[BretttheRiderFan]

In honour of the commieblock thread, I thought I'd start this thread :haha:

So which Canadian metro area has the worst sprawl?

[MonkeyRonin]

Sudbury.

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/5825/urbanareas.jpg


/thread.

[WhipperSnapper]

I assume Toronto. It's sprawl would be the 3rd largest city in the nation and no one comes close to the 600 million square feet of industrial space located in the 905.

[Wharn]

Sudbury.

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/5825/urbanareas.jpg


/thread.

London is denser than Winnipeg or Edmonton? I refuse to believe this.

[MonkeyRonin]

London is denser than Winnipeg or Edmonton? I refuse to believe this.

See the commieblock thread.

Also, which 2 idiots voted for Toronto, when it has the least low-density sprawl in the country? :shrug:

[Wharn]

See the commieblock thread.

Also, which 2 idiots voted for Toronto, when it has the least low-density sprawl in the country? :shrug:

London may have its fair share of commieblocks but it's still mostly made of neverending detached house rows. I'm actually very surprised to see this; if it's true then suddenly a light rail system sounds a little more viable.

[roccerfeller]

From where I've been, Toronto certainly takes the cake. As someone stated, its sprawl alone spans multiple cities!

I don't feel Ottawa or Winnipeg has the type of sprawl that Edmonton and Calgary do, as Calgary and Edmonton boomed like crazy and sprawled like crazy (we got space in the Prairies)

So, I picked Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton.


Compared to the two prairie boom towns and T dot, I dont think any other cities can really compare with sub-urban sprawl.

I wouldn't be surprised if Regina/Saskatoon and Winnipeg soon followed suit.

But Toronto remains king.

[roccerfeller]

See the commieblock thread.

Also, which 2 idiots voted for Toronto, when it has the least low-density sprawl in the country? :shrug:

.... *raises uninformed hand* :D

[Cambridgite]

What exactly are we referring to here?

Are we talking about whose suburbs are the most unwalkable and far-flung, whose suburbs are the ugliest, or are we talking about the city with the highest proportion of its housing stock built at post-1980 cookie cutter subdivisions?

[caltrane74]

the thing is though the sprawl in Toronto ..

Mississauga - HAS MCC
North York - HAS NYCC
Scarborough - HAS SCC
Vaughan - HAS VCC
Markham - HAS MTC


So all these sprawling suburbs, are hitting the wall of the greenbelt they have no choice but to create dense living for the future. Wherefore now you see that Mississauga now has the tallest buildings in Canada outside the 3 biggest cities outside of Toronto. This will be the future. You will see more tall buildings in Mississauga. Plans are in the works for 30 highrise towers in the center of Mississauga. WHAT WAS.. once sprawl. HAS now become high density outlying nodes.

[MonkeyRonin]

What exactly are we referring to here?

Are we talking about whose suburbs are the most unwalkable and far-flung, whose suburbs are the ugliest, or are we talking about the city with the highest proportion of its housing stock built at post-1980 cookie cutter subdivisions?

Good point.

Largest suburbs (in total pop./land area): Toronto
Most car-dependent suburbs: ???
Ugliest suburbs: Montreal
Lowest density suburbs: Sudbury
Highest proportion of suburban development: Kitchener-Waterloo? Calgary?

[freeweed]

See the commieblock thread.

Also, which 2 idiots voted for Toronto, when it has the least low-density sprawl in the country? :shrug:

The same idiots that recognize that "Toronto" in this context almost certainly means the GTA, and not the official city proper. As someone else mentioned, Toronto's sprawl alone would be the 3rd biggest city in the country. And it sprawls over dozens of kilometers.

[freeweed]

are we talking about the city with the highest proportion of its housing stock built at post-1980 cookie cutter subdivisions?

Gotta be Calgary. The city more than doubled in size from 1980 through today, and nearly all of that was in planned subdivisions. Mind you, many 1950s-70s suburbs were "cookie cutter" as well (and in many cases, far, far worse) so I'm not sure if we should just be looking at a specific year, or the degree of bland sameness in an area. I've driven down countless streets of what used to be called "postwar" housing where literally every single house for 30-40 in a row is the exact same original design. Nothing post-1980 comes remotely close to that - developer controls put a stop to that for the most part.

[caltrane74]

Of course Toronto has the most land dedicated to suburbs. But this is going up against the wall of the green belt. Of course you won't see real densification of these areas until our Toronto population gets to around 9 million people in the next few decades.

[MonkeyRonin]

The same idiots that recognize that "Toronto" in this context almost certainly means the GTA, and not the official city proper. As someone else mentioned, Toronto's sprawl alone would be the 3rd biggest city in the country. And it sprawls over dozens of kilometers.

So does that actually make it the "most suburban"? I suppose thats a matter of debate, but by that logic, is NYC the "suburban sprawl capital of the US" or Paris the suburban sprawl capital of Europe? And don't forget Tokyo, they have the largest suburbs in the world. Being the biggest city, of course its going to have the biggest suburban population as well.

[BretttheRiderFan]

What exactly are we referring to here?
Are we talking about whose suburbs are the most unwalkable and far-flung, whose suburbs are the ugliest, or are we talking about the city with the highest proportion of its housing stock built at post-1980 cookie cutter subdivisions?

Just vote for the city or cities you feel has the worst sprawl

Has no particular criteria

[WhipperSnapper]

the thing is though the sprawl in Toronto ..

Mississauga - HAS MCC
North York - HAS NYCC
Scarborough - HAS SCC
Vaughan - HAS VCC
Markham - HAS MTC


So all these sprawling suburbs, are hitting the wall of the greenbelt they have no choice but to create dense living for the future. Wherefore now you see that Mississauga now has the tallest buildings in Canada outside the 3 biggest cities outside of Toronto. This will be the future. You will see more tall buildings in Mississauga. Plans are in the works for 30 highrise towers in the center of Mississauga. WHAT WAS.. once sprawl. HAS now become high density outlying nodes.

I've had the misfortune to drive throughout Vaughan and never came across anything city centre like even by 905 standards. The only thing vaguely urban is a three block stretch of Woodbridge Avenue. Scarborough Centre is a mall surrounded by parking and a few disconnected towers. C'mon; we can find much better than that for this former pseudo city.

[caltrane74]

Sorry, my bad.

the future Vaughan City Centre. To be built with the Subway which is going there.

Funny enough Vaughan City Centre gets a subway and there is nothing there yet. And Mississauga gets zilch.

