[Hali87]

Yup. It's a weird argument but definitely one of the most common. For some reason Downtown Toronto seems to represent everything bad about high-rise development, and is the only example of such development in Canada that is ever used. Obviously many other cities in Canada have high-rises (the NIMBYs refuse to acknowledge Vancouver, for example), but if we go that route, we'll stop looking anything like any of these cities - or ourselves - and look just like Toronto. Or maybe Detroit. Apparently Detroit is a prime example of why you shouldn't build anything over 10 storeys. Tall buildings, and not the collapse of the auto manufacturing sector, are the reason that Detroit is becoming a ghost town, apparently. Bear in mind that Halifax already has plenty of high-rise buildings, comparable to London ON.

When this argument comes up, I like to counter that I'd rather Halifax be like 416 Toronto than 905 Toronto. At the end of the day though, even if Halifax was building 70+ storey condos and giant corporate boxes downtown, there are so many other variables (topography, street grid, existing architecture, civic spaces, culture, climate) that Halifax would never look like Toronto. In fact I would say that the older parts of both cities look much more similar than anything built post-war. I think the same could be said of Ottawa.