Great Lakes Cities

[MolsonExport]

Would London be considered a Great Lakes Cities? We are equidistant between Huron and Eire, and not too far from St. Clair and Ontario.

[Blitz]

^I think so.


When I was growing up in Windsor in the '90s we didn't have cable tv because the antenna on our roof picked up all the tv stations from Detroit and Toledo for free. So I was exposed to no Canadian media other than CBC and TVO and that was normal among my friends too. I've also been told I have an American sounding accent by non-Windsorite Canadians.


The built form of Windsor's older neighbourhoods is similar to Detroit's especially in the neighbourhoods close to the river:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@42.32382...7i16384!8i8192

For larger buildings, the same architectural firms worked both sides of the river (Albert Khan was a big one).

[MolsonExport]

In Montreal (where I grew up) with a rooftop antenna, we could pick up Vermont (Burlington) and New York State (Plattsburgh) TV stations (NBC, CBS, ABC). They seemed so...quaint and rural compared to our "big city" stations...but the former had the shows that we all wanted to watch (i wanted to watch Dallas so that I could ogle Victoria Principal).

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by edale

It's not trolling. I would never think of going to Detroit to experience 'the big city'. Downtown Detroit feels similar to like a Downtown Cleveland or Cincinnati. Nice architecture, some shopping and restaurants, sports arenas...but pretty damn quiet most evenings and weekends. There's no subway, no theater district, no continuous stretch of urban neighborhoods to explore, not much in the way of unique or upscale shopping.

It's not a knock on Detroit specifically-- there's only a handful of cities in North America that really offer the big city experience.

It does sound like you're trolling. It's not rocket science why someone in London, Ontario, would consider Detroit as "the big city". Detroit was larger than every city in Canada until the mid 1990s.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist

I think this thread would benefit from a heated debate on Tim Horton's vs. Wawa.

Tim Horton's and Wawa are completely different though. Kind of an apples to oranges thing, no? T-Ho's is a fast food restaurant, Wawa is a convenience store/gas station with overrated food offerings.

Sheetz (also a convenience store/gas station with overrated food offerings) vs. Wawa is the debate.

This is an older map (There are A LOT more Sheetz locations added in NW PA and NE OH now), but you get the idea

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Tim Horton's and Wawa are completely different though. Kind of an apples to oranges thing, no? T-Ho's is a fast food restaurant, Wawa is a convenience store/gas station with overrated food offerings.

Sheetz (also a convenience store/gas station with overrated food offerings) vs. Wawa is the debate.

Yeah, I always thought Wawa was more like 7-11 or Speedway.

[deja vu]

Originally Posted by edale

It's not trolling. I would never think of going to Detroit to experience 'the big city'. Downtown Detroit feels similar to like a Downtown Cleveland or Cincinnati. Nice architecture, some shopping and restaurants, sports arenas...but pretty damn quiet most evenings and weekends. There's no subway, no theater district, no continuous stretch of urban neighborhoods to explore, not much in the way of unique or upscale shopping.

It's not a knock on Detroit specifically-- there's only a handful of cities in North America that really offer the big city experience.

I'll try not to be too much of a fanboy, but I think I need to correct this.

I agree Detroit is not in the same caliber of big city as New York, Chicago, etc. But Detroit has one of the largest & most vibrant theatre districts in the entire country, even after so many historic playhouses have been lost to the decades. Perhaps even the second-largest in the country, according at least to this website -

https://www.experiencedetroit.com/theatres.htm

Just scroll down through this Wikipedia article to see some of the venues that still exist -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfor...rts_in_Detroit

[Innsertnamehere]

Windsor borrows more built form references from Michigan than the rest of southern Ontario, but it is very different. It's also very different than most of southern Ontario though. Sort of sits in the middle.

Michigan has huge street widths, larger lots, larger homes, more brick homes, etc.

That said, Windsor features larger streets than most of Ontario, larger lots than most Ontario cities, appears at least on the surface to have less apartment buildings than most of Ontario (similar to Detroit being dominated by single family dwellings), it just isn't to the extent of Detroit or Michigan. Overall it's more similar to Southern Ontario than it is Michigan I would say.

[Crawford]

Detroit has pretty solid high culture options. U.S. rust belt cities, as a general rule, tend to punch above their weight on the high culture front. Cleveland has an outstanding symphony and art museum, Buffalo is pretty strong, even Toledo is solid.

If someone is in, say, London, ON and they want a weekend centering around the symphony and a major art museum, they'd do better in Detroit than in Toronto. The DSO and DIA are high ranking legacy institutions, moreso than any institutions in Canada. DIA has the most famous Diego Rivera murals, the Hearst armor collections, and a bunch of high profile Rembrandt, Picasso, Van Gough, Cezanne, etc. DSO is considered a first-tier global symphony with really prominent list of conductors.

Detroit obviously falls short in terms of cohesive, traditional urban form, and any strong semblance of centralized vitality. But its legacy institutions are quite strong. The auto barons built a cultural legacy.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yeah, I always thought Wawa was more like 7-11 or Speedway.

Basically, but higher quality... lots of coffee selections, decent made to order hoagies, breakfast sandwiches, pastries, etc. Sheetz offers same, just in a more colorful (garish) store environment.

People in PA are weird about this... the "rivalry" is much more about loyalty to where one hails from than about actual differences in the stores. They're both gas stations/convenience stores with decently-clean bathrooms and decently-edible food.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Windsor borrows more built form references from Michigan than the rest of southern Ontario, but it is very different. It's also very different than most of southern Ontario though. Sort of sits in the middle.