This is what it will look like.

http://urbantoronto.ca/picoftheday/images/7CityCentreRender3.jpg

[Doady]

It's Toronto, obviously. Just look at Mississauga: extreme low density, practically non-existent public transit and pedestrian networks, huge swaths of underdeveloped lands, and endless parking lots beside subdivisions full of identical houses with four cars each, broken up only by the occasional 8 lane arterial and the soulless strip malls and grey industrial districts. And it alone has a higher population than the entire metropolitan area of Winnipeg, and that's despite giving the fattened Mississauga residents each an equal "weight" as the Winnipeg residents. And that's just one municipality in the GTA, the others are somehow even worse - except Oakville and Markham, which are a lot more progressive and urban than the rest of the 905. It's the worst sprawl in the Americas, no doubt.

[someone123]

That chart is a really poor way of comparing sprawl between cities because the worst sprawl isn't included in urban area calculations.

[Cambridgite]

Okay, for unamenable suburbs and metro areas that are spread out for their populations, I'd have to go with Saint John and Halifax. I know of no other cities in Canada where most of the suburban fabric is houses that are 50+ metres apart, run on well water, the streets have no sidewalks, and literally support no transit at all (at least in the Saint John case).

Sudbury's urban boundary is far more distinct than it is in these other places, even if their CMA contains a lot of empty land.

For having banal, cookie cutter monstrosities taking up most of the urban fabric, I'm going to list 4 cities:

- Calgary
- Edmonton
- Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge
- Barrie

Yes, Calgary and Edmonton have lots of sprawl. But they still managed to build an impressive CBD (especially Calgary) in those decades of sprawling.

KWC is probably the worst for this, all things taken into consideration. Not only is it very cookie cutter, but it lacks a CBD, and originated from 5 completely separate towns. While suburbanization trend is starting to change with more tech comparies investing in the cores, the lion's share of all business is done in suburbia...sort of like a mini Los Angeles. This applies to retail, office space, and of course industry (and it's a pretty industrial metro). We even have 8 lane freeways that jam up at rush hours.

Barrie is also very cookie cutter, but at least you can point to a distinct downtown as their CBD, even if it's small (their population is smaller as well). There isn't much office space to speak of, since that's what Toronto is for lol.

[Wharn]

practically non-existent public transit and pedestrian networks

I don't think so, Tim. Mississauga has better transit than London (a "real" city), and if they actually plough their sidewalks rather than allow them to be trampled into ice then they'd have better pedestrian networks as well. It's just that you can't walk anywhere, unless you have a good 3 hours to spare.

[MonkeyRonin]

It's the worst sprawl in the Americas, no doubt.

lol, keep trollin' there mate.

And for the record, Mississauga's transit moves 155,000/day (plus more people using GO or nearby TTC routes), compared to 110,000/day in Winnipeg and 62,000/day in Quebec City.

[Doady]

lol, keep trollin' there mate.

And for the record, Mississauga's transit moves 155,000/day (plus more people using GO or nearby TTC routes), compared to 110,000/day in Winnipeg and 62,000/day in Quebec City.

Mississauga moves 110,000 per weekday by Canadian measures of ridership (linked trips). I don't know the weekday numbers for Quebec and Winnipeg (and I'm sure your numbers are incorrect) but the annually they see 42 million riders.

In comparison, Mississauga only gets 31 million annually, despite having a higher population. Per capita ridership in Quebec and Winnipeg is 50% higher than in Mississauga. Of course, if you compare to other systems like Calgary or Vancouver, it's even worse.

So, obviously, Mississauga is extremely car-dependent. And it's not even the most car-dependent suburb in the GTA.

[matt602]

Toronto wins again I think, closely followed by Calgary. It should probably be noted though that for the most part, Toronto's main suburbs of Mississauga, Oshawa, York Region, etc. are starting to build up instead of out. Mississauga especially has just about hit the urban limits as far as growth is concerned and intensification projects have been under way for the past decade now.

Hamilton's suburbs on the other hand continue to be stuck in the 1950's and are continuously clear cutting throughout the escarpment to make way for hundreds of additional, generic townhouses each year. Pretty sad.

[MonkeyRonin]

Mississauga moves 110,000 per weekday by Canadian measures of ridership (linked trips). I don't know the weekday numbers for Quebec and Winnipeg (and I'm sure your numbers are incorrect) but the annually they see 42 million riders.

In comparison, Mississauga only gets 31 million annually, despite having a higher population. Per capita ridership in Quebec and Winnipeg is 50% higher than in Mississauga. Of course, if you compare to other systems like Calgary or Vancouver, it's even worse.

So, obviously, Mississauga is extremely car-dependent. And it's not even the most car-dependent suburb in the GTA.

Where are your numbers from? Granted, I got mine from Wikipedia, but still didn't see anything stating 42 million/year for Winnipeg and Quebec City.

Regardless, I'd expect them to have higher transit use, being actual cities and all...Mississauga is a suburb, obviously. Though I doubt Surrey or Laval could boast better transit ridership. As far as Canadian suburbs go, doesn't get much better than Mississauga, as sad as that might be.

[MonkeyRonin]

Toronto wins again I think, closely followed by Calgary.

Toronto and then Calgary? That doesn't make sense by any measure. Are you talking about total suburban population? Because then Montreal and Vancouver would be ahead of Calgary. Are you talking proportion of suburban population? Because then Calgary would be above Toronto (plus a whole bunch of others). Car-dependance/low-density of suburban development? Because then both of 'em would be near the bottom...

[PoscStudent]

St. John's is sprawling out of control. The city itself has seen very little growth over the years yet two of the bordering towns increased by 30%+ and 14% between 2001 and 2006. The city is now trying to compete with these towns by approving large subdivisons, one recent approval is in the area of a former municipality which is probably 25 minutes or more from the core of the city, when there is lots of oppertunity in the centre of the city.

[goodthings]

Where are your numbers from? Granted, I got mine from Wikipedia, but still didn't see anything stating 42 million/year for Winnipeg and Quebec City.

Regardless, I'd expect them to have higher transit use, being actual cities and all...Mississauga is a suburb, obviously. Though I doubt Surrey or Laval could boast better transit ridership. As far as Canadian suburbs go, doesn't get much better than Mississauga, as sad as that might be.

Longueuil (RTL) has 31,000,000 riders per year, which is the same as Mississauga, but only has 250,000 people in. But, they are beside Downtown Montreal. So that's basically unfair comparison. It would become a fair comparison only if Mississauga moved to where Toronto Island is now.

[Doug]

Depends how one defines sprawl:

1) Density
2) Tract Housing
3) Car dependence
4) Start-stop development
5) % of metro that is detached housing

Calgary is easily #1 for tract housing and % of metro that is detached housing. It is probably one of the best for least start-stop development.

