there was some kind of kinship in their physicality which I can only image stems from something to do with the exigencies of existence at that latitude, on that kind of landscape.

[Docere]

Newfoundland is Canada's Iceland and Canada's Ireland.

[urbandreamer]

Originally Posted by jonny24

Never heard it call Brampton or Brantford brick. I always just called it "yellow brick", though I also heard "buff brick" used. Since learning (probably on SSP) that it's an Ontario thing, I call it Ontario Yellow Brick.

If I can ever afford to build my own house, that's what it's going to be clad in. All the nice old farmhouses I grew near have it.

Buff brick is different than Ontario white brick. "Brick colour reveals the age of many houses. The earliest buildings used multi-coloured and buff bricks. Rough red arrived as a cheaper alternative until the railroad made transporting large amounts of white brick possible in the 1840s. By the end of the century, taste changed again, reinstating red brick as the colour of choice until the 1950s."
https://lfpress.com/2016/05/26/rangi...20th-centuries

Buff brick is darker, almost sand colored:
https://www.historicalbricks.com/pro...uff-handmades/

Historical white brick is lighter in color
https://www.historicalbricks.com/pro...antique-brick/
To add to the confusion, some historians do refer to it as yellow brick, but from what I've read it was originally called white brick.

The farmhouse I grew up in was mostly white brick with window accents and wall ends in buff brick.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

One built form that's on its way out here as most of these places are on their last generation: car-free outports. These are mostly located on the south coast between Burgeo and Harbour Breton, both of which are connected to the rest of the province by road.

This one (via FB) is Grey River, population 95.

That is amazing. We are so lucky to have places like these still left within our country.

[savevp]

Newfoundland's villages and outports have a way of pulling at the heartstrings, even if you've never been to one. Somehow still insulated from modernity, I hope places like Grey River can see the kind of tourism-centred revival Fogo Island has enjoyed.

[flar]

There are a few places in Southern Ontario that aren't predominantly brick. One of them is my home area of Wallaceburg/Port Lambton/Sombra. Downtown Wallaceburg is brick, and there are some brick houses, but the vast majority of older homes are made of wood.

Old churches in Sombra (the one on the left was demolished a few years ago)


Sombra houses



Wallaceburg houses, eclectic

[Docere]

Originally Posted by flar

There are a few places in Southern Ontario that aren't predominantly brick. One of them is my home area of Wallaceburg/Port Lambton/Sombra. Downtown Wallaceburg is brick, and there are some brick houses, but the vast majority of older homes are made of wood.

The Tri-Counties have a Michigan vibe.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

One built form that's on its way out here as most of these places are on their last generation: car-free outports. These are mostly located on the south coast between Burgeo and Harbour Breton, both of which are connected to the rest of the province by road.

This one (via FB) is Grey River, population 95.

https://i.postimg.cc/9Qd85dwp/419560...46415310-n.jpg

This one is Francois, population 64.

https://i.postimg.cc/4xkLSLyy/419474...71272912-n.jpg

Places like these are pretty special. I know they don't serve much of a purpose and aren't really viable on their own anymore, but surely they could have futures as summer home colonies, as tourist destinations, or amongst those looking for tight-knit, off-the-grid communities. Niche, but not non-existent (and growing) markets - and it wouldn't take much to make it happen.

Or, if nothing else, maybe our housing crisis can make these places desirable again. If you've been priced out of Toronto, Vancouver, and St. John's, you could always try Francois.

[SignalHillHiker]

Some tend to linger to varying degrees, yes. Grand Bruit, on the same stretch of coast, was resettled. Most of the diehards only moved as far as Burgeo and maintain their former homes in the summer. Little Bay Islands was resettled but two people stayed behind with no ferry or electricity. Merasheen has almost completely disappeared but the descendants of its former residents still have reunions there. And others have vanished, but remain known, like Pushthrough and La Manche. And some are gone and forgotten. You can see some foundation lines on maps but no one today, outside of academia, knows what was there.

*****

Drybrain, I went down a rabbit hole of Geoguessr YouTubers ages ago and a few of them got street scenes from Newfoundland. If they were doing no pan, no move, they guessed Scandinavia. And if they were allowed to move they were confused by the North American license plates lol. That Wizard guy, now often when he gets a scene from Scandinavia he hesitates and says something like, "Could be Newfoundland, but it's not...?"

[Build.It]

I don't know what this is called, but a lot of older buildings in Wellington County (in and around Guelph) use what appears to be escarpment rock for the exterior.

Eden Mills:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/tr5rwTthDPsS31Xo8
https://maps.app.goo.gl/2o2MFVMpJAetvanY9

Elora:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/V7Dkzf5gcu1EanVq7
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Mp4bvQKCW4EgBcQJ7
https://maps.app.goo.gl/JiFyb9nK2dH9LyVr5

Puslinch:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/VuUgS4Qo7ESnYcHw9

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Build.It

I don't know what this is called, but a lot of older buildings in Wellington County (in and around Guelph) use what appears to be escarpment rock for the exterior.

Eden Mills:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/tr5rwTthDPsS31Xo8
https://maps.app.goo.gl/2o2MFVMpJAetvanY9

Elora:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/V7Dkzf5gcu1EanVq7
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Mp4bvQKCW4EgBcQJ7
https://maps.app.goo.gl/JiFyb9nK2dH9LyVr5

Puslinch:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/VuUgS4Qo7ESnYcHw9

Scottish settlers.

[Build.It]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Scottish settlers.