Michigan has huge street widths, larger lots, larger homes, more brick homes, etc.

That said, Windsor features larger streets than most of Ontario, larger lots than most Ontario cities, appears at least on the surface to have less apartment buildings than most of Ontario (similar to Detroit being dominated by single family dwellings), it just isn't to the extent of Detroit or Michigan. Overall it's more similar to Southern Ontario than it is Michigan I would say.

I'm skeptical that Toronto's average lot sizes are smaller than the city of Detroit's. Many of Detroit's lots, especially the more densely packed lots, have been cleared of buildings, so that probably skews perception quite a bit. Suburban Detroit vs suburban Toronto is a different story, however.

[suburbanite]

I don't think there's any doubt that Detroit would have larger lot sizes on average. Even if you want to compare relatively intact inner city neighbourhoods.

Look at something like Indian Village in Detroit compared to Rosedale in Toronto. both built as affluent residential areas close to Downtown.

Detroit:



Toronto:



I circled the building in the centre in Rosedale because I think it's somewhat interesting. It's the home of a billionaire, and he literally lives packed in on that small block with a dozen other houses. You could probably do the same thing with say Forest Hill, and Grosse Point, where people of similar wealth live in much tighter quarters in Toronto.

[ATXboom]

Originally Posted by edale

It's not trolling. I would never think of going to Detroit to experience 'the big city'. Downtown Detroit feels similar to like a Downtown Cleveland or Cincinnati. Nice architecture, some shopping and restaurants, sports arenas...but pretty damn quiet most evenings and weekends. There's no subway, no theater district, no continuous stretch of urban neighborhoods to explore, not much in the way of unique or upscale shopping.

It's not a knock on Detroit specifically-- there's only a handful of cities in North America that really offer the big city experience.

My issue is that you are throwing out opinions about other peoples mindset without having ever lived their experience or talking to them. That’s lack of empathy.

Fwiw I grew up in Toledo with Windsor / Detroit 45 min down the road. Cleveland is only 90 min away. I can tell you by far that Detroit was considered the big city. It was 3x bigger than Cleveland and has all big retail outlets you’d find in LA. Just like there, they’re not all downtown. In the 80s Detroit metro was right there population wise with peer metros falling right behind NYC/LA/CHI. The big big city was Chicago at a 3.5 hr drive away. NYC was irrelevant till you get east of Cleveland.

Back when newspapers were a thing you would see 4-5 papers available on the streets. In order it was the Detroit Free press, Toledo Blade, the Plain Dealer and Chicago tribune. Sometimes you would see the Columbus Dispatch.
We would get both Toledo and Detroit TV. Detroit news covered Windsor.

At night from Perry’s Monument in Lake Erie you could see the lights of Detroit/Windsor, Toledo, Cleveland, and even Buffalo//Toronto.

[MonkeyRonin]

Lots sizes are definitely narrower in Toronto. Here's a fairly intact 19th century neighbourhood as close to the core as it gets in Detroit:





Compared to a fairly typical inner Toronto neighbourhood, at the same scale:

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I don't think there's any doubt that Detroit would have larger lot sizes on average. Even if you want to compare relatively intact inner city neighbourhoods.

Look at something like Indian Village in Detroit compared to Rosedale in Toronto. both affluent residential areas close to Downtown.

...

I circled the building in the centre in Rosedale because I think it's somewhat interesting. It's the home of a billionaire, and he literally lives packed in on that small block with a dozen other houses. You could probably do the same thing with say Forest Hill, and Grosse Point, where people of similar wealth live in much tighter quarters in Toronto.

Maybe, but Indian Village is like two streets. Toronto's Rosedale looks more similar to Detroit's Boston-Edison neighborhood, with the exception of the auto baron mansions on Boston and Chicago Boulevards.

But what's the difference between this and this?

[suburbanite]

Those are similar, but Detroit is obviously dominated by SFH and not those two-split examples. I'm sure we can find some examples of specific areas of Detroit that may have similar lot sizes, but for the miles and miles of the city made up of the dominant typology, Detroit will almost always be larger/more spaced out.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Those are similar, but Detroit is obviously dominated by SFH and not those two-split examples. I'm sure we can find some examples of specific areas of Detroit that may have similar lot sizes, but for the miles and miles of the city made up of the dominant typology, Detroit will almost always be larger/more spaced out.

We're talking about lot sizes though, not the type of building on the lot. The city of Detroit doesn't have a lot of huge lots. The Detroit example that I posted is actually a few miles from the core, although still within the pre-1930s area of the city.

[Docere]

Brunswick Ave. with its Victorian semis looks very Toronto to me. I don't think Detroit or Cleveland really looks like that anywhere.

[Northern Light]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Toronto:



I circled the building in the centre in Rosedale because I think it's somewhat interesting. It's the home of a billionaire, and he literally lives packed in on that small block with a dozen other houses. You could probably do the same thing with say Forest Hill, and Grosse Point, where people of similar wealth live in much tighter quarters in Toronto.

Worth saying...... Gerry's house.....(really more like 2 houses) actually sits on just over 1/2 an acre, so its not that tiny a lot......

On the other hand........that was 3 lots.......he bought out the neighbours and tore those houses down to make room an addition on their primary house.

[shappy]

North of College between Spadina and Bathurst, that stretch of Brunswick Ave was developed as the high-end residential section of that area... larger houses (although still mostly semis), more generous setbacks, grass between the sidewalk and curb. It actually ceases to look like that north of just Ulster. The other streets in that area look like this. That is a typical setup in Toronto.