[Wooster]

Calgary certainly has a high proportion of its population and urban footprint in post-war suburban development. So that makes it a king of sprawl of sorts. However, I'd argue that Calgary's suburban development is better managed on a regional scale than most. Calgary has a long tradition of very comprehensive and large scale master planning of new communities. Although subdivisions have followed fairly typical auto-oriented Don-mills style development for decades, they are still planned with the transit system in mind, networks of open space, community amenities, schools and so forth. By virtue of Calgary's unicity governance model, it has been able to control virtually all the region's development under one jurisdiction - and uniform standards. This has a few advantages. It prevents a race to the bottom in terms of planning regulation between competing municipalities trying to attract tax base and development. It also prevents leap-frog development and pockets of development that aren't nearly big enough to plan in any sort of comprehensive manner.

These are all problems that have plagued development in large cities in Canada, particularly the GTA. You go to the suburban municipalities there are you see a lot of little isolated subdivisions, with few or no amenities, connections to transit or a sense of how it fits in with the greater region. To me, that's the worst kind of sprawl there is. There's no logical urban structure, or thoughtful sequencing of development. Farmer wants to subdivide his land? ok, go for it!

[Bdog]

Calgary certainly has a high proportion of its population and urban footprint in post-war suburban development. So that makes it a king of sprawl of sorts. However, I'd argue that Calgary's suburban development is better managed on a regional scale than most. Calgary has a long tradition of very comprehensive and large scale master planning of new communities. Although subdivisions have followed fairly typical auto-oriented Don-mills style development for decades, they are still planned with the transit system in mind, networks of open space, community amenities, schools and so forth. By virtue of Calgary's unicity governance model, it has been able to control virtually all the region's development under one jurisdiction - and uniform standards. This has a few advantages. It prevents a race to the bottom in terms of planning regulation between competing municipalities trying to attract tax base and development. It also prevents leap-frog development and pockets of development that aren't nearly big enough to plan in any sort of comprehensive manner.

These are all problems that have plagued development in large cities in Canada, particularly the GTA. You go to the suburban municipalities there are you see a lot of little isolated subdivisions, with few or no amenities, connections to transit or a sense of how it fits in with the greater region. To me, that's the worst kind of sprawl there is. There's no logical urban structure, or thoughtful sequencing of development. Farmer wants to subdivide his land? ok, go for it!

Very good post

[freeweed]

These are all problems that have plagued development in large cities in Canada, particularly the GTA. You go to the suburban municipalities there are you see a lot of little isolated subdivisions, with few or no amenities, connections to transit or a sense of how it fits in with the greater region. To me, that's the worst kind of sprawl there is. There's no logical urban structure, or thoughtful sequencing of development. Farmer wants to subdivide his land? ok, go for it!

And this kind of sprawl is 10x worse in most large US cities. I agree that it's the worst kind of sprawl possible. You're also right in that it's the one thing Calgary does right - there's virtually no "bedroom community" type development here. A couple of small towns and that's it. Otherwise the suburbs are at least contiguous with, and generally well integrated into, the existing city.

At least the GTA manages semi-decent transit to its far-flung corners. Try doing an equivalent commute in an otherwise progressive city like Seattle - it's a total car-fest.

[vid]

Sudbury.

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/5825/urbanareas.jpg


/thread.

To be fair to Greater Sudbury, its skewed number is because the sprawl there isn't just a bunch of subdivisions on big lots, it's a bunch of villages all over the valley and Statcan's method of determining the boundaries of urban area include a lot of bush. Thunder Bay is the same, our "urban area" includes a part of the city that is 75% forested and will never be developed. It fucks up the numbers significantly, as it increases the Urban Area's size by about half.

And as Someone123 said, Thunder Bay's worst sprawl area (where all the houses are on one acre lots) isn't anywhere near our urban area, so that isn't included. But a shit tonne of never-to-become-suburban forests are.

In this map, the red line is city limits, the yellow line is the urban area limits according to StatCan, the pink area within the yellow line is the city's development zone, the pink area south of the river is a bunch of estate lots and subdivisions not included in the urban area, the green areas are major parks and conservation areas (plus a couple wetlands that can't be developed) and the orange is the airport.

http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/6752/image2993.jpg

Our suburban areas aren't any less dense than, say, Kingston or Winnipeg's. Our urban area as defined by Statcan simply happens to include a shit load of forested areas and rural housing that will never come part of the city. It would be like including all of Caledon, King, and other suburban towns in Toronto's urban area, and then using that boundary to say "Toronto isn't dense."

Even the most ambitious plans developed in the history of the Lakehead, which included subdivisions and lots on many parts that are within the urban area but will never be developed, did not cover as much land as Thunder Bay's Statcan defined urban area does.

[SpikePhanta]

Regardless, I'd expect them to have higher transit use, being actual cities and all...Mississauga is a suburb, obviously. Though I doubt Surrey or Laval could boast better transit ridership. As far as Canadian suburbs go, doesn't get much better than Mississauga, as sad as that might be.

Surrey's street system is a mess, its similar to Calgary's.

here is a quote by Drew Snider of Translink
comparing Metro Vancouver to those centres is difficult because our urban sprawl is different and those other cities have older, more developed transit systems.

One thing Mississauga and surrey is similar in that I would never ride the bus at night in both cities. :haha:

[Dmajackson]

For proportionality to its population I voted for Moncton. It's a third the size of Halifax yet it has as many major road projects going on (if not more) to serve its never-ending suburban sprawl. For comparision reasons the three communities that make up Greater Moncton all have low density numbers; 300 in Dieppe, 525 in Riverview and 450 in Moncton. I have rfespect for the city so I will avoid posting the horrible CMA density the entire area has.

[dleung]

Sudbury.

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/5825/urbanareas.jpg


/thread.

The thread is for "ugly" Suburban Sprawl. The sparsest suburbs are usually older and more easy on the eye. Most east coast sprawl in the US are quite attractive actually.

High-density subdivisions, and suburbs made up entirely of such subdivisions, look ridiculous. Slab towers in a suburban fabric are simply vertical sprawl. I remember reading an article somewhere that showed Torontonians had way above-average walking-induced stress, because while most of the city's area is highly hostile to pedestrian use, the development is nonetheless so dense that good transit coverage is feasible, (and relatively cheap for suburbanites since it's all one zone). So while in most other cities people give up and drive, Torontonians will walk insane routes through the suburbs, along overpasses, sidewalk-less arterials, etc, to get to those bus stops, lol.

So high density and transit use doesn't necessarily mean pleasant...

[jlousa]

There isn't a contest that Toronto can't win. :cheers:

[Jets4Life]

Winnipeg Sprawl:


East St.Paul
Waverley West
Sage Creek
Canterberry Park
Headingley being built up
South St.Vital
Whyte Ridge
Charleswood South


It's not completely bad for the Peg City. I love the Exchange District, and they really should transform more buildings into lofts. Waterfront Drive was a great idea. It will also be really nice to see the old rail yards in Fort Rouge be transformed into residential quarters.