Very interesting! Found this after reading your post and digging a little deeper.

https://www.guelphhistoricalsociety....stry-in-guelph

[Docere]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

That's not really the case in Toronto. The inner city east of the Don is wealthier than the core and the inner west end. Scarborough is indeed pretty working class - much more so than its western antipode of Etobicoke - but then on the other hand, eastern North York is wealthier than its western half, and East York is wealthier than York:




Nor has it been the case historically. The favoured quarter has always (or, at least since the late 1800s) skewed north along the central Yonge corridor:

The 2021 Census data maps for Toronto and GTA are on page 20 of this document:

https://openpolicyontario.s3.amazona...6-20230213.pdf

[Docere]

There's some similarities between Guelph and Kingston. Both limestone cities. They're the closest Ontario gets to a university town. Both about the same size.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Not really a difference in typology, but something I was reminded of when I was visiting Calgary last week: in both Calgary and Edmonton (and I’m guessing other prairie cities?) it looks to me as if there is a lot of tear-down and rebuild of inner-city houses when new owners acquire an old property. Whereas in central and eastern Canada, the tendency is more to renovate—in some cases basically down to the studs, but renovate nonetheless. This has lent the inner residential parts of the prairie cities with a constantly evolving look reflective of current design trends more than a past vernacular.

Calgary also did this with an entire neighbourhood (the East Village) - not something you see very often in 21st century Canada, outside of government-owned lands.

Redevelopments aside, I'm surprised by how much overlap there is between Calgary's architectural vernacular and Halifax's. There are the obvious differences - Calgary's tallest buildings are taller, and Halifax's oldest buildings are older - but the materials, dimensions, colour palette, and overall design ethos are quite similar - both in pre-war areas and in 21st century developments.

In terms of urban form though, Halifax fits within the Maritime typology (or really NS + NB typology - Charlottetown is laid out much more like an Ontario city). Strictly gridded downtown and inner city, surrounded by non-gridded suburbs with winding roads which peter out into low density exurbs carved into the forest. The closest matches for Calgary's overall urban form would probably be Kamloops and Kelowna.

An interesting "regional" difference is that cities in Ontario + the West tend to have flat or mostly-flat downtowns, while the cities in Quebec + the Atlantic tend to have steeply sloped downtowns. With few exceptions on either side.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Docere

Yes Edmonton is kind of like an overgrown Winnipeg in the oilpatch.

They are similar in a lot of ways but they also feel like they are products of different eras. As someone else pointed out, Edmonton's street network is extremely "square". Whereas Winnipeg's is much more "New France", with elongated blocks and a series of different grids that meet each other at weird angles.

The arterial streets tend to look quite different as well. Winnipeg's are much more rooted in the streetcar era and tend to look like this, while Edmonton's tend to be more like this.

I find that Winnipeg has about as much kinship with Thunder Bay and maybe even Windsor as it does with the other Prairie cities.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I find that Winnipeg has about as much kinship with Thunder Bay and maybe even Windsor as it does with the other Prairie cities.

So maybe Canada does have a "middle" (Manitoba and NW Ontario).

[Kilgore Trout]

This is a good rundown of urban typologies across Quebec:

http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2017...anada.html?m=1

I think the village typology is quite interesting because you don’t really see it in many other parts of Canada. You tend to have narrow streets on a rough grid lined by cottages and small detached plexes, all of it fairly dense. It’s very intimate, eclectic and haphazard.

Vieux-Boucherville
https://maps.app.goo.gl/3jTw7g7tLyqbSMTe6?g_st=ic

La Prairie
https://maps.app.goo.gl/tZBFsAJKzsYAgKvy6?g_st=ic

St-Casimir
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Yp2FYxN36xwVuSwQ8?g_st=ic

St-Pétronille
https://maps.app.goo.gl/CQduiPgsyzBb2rpY6?g_st=ic

Wendake
https://maps.app.goo.gl/UU5jHke8h9vgToLL8?g_st=ic

Pointe-Claire
https://maps.app.goo.gl/AP3vk5RjNDtcanjKA?g_st=ic

St-Esprit
https://maps.app.goo.gl/fC2qiu6DsnXqQoLDA?g_st=ic

Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue
https://maps.app.goo.gl/qVgxsRFhEzmfyr986?g_st=ic

[Docere]

Pointe Claire is interesting and shows how much of Montreal Island was built up early. It's not exactly a pre-war suburb but it did have a population of 4,500 in 1941, so it's not like it sprung up from basically farmland the way Toronto's post-war suburbs basically did.

[Kilgore Trout]

Pointe-Claire Village is less a prewar suburb than a rural village that predates (sub)urbanization. Same with Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Saint-Geneviève and Pointe-aux-Trembles. In Laval, you have St-François and Ste-Rose in similar situations. On the South Shore, there's La Prairie and Boucherville, and on the North Shore, St-Eustache and Charlemagne, among others.

Here's one view and another of Charlemagne – it's a good example of an old "noyau villageois" that hasn't been upgraded or gentrified, unlike St-Eustache, Boucherville, La Prairie, etc.

That said, Pointe-Claire was indeed a small railroad suburb served by the Hudson line that started service in 1887. But the prewar commuter suburb was concentrated around Valois station which is nearly 4km away from Pointe-Claire Village. You can see it on Google Maps here – the typology is completely different and has more in common with other railroad suburbs from the early 20th century. For instance, Highland Park in LaSalle, which is another prewar railroad suburb.

Also worth noting: Vieux-Longueuil, Ste-Thérèse and Terrebonne all have a bit of the village typology going, but they were more than just rural villages, they were towns important in their own right that just happened to be absorbed by Montreal's urban sprawl. Kind of like Brampton vs. Unionville in a GTA context.