Guelph is pretty typical of a city it's size compared to others in Canada and the United States, but not compared to other countries, that's for sure. Cities in Spain with similar populations feel as if you took an entire arrondissement of Paris and plopped it in the countryside.
Just look at some of the smaller metro areas on this list...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_population
Mind you, Spainish cities are much denser than those of more Northern European countries. Guelph's downtown feels comparable to that of a Spanish town of 5,000.