IMO, Edmonton has the worst sprawl. At least in Western Canada

[Cambridgite]

For the ugliest suburbs, I think the southwestern Ontario cities are pretty bad. Same with the prarie cities.

GTA subdivisions use a lot of brick, which I think is a nice contrast to the vinyl siding you see down the road in places like Kitchener, Guelph, or London.

St. John's has pretty ugly sprawl too, but it's not as vast and at least the topography is interesting.

[The Jabroni]

For the most car dependent Western Canadian city, it's Calgary hands down. Toronto and the outer 'burbs is the overall worst IMO.

[MonkeyRonin]

If there's anything I've learned from this thread its that Canadians seem to struggle with the concept of percentages.

Oh well, at least I can take solace in the fact that Tokyo is still more suburban than us...I mean, they've got 27 million suburbanites after all, right? :haha:

[vid]

I might not know percentages but I least I make an effort to understand the information I'm using before trying to prove a point with it.

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/2306/31234922233ab886ec19z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/vidioman/3123492223/)

You can't use this boundary to say "Thunder Bay isn't dense" compared to other cities which have properly defined boundaries. Sudbury's urban area includes not only large undeveloped areas, but one of the largest lakes found entirely within a single municipality in the world!

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/6562/sudbury.jpg
View area in Google Maps (http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=46.517414,-80.884266&spn=0.06178,0.124969&t=h&z=13)

Not only is that not an urban area, but because of the terrain, it never can be.

[shreddog]

For the most car dependent Western Canadian city, it's Calgary hands down.That's an interesting statement considering that Calgary has very high transit usage rates and actually runs high speed rail transit almost to the edge of its developed footprint (for the 3 existing lines anyway). Can you substantiate your claim about it being the "most car dependent"?

== EDIT ==

Based on the link provided by Acajack in post #61, percentage of car communters in the big 4 Western cities in 2006*:

Edmonton = 83.0%
Winnipeg = 78.7%
Calgary = 76.6%
Vancouver = 74.4%

While this doesn't absolutely disprove that Calgary is the most car dependant, it almost does ;)

*Note, since 2006 all cities except Winnipeg saw increases to their rail transit networks, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the percentage of car commuters decrease in those 3 burgs.

[shreddog]

If there's anything I've learned from this thread its that Canadians seem to struggle with the concept of percentages.

Oh well, at least I can take solace in the fact that Tokyo is still more suburban than us...I mean, they've got 27 million suburbanites after all, right? :haha:
Well here's another way to look at it:

From Milton to Bowmanville, we pretty much have continous sprawl - disjointed sprawl to contiguous sprawl to some density pockets surrounded by SFH back to contiguous sprawl and then more disjointed sprawl. Some blocks are still open, but that pretty much is the GTA sprawl corridor along the 401. This runs for a distance of over 110 kms. Which is greater than the distance from Calgary to Canmore for those familar with that drive.

I still remember when Wonderland was first built - you had to drive for about 15 minutes through farmland to get there - we all thought it was out in the middle of nowhere! Yet now it is in a sea of urbanity! No sprawl there, just lovely dense form.

Back to the OP; without specific criteria, it's not possible to classify what is worst so it's only personal opinion (or grudge). Both Doug and Wooster brought up some good points. In the end though, just about all the post 1950 built form in the country looks pretty much the same (just less colourful in Kanata). Yes we have seen changes in the past 10 years, but really, are we likely to see something like the Plateau built anytime soon? (Sorry NYCC, MCC, etc will never be like the Plateau)

In the end, from Gaia's perspective, it all sucks.

[WhipperSnapper]

For the ugliest suburbs, I think the southwestern Ontario cities are pretty bad. Same with the prarie cities.

GTA subdivisions use a lot of brick, which I think is a nice contrast to the vinyl siding you see down the road in places like Kitchener, Guelph, or London.

St. John's has pretty ugly sprawl too, but it's not as vast and at least the topography is interesting.

Without any doubt, I agree Montreal has the ugliest sprawl. In my mind, there is nothing worst than a flat roofed house with aluminum siding. The multi-family architecture is a degree lower than elsewhere as well. You just can't copy Old Montreal with cheap, affordable materials.

[Spoolmak]

Totally abbotsford. Prob the only city on that list with no skyline

[manny_santos]

London has a lot of problems with low-density sprawl, but for the most part it's not any worse than other Canadian or American cities.

That said, the Toronto area is diverse in terms of how it has dealt with sprawl. There was a Toronto Star article on the subject on Sunday, and Markham has done a lot more to prevent unchecked sprawl than Brampton.

[The_Architect]

I've heard Toronto be described numerous times as "Vienna surrounded by Phoenix". Which actually makes sense when you look at the city proper vs. the CMA.. The city proper of Toronto is one of the densest, especially the downtown area, and then the sprawl outside of it is ridiculous and pretty car-dependent.

I said Montreal just to screw with the numbers. :D
That and you could interpret "worst sprawl" as "ugliest sprawl", which Montreal would definitely win. It's a stretch.. but whatever.

[flar]

I think Ottawa has the worst sprawl in terms of being spread out. The greenbelt really makes the city take up a lot of space, but there are also a lot of other large undeveloped spaces within the city (mostly owned by the NCC). There is also a lot of unevenness to development even within places like Barrhaven and Kanata. And then there are all these other little islands of development (eg, Bell's Corners, Blackburn Hamlet) and exurbs (eg, Manotick, Stittsville, Greely). The Quebec side is worse for randomly spaced development.

Only Quebec City can approach Ottawa when it comes to sprawl. Calgary and the GTA have some monstrously alienating suburbs, but at least they are compact and continuous.

As for ugliness, that's a feature of all suburban developments.

[MolsonExport]

Sprawl? All of them. Really. Outside of the core, they mainly look the same. Perhaps less so for Victoria, Lower Mainland (with the exception of Abbot's-fart, which is in thrall with sprawl), St. John's (NF), and maybe Halifax. Toronto sprawls (905), Montreal sprawls (Laval: epitomized by the clock tower and Reno Depot; and the never ending south/north shores, Vaudreuil, Repentigny, etc.). Ottawa sprawls. KW IS 99.99% sprawl. London is 99% sprawl. Quebec City is 90% Sprawl. The prairie cities sprawl. Sudbury sprawls. Thunder Bay? You betcha!

[MolsonExport]

Change thread. I propose a "post your ugly sprawl pictures" contest. Let's be in thrall with sprawl.

I wanna see your best. Gimme Dumbcentres! Canary-yellow suburban houses with red tile roofs! Mississausage subdevelopments! The four-headed monster of KWCG (part of the Accenture group)! Quebec City's insanely disproportionate freeway network.

[Acajack]

For the most car dependent Western Canadian city, it's Calgary hands down. Toronto and the outer 'burbs is the overall worst IMO.

I don't have the official numbers but I am pretty sure Quebec City has the lowest transit modal share of all Canadian cities with metro populations above 700,000.

[Acajack]

There is a whole neighbourhood of these beauties near where I live:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Rue+de+Fourni%C3%A8re,+Gatineau,+Qu%C3%A9bec&sll=45.486721,-75.604493&sspn=0.001354,0.003479&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Rue+de+Fourni%C3%A8re,+Gatineau,+Communaut%C3%A9-Urbaine-de-l'Outaouais,+Qu%C3%A9bec+J8T+5A8&ll=45.486437,-75.708335&spn=0,0.006958&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=45.486437,-75.708335&panoid=iI461Ni28boFKHam2toHbQ&cbp=12,261.12,,0,5

They are known as "quads", and have no backyards because there are four homes in each building split up into four quadrants.

If you zoom out from Streetview they look kinda freaky on the satellite view. I think the roofs may be metal.

[flar]

A great take on Barrhaven (suburban Ottawa)

siKWhAGhuV4

[Acajack]

In the end though, just about all the post 1950 built form in the country looks pretty much the same (just less colourful in Kanata). .

Funny how Kanata's renown is Canada-wide... :D

[Wharn]

KW IS 99.99% sprawl. London is 99% sprawl. Quebec City is 90% Sprawl. The prairie cities sprawl. Sudbury sprawls. Thunder Bay? You betcha!

I think it is a little unfair to classify all low-density development as "sprawl". This phenomenon is defined by its highly segregated land usage and auto-dependent design. London and Kitchener certainly exhibit sprawl along their edges (I feel sorry for you, living in Hyde Park), and Sudbury just appears to sprawl mostly because the city is built on bloody rocks, and you can't necessarily divide the city into neat little blocks based on that. Never been to Thunder Bay, so I can't comment.

As for Toronto, I honestly believe the soul-destroying suburbs popping up around the urban fringe right now are partially a result of the Greenbelt. Think about it for a second: the Greenbelt is put into place to discourage outward sprawl, but all this does is limit the supply of land, driving up its price, giving the already-greedy developers less incentive to build mixed-use subdivisions and just cram in as many houses as they possibly can. Look north of Major Mackenzie for evidence of this. Same goes for Ottawa; the Greenbelt there doesn't stop sprawl, it just pushes it out towards Kanata, so what you have is a city growing outwards with a useless ring of bad farmland in the middle and longer commute times for the poor bureaucrats who happen to live in Hell's Half Acre.

[eternallyme]

And this kind of sprawl is 10x worse in most large US cities. I agree that it's the worst kind of sprawl possible. You're also right in that it's the one thing Calgary does right - there's virtually no "bedroom community" type development here. A couple of small towns and that's it. Otherwise the suburbs are at least contiguous with, and generally well integrated into, the existing city.

At least the GTA manages semi-decent transit to its far-flung corners. Try doing an equivalent commute in an otherwise progressive city like Seattle - it's a total car-fest.

And Seattle is one of the better ones in the suburbs. Many Southern cities have NO transit at all outside the inner city areas, forget the distant suburbs.

[O-Town Hockey]

Growing up in Kanata, I can tell you that the Kanata/Stittsville area takes the cake for suburban sprawl in Canada (in terms of growth and banality). One thing that does differentiate it, though, is that Kanata also has its own employment base with thousands of high tech jobs, making it a little more self-sufficient than most traditional suburbs. I think that's the reason it has become such a large suburb. Also can't forget that we have our own NHL team, currently a pretty crappy one though :shrug:.

A portion of Kanata's large high tech park:

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/5323/kanatal.jpg

[Highinthesky]

London is denser than Winnipeg or Edmonton? I refuse to believe this.

It is not denser than Winnipeg or Edmonton, the charts area stats are wrong for London. The urban area of London is 200 and something square km the chart says but the actual city is about twice that at 420 square km.

So London's density is 837 not 1619.

[Acajack]

I don't have the official numbers but I am pretty sure Quebec City has the lowest transit modal share of all Canadian cities with metro populations above 700,000.

Here are some stats on transit use:

http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01/cst01/labr88b-eng.htm

Calgary and Ottawa are fairly close and both have close to double the transit use of Edmonton.

Of the cities in the 700s, Winnipeg is first, Quebec City is second and Hamilton is last in taking transit to work.

[shreddog]

Funny how Kanata's renown is Canada-wide... :DWell, to be fair, I did live in Ottawa for over 10 years (and been travelling there almost monthly for the past 10 years). Not too sure many people outside the Valley would know that in the 90's you could have been fined for painting your garage door the wrong colour in Kanata! That said, I believe ever since amalgamation those bylaws/convenents have all been repealed.

[MolsonExport]

Kanata has nothing on Laval. Just look at a map of that Island above Montreal. Imagine the Sprawl wrought by the combination of freeways, long and straight urban boulevards, former farmland and pro-development city government, and relative proximity to (the wonderfully unkempt city of) Montreal. The quebecois versions of "smartcentres". Cul de sacs. Quebec's answer to Mississausage. Reno-Depot-land.

http://cire.uqar.ca/images/laval.jpg
cire.uqar.ca

There is even worse; referred to as the North Shore (i.e., above Laval) and South Shore (i.e., below Montreal Island) in English. Laval might improve with the addition of 3 metro stations.

[vid]

All of that on Île Jésus, no less.

[flar]

Not too sure many people outside the Valley would know that in the 90's you could have been fined for painting your garage door the wrong colour in Kanata! That said, I believe ever since amalgamation those bylaws/convenents have all been repealed.

Don't quote me bylaws! I co-chaired the committee that reviewed the recommendation to revise the color of the book that bylaw was in. We kept it grey.

(that's how things work in the NCR!)

[shreddog]

^^ Too funny. Were the choices, grey, beige or tan?

[MonkeyRonin]

Sprawl? All of them. Really. Outside of the core, they mainly look the same. Perhaps less so for Victoria, Lower Mainland (with the exception of Abbot's-fart, which is in thrall with sprawl), St. John's (NF), and maybe Halifax. Toronto sprawls (905), Montreal sprawls (Laval: epitomized by the clock tower and Reno Depot; and the never ending south/north shores, Vaudreuil, Repentigny, etc.). Ottawa sprawls. KW IS 99.99% sprawl. London is 99% sprawl. Quebec City is 90% Sprawl. The prairie cities sprawl. Sudbury sprawls. Thunder Bay? You betcha!

This.


The urban area of London is 200 and something square km the chart says but the actual city is about twice that at 420 square km.

Thats because London's municipality covers a lot of farm land/rural...i.e. not part of the urban area.

[caltrane74]

Yeah, I guess the sprawl around Toronto is pretty bad. We basically have 4 million people living in subdivisions here which is more people than any city in Canada outside of Toronto itself.

If you include the inner suburbs it's probably around 5 million living in subdivisons if you go on the assumption half of the city of Toronto lives in High Rise dwellings.

We totally deserve to win this poll.

:)

[kirjtc2]

Okay, for unamenable suburbs and metro areas that are spread out for their populations, I'd have to go with Saint John and Halifax. I know of no other cities in Canada where most of the suburban fabric is houses that are 50+ metres apart, run on well water, the streets have no sidewalks, and literally support no transit at all (at least in the Saint John case).


Indeed.

It's not a CMA, but Fredericton is like that as well.

[Highinthesky]

This.




Thats because London's municipality covers a lot of farm land/rural...i.e. not part of the urban area.

Yes I know what the city covers but just because a large part of the city is rural doesn't mean you get to exclude some of it so you can artificially inflate your density numbers. It is not CMA it is actually part of London proper.

[O-tacular]

Being from Calgary I voted Calgary for most sprawly. But that is in no way an informed opinion as I have never visited Toronto and its suburbs (unless you count an 8 hr layover at Pearson where I took a bus DT to go up the CN tower). Having family in Montreal, I can attest to the awfulness of Longueuil. My family actually is from Boucherville which is East of the mullet capital of Montreal. It's a nice town.

Reason I voted Calgary: the home builders associations have the city as their bitch, subsidizing all roads and sewers for new subdivions. Funny story: My office is located next to a large home builder (Morrison Homes) and every day the fat son of a bitch president flies his own private helicopter to work (There's a landing pad in the back). He even goes home for lunch. Apparently he lives a short way out of town, but oh the irony: he can't even stand the overlong commute through the sprawl he's helped create.

[flar]

Yes I know what the city covers but just because a large part of the city is rural doesn't mean you get to exclude some of it so you can artificially inflate your density numbers. It is not CMA it is actually part of London proper.

Urban area doesn't artificially inflate density numbers; including farmland and forests just because they happen to be within the city limits artificially reduces density numbers. The good thing about urban areas as opposed to city or CMA boundaries is that the same criteria are applied to every city, thereby making city-city comparisons more valid and providing better indicators for the actual built up area of cities.

[Highinthesky]

Are the same criteria applied to every city? For example that chart says Edmonton has an area of 854 square km but Wikipedia says 684.

[dsim249]

Reason I voted Calgary: the home builders associations have the city as their bitch, subsidizing all roads and sewers for new subdivions. Funny story: My office is located next to a large home builder (Morrison Homes) and every day the fat son of a bitch president flies his own private helicopter to work (There's a landing pad in the back). He even goes home for lunch. Apparently he lives a short way out of town, but oh the irony: he can't even stand the overlong commute through the sprawl he's helped create.

:haha: I almost didn't believe you, so I checked for myself! Sure enough! (http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=11158+-+42+Street+SE+Calgary,+Alberta+T2C+0J9&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=30.012899,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=11158+42+St+SE,+Calgary,+Division+No.+6,+Alberta&ll=50.954907,-113.973244&spn=0.000892,0.002411&t=h&z=19)

[flar]

Are the same criteria applied to every city? For example that chart says Edmonton has an area of 854 square km but Wikipedia says 684.

The same criteria are applied to every city.

Wikipedia is probably quoting the City of Edmonton's area. Urban areas don't care about municipal boundaries, just contiguous areas over a certain density (400 persons/square km).

[matthew6]

Kanata has nothing on Laval. Just look at a map of that Island above Montreal. Imagine the Sprawl wrought by the combination of freeways, long and straight urban boulevards, former farmland and pro-development city government, and relative proximity to (the wonderfully unkempt city of) Montreal. The quebecois versions of "smartcentres". Cul de sacs. Quebec's answer to Mississausage. Reno-Depot-land.

http://cire.uqar.ca/images/laval.jpg
cire.uqar.ca

There is even worse; referred to as the North Shore (i.e., above Laval) and South Shore (i.e., below Montreal Island) in English. Laval might improve with the addition of 3 metro stations.


Actually quite a bit of eastern Laval is protected farm land.... the rest of it of course is so soul crushingly ugly that it would make Kunstler cry...

autoroute 15 going through Laval is horrid... literally the whole route.....

http://maps.google.ca/maps?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=45.567879,-73.74216&spn=0.072465,0.181789&z=13&layer=c&cbll=45.567879,-73.74216&panoid=kckghyONumwyigUhZG08gA&cbp=12,338.25,,0,2.37

[Just Build It]

See the commieblock thread.

Also, which 2 idiots voted for Toronto, when it has the least low-density sprawl in the country? :shrug:

I voted for Toronto, but was thinking of the whole GTA not just the city.

In my mind, Toronto, Edmonton, Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary stand out as the cities with the sprawl, and it shouldn't be surprising. those are the cities where all the growth has been.
Vancouver, if not for the setting of the mountains and the lush green, it would have as ugly a sprawl as anywhere.

[Doug]

Based on all criteria, I think the metros with the worst sprawl are Quebec, Montreal, Winnipeg, Kelowna and Vancouver. I'm going to distill sprawl to a single factor: what does the city look like from an airplane at night. If it is a giant continuous blob of light, except for open water and large natural areas of course, the sprawl is contained. If it is a checkerboard, it is not. All of these cities suffer from extensive ex-urban / start-stop development. Sure all but Winnipeg have strong cores, but that hasn't stopped growth of surrounding towns. All but Vancouver and Kelowna have low growth rates, but still expanding footprints. All but Winnipeg are highly fractured municipalities with multiple employment hubs. Doesn't Quebec have the most freeway lane miles per capita in the country?

[MolsonExport]

Doesn't Quebec have the most freeway lane miles per capita in the country?



Yes, QC has that dubious distinction. The core is absolutely lovely, the rest, not at all.


What about Taschereau Boulevard in Brossard?

[matthew6]

Yes, QC has that dubious distinction. The core is absolutely lovely, the rest, not at all.


What about Taschereau Boulevard in Brossard?

about as bad as pie 9

http://maps.google.ca/maps?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=45.58874,-73.63496&spn=0.071957,0.181789&z=13&layer=c&cbll=45.58874,-73.63496&panoid=9cTRi7D4m4z1CJPuPUnDbA&cbp=12,152.71,,0,11.06

[Proof Sheet]

about as bad as pie 9

http://maps.google.ca/maps?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=45.58874,-73.63496&spn=0.071957,0.181789&z=13&layer=c&cbll=45.58874,-73.63496&panoid=9cTRi7D4m4z1CJPuPUnDbA&cbp=12,152.71,,0,11.06

This image nearby isn't too pretty

http://goo.gl/maps/zuLs

[Cambridgite]

I really do like the idea of "The Great Canadian Sprawl Thread". :D

[dleung]

I'm going to distill sprawl to a single factor: what does the city look like from an airplane at night. If it is a giant continuous blob of light, except for open water and large natural areas of course, the sprawl is contained. If it is a checkerboard, it is not.

Your criteria is all messed up then. Try flying over any city at night. Downtown is barely brighter than the rest of the city; sometimes it's invisible. The brightest blobs of light are where the ground is most exposed, ie: strip mall corridors, suburban power centres and industrial sprawl.

[Highinthesky]

The same criteria are applied to every city.

Wikipedia is probably quoting the City of Edmonton's area. Urban areas don't care about municipal boundaries, just contiguous areas over a certain density (400 persons/square km).

If Wikipedia is quoting the City of Edmonton's area shouldn't the urban area be smaller not larger? Unless urban area's can include land outside of the municipality, which would be silly.

[240glt]

^ The chart may be for the Metro, and the Wiki info is probably for the city proper

[flar]

If Wikipedia is quoting the City of Edmonton's area shouldn't the urban area be smaller not larger? Unless urban area's can include land outside of the municipality, which would be silly.

It's simply contiguous census tracts with density over the threshold, regardless of any municipal boundaries.

[yaletown_fella]

Sorry, my bad.

the future Vaughan City Centre. To be built with the Subway which is going there.

Funny enough Vaughan City Centre gets a subway and there is nothing there yet. And Mississauga gets zilch.

This is what it will look like.

http://urbantoronto.ca/picoftheday/images/7CityCentreRender3.jpg

Vaughan residents will NEVER let that happen. You have to remember Vaughan is much richer than Missassauga and Markham.

[MonkeyRonin]

Vaughan residents will NEVER let that happen. You have to remember Vaughan is much richer than Missassauga and Markham.

Only marginally so. And the VCC site is surrounded by industrial areas anyway...no local NIMBYs to complain about deadly shadows being cast upon their McMansions.

[vid]

Urban area doesn't artificially inflate density numbers; including farmland and forests just because they happen to be within the city limits artificially reduces density numbers.

But our UA includes farmland and forests! :(

Your criteria is all messed up then. Try flying over any city at night. Downtown is barely brighter than the rest of the city; sometimes it's invisible. The brightest blobs of light are where the ground is most exposed, ie: strip mall corridors, suburban power centres and industrial sprawl.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3536/3904959201_2bb9818c36_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/26266017@N00/3904959201/)
©winterbos (http://www.flickr.com/photos/26266017@N00/)/Andy6

The separated part in the bottom left (NE end; this view is looking SSW) is a streetcar/trolley bus suburb developed from the late 1920s-1950s, on the other side of the dammed river that powered the mass transit system that made it possible. Otherwise we're pretty much one piece, just really low density and spreading out very far. (The lake doesn't help, really.) The NW end (bottom right) is split into pieces because of rivers. There is a freeway running along the western edge (to the right in this photo) that had no illumination when this photo was taken, only a small part of it in the NW end is visible. The gap to the right of the bright area in the middle (our industrial/shopping district) is a golf course, college, and university, all established before anything was built to the west of them, and thus leave a hole in the urban fabric. (If you can call it that.)

No checker board pattern, but this is the third least dense city in the country according to Monkeyronin.

[flar]

But our UA includes farmland and forests! :(



Your forested census tract still has a density over 400 persons/square km or is surrounded by census tracts with that density or higher. Every city has a few empty spaces within its urban area, whether it be forests, large parks, airports, industrial areas, etc. It's still the best measure for comparison purposes.

[vid]

It isn't a census tract, it is a census block. Look:

The light green in the area north of the southern city is 200 to 500 people per square kilometer, while the yellow area on the top right of the second map is the colour that identifies 500 to 1,000 people per square kilometre.

Urban area limits superimposed on a density map of census dissemination areas:

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/9738/urban2.jpg
The UA limit actually cuts through several Dissemination Areas in the north end, its border only congruent with dissemination blocks (city blocks) in places.

Urban area limits superimposed on a density map of census tracts:

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/563/urban3.jpg
In this case, the northern limits are including one portion of a census tract but excluding much of it, while the southern limits include an entire census tract.

The lower portion makes the cut based on census tracts, but the northern one doesn't. It shouldn't be included.

[Doady]

Judging from Google Maps, Thunder Bay seems to have a crazy amount of discontinuous exurban development, very close to snowbelt US-style exurbia, probably the most exurbia I've noticed of any Canadian city. It makes a discrete boundary between urban and rural harder to define.

The conservation area in the northeast should not have been included though (they made the same mistake with Rouge Park in northeast Scarborough). On the other hand, they excluded the neighbourhoods south of that river that should be included. But otherwise, I think that the urban area boundary for Thunder Bay is pretty accurate, sadly.

[miketoronto]

Depends how you define sprawl. We just had a discussion about this in class, and my professor made the argument that most Canadian cities could be considered to NOT SPRAWL :)

The reason? For most Canadian cities, developments happens due to population growth(no sprawl without growth like in the USA), and the new developments for the most part do not leapfrog.

And while much of the development is single family homes, the housing in pretty pretty close together and provisions are made for transit, etc.

So really we may not be sprawly like we think :) Its just the design we need to fix.

Toronto's northern suburbs in York Region, are already approaching the densities of inner city Toronto's single family neighbourhoods. The only difference is the communities in York Region are not as friendly to pedestrians. But the density is there.



Overall as I must I love Quebec City, I would have to vote it the worst for sprawl. Quebec City has the most km of freeways per person of any Canadian city, transit use is low, and the city is basically building a whole new downtown St. Foy, instead of making full use of the real downtown.

[Doady]

Overall as I must I love Quebec City, I would have to vote it the worst for sprawl. Quebec City has the most km of freeways per person of any Canadian city, transit use is low, and the city is basically building a whole new downtown St. Foy, instead of making full use of the real downtown.

Again, the bus system in Quebec City has a ridership of 41 million annually (2008) servicing a population of 490k, giving an annual ridership per capita of 83. That's almost on the same level as Calgary Transit (around 88 riders per capita), and higher than Translink in Vancouver (81 riders per capita), placing it 5th among Canadian transit systems in terms of per capita ridership... is that low transit use? You be the judge.

[Me&You]

Again, the bus system in Quebec City has a ridership of 41 million annually (2008) servicing a population of 490k, giving an annual ridership per capita of 83. That's almost on the same level as Calgary Transit (around 88 riders per capita), and higher than Translink in Vancouver (81 riders per capita), placing it 5th among Canadian transit systems in terms of per capita ridership... is that low transit use? You be the judge.

According to the Calgary Transit (http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/annual_ridership.html) website, annual ridership was 95.3MM in 2008 when, according to the
City of Calgary (http://www.calgary.ca/DocGallery/BU/cityclerks/city.pdf) website, the city had a population of 1,042,892...

That's a ridership per capita of 91.4... Just sayin'...

[vid]

Judging from Google Maps, Thunder Bay seems to have a crazy amount of discontinuous exurban development, very close to snowbelt US-style exurbia, probably the most exurbia I've noticed of any Canadian city. It makes a discrete boundary between urban and rural harder to define.

They used to be farm lots. In cases where the property was a farm, they farmer likely gave up (because you can't farm shit up here except in the river valleys) and the fields are forested over. In most cases a cleared area means the landowner harvested the wood for money. They're basically the result of the original township surveys and how the land was sold. They didn't fully understand at the time that the land was nearly impossible to use for farming.

As time went on, parts of those lots were cut off and sold to build more houses. The city considers them "estates". They have no services, they're basically just houses in the bush that happen to be closer together than they otherwise would be, and within the city's corporate limits. If you look at them on Streetview, those houses basically cover every era since 1900, with most built in the 1950s to 1970s. Since the 1980s the city has made more effort to keep it concentrated, which is why there are places like this (http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=k&ll=48.466633,-89.321401&spn=0.007441,0.015621&z=16) now, and why the streets are in some cases lined with houses. It doesn't tax the city as much as it would if they were all serviced. (The southwest part has water and sewer service, but the city has plans to develop that whole area "eventually"; they seem to have intended a V shaped city centred on Fort William's downtown.)

The city's very long term development plan will eventually swallow up many of the houses closer to the city and the areas will become urban. It's already happened in some places. The NW part of the city (http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=k&ll=48.450041,-89.2731&spn=0.015001,0.031242&z=15) (called Jumbo Gardens) was surveyed in 1910, and some houses there are almost 100 years old (though most more than 70 years old were demolished for newer houses, like this one (http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=k&ll=48.449372,-89.284627&spn=0.015001,0.031242&z=15&layer=c&cbll=48.449244,-89.284626&panoid=_nFqiakanpprV7mNC2y0Dg&cbp=12,297,,0,4.01) has been). The city just kind of grew into it.

But otherwise, I think that the urban area boundary for Thunder Bay is pretty accurate, sadly.

Even if the estate lots are going to be included, the boundary cuts through the middle of the area they're located in. It stops at the boundary between Thunder Bay and Oliver Paipoonge, excluding Rosslyn (http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=k&ll=48.363492,-89.425879&spn=0.029825,0.062485&z=14) which, based on that criteria, should be urban.

Depends how you define sprawl. We just had a discussion about this in class, and my professor made the argument that most Canadian cities could be considered to NOT SPRAWL :)

The reason? For most Canadian cities, developments happens due to population growth(no sprawl without growth like in the USA), and the new developments for the most part do not leapfrog.

That's basically my definition of urban sprawl. When the built up area of a city is growing at more than twice the rate of the population, the city is sprawling. In Thunder Bay's case, the number of houses in the city grew 1,000% faster than the population between 2001 and 2006. We added over 1,000 houses and only 124 people.

[miketoronto]

Again, the bus system in Quebec City has a ridership of 41 million annually (2008) servicing a population of 490k, giving an annual ridership per capita of 83. That's almost on the same level as Calgary Transit (around 88 riders per capita), and higher than Translink in Vancouver (81 riders per capita), placing it 5th among Canadian transit systems in terms of per capita ridership... is that low transit use? You be the judge.

Quebec City's per capita ridership is in the 60's. You have to include Levis and stuff which have their own transit systems.

[Cambridgite]

Judging from Google Maps, Thunder Bay seems to have a crazy amount of discontinuous exurban development, very close to snowbelt US-style exurbia, probably the most exurbia I've noticed of any Canadian city. It makes a discrete boundary between urban and rural harder to define.

Thunder Bay doesn't even hold a candle to Eastern cities like Saint John and Halifax.

From Saint John, New Brunswick, scroll to the northeast along highway 1, and take a look at places like Quispamsis and Rothesay. The following link to google streetview shows what these streets look like on the ground.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=45.423275,-65.988951&spn=0,0.0842&z=14&layer=c&cbll=45.423401,-65.988993&panoid=bAg6BxwvVgl-DGm5Dk3MUw&cbp=12,115,,0,5

Keep in mind, this isn't an anomoly. A large percentage of the metro population lives in neighborhoods like these.

Also check out the fringe areas around Halifax. Some of the sprawl is Ontario-like in its density, but a lot of it is also 'leapfrogging' and there are tons of large lot developments.

An example of large lot development in Halifax.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=44.797588,-63.620226&spn=0,0.1684&t=h&z=13&layer=c&cbll=44.797588,-63.620226&panoid=73lj3CHUc6E-L8U-X0DVww&cbp=12,185,,0,5

St. John's has a bit denser sprawl than many of its other Atlantic counterparts. Much of the suburban sprawl in the city limits, Mount Pearl, and Paradise, look pretty similar to what you find in Ontario. But you still get places like Conception Bay South and Torbay, which are terrible examples of large lot sprawl developments.

[someone123]

There are more large lot developments in the Maritimes but there are also many little towns and settlements along roads that are in many cases hundreds of years old. The population density in these areas before suburbanization was much higher than Northern Ontario.

Calling the large lot development a large percentage of the total is an exaggeration. These developments cover a lot of area (with a low percentage of ground cover) but are very low density and only account for maybe 10% of the overall population in the Halifax area. Developers there can't get permits for large-scale large lot subdivisions anymore. Most new construction in the city is multi-unit and apartment buildings are standard.

Finally, well, the large lot subdivision is a lot more attractive than Ontario-style suburbia. Most in Ontario would consider a half-acre of lakefront property an upgrade.

[youngregina]

Just wondering, but who voted for Regina, Saskatoon or even Victoria? We don't really have much of any sprawl here in Saskatchewan. Everything that has been developed is within city limits and is pretty much on a larger grid system of streets. Victoria's also one of the denser places in Canada; is it not?