Downtown in Atlantic Canada's largest city

flar · #1 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 2:48 AM**

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA

A view of Dartmouth, across the harbour

FerrariEnzo · #2 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 2:54 AM**

Damn thats a pretty sweet looking city... not sure what I expected but this thread has put Halifax on my radar for sure. Nice shots!

ColDayMan · #3 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 3:06 AM**

It's like a more vertical Portland, Maine. Wonderful city.

xzmattzx · #4 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 4:06 AM**

Halifax has some nice stone and frame buildings. You can definitely see a New England resemblance in several pictures.

So is that the place where the Alexander Keith's IPA that I drink when in Canada is brewed?

bnk · #5 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 4:42 AM**

Nice photo spread of a city that I have a natural affinity for.

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snowfall · #6 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 5:05 AM**

Donairs are far and away Halifax's greatest gift to the world.

bnk · #7 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 5:45 AM**

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BillM · #8 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 2:40 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

It's like a more vertical Portland, Maine. Wonderful city.

I always thought of a comparison like that between Newport RI and Halifax. Maybe Providence and Newport rolled up into one.

Shawn · #9 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 4:20 AM**

Great pics as always, flar!

Halifax is personally my favorite Canadian city. I feel most at home there, like I stepped into a more prosperous, parallel universe Maine. All of the Maritimes feel like home to me, at least the portions of NS, NB and PEI I've visited (haven't made it up to Newfoundland yet...). That's not to say there aren't differences between "Canadian New England" and "American New England", but honestly, the differences aren't that much greater than you'd notice between Maine and Mass.

OhioGuy · #10 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 4:28 AM**

Great city! I enjoyed my visit there even though it was -20 C when I arrived.

kool maudit · #11 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 4:29 AM**

at 10, i didn't want to move there.
at 15, i couldn't wait to leave.
at 17, i did.
at 31 it doesn't seem that bad though - it has a definite sense of place, which is not all that common in canada.

nabhan · #12 Posted: **Aug 21, 2010, 7:20 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kool maudit

at 10, i didn't want to move there.
at 15, i couldn't wait to leave.
at 17, i did.
at 31 it doesn't seem that bad though - it has a definite sense of place, which is not all that common in canada.

That's hilarious. At 10, I didn't want to move here. At 15, I couldn't wait to leave. At 17, I did (for school). Then again, I'm only 18 and home for the summer. I still hate this place. People who were born here and tourists are the only ones who seem to love it.

someone123 · #13 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 7:12 AM**

Great photos.

The downtown is narrowly defined as the area between the Citadel and the harbour. Increasingly this area is becoming the "old downtown" in Halifax as the city grows and other districts develop. This isn't the busiest part of the city anymore but it has a wonderful mix of buildings that are unique in Canada.

The big downside of Halifax really comes through in these photos though. The city's been obsessing over "fixing" Barrington but nothing has been done. On the one hand, there's Detroit-style rhetoric about revitalization and on the other hand there are developers wanting to build things but just can't get permits because of opposition to development and brutal convoluted bureaucracy. It's a place with a lot of advantages and potential but with a lack of ambition that can be very frustrating. The time-honoured tradition for dealing with the problem has been to move somewhere like Toronto, which makes things even worse. I really like it there but I couldn't have stayed either. Maybe it will get better as the city grows - it already feels a bit bigger and a bit more connected to the world than it did when I first saw it in the 90s.

Coldrsx · #14 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 3:55 PM**

One of the most overlooked cities in NA for culture, history, and architecture... oh and drinking.

STLeric · #15 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 6:29 PM**

Magnificent!!!

DLLB · #16 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 7:00 PM**

Great thread!

djvandrake · #17 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 7:16 PM**

Great set of pictures! Thanks!

someone123 · #18 Posted: **Aug 2, 2010, 7:49 PM**

It seems to me like Halifax is much more built up today than a place like Portland but probably would have been pretty similar in scale back in 1920 or so. Portland reminds me a little more of Saint John, NB, which also has more similar architecture.

Halifax is a little strange in that it was very successful in its early years (up until 1880 or so) and then growth slowed. In most North American cities, growth picked up around that time. Cities like Providence became a lot bigger as new industries developed, but the Maritimes lost industry to places like Ontario after they became a part of Canada. These days Halifax is doing well compared to places that still had a lot of manufacturing jobs.

It is also difficult to compare cities because no city in New England is directly comparable. Halifax is the biggest city within a day's drive whereas even Portland is quite close to Boston. In cases like that you get a lot of things concentrated in the city that wouldn't otherwise exist - major universities, hospitals, regional offices, media, and so on.

boden · #19 Posted: **Jan 10, 2011, 12:30 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by someone123

It seems to me like Halifax is much more built up today than a place like Portland but probably would have been pretty similar in scale back in 1920 or so. Portland reminds me a little more of Saint John, NB, which also has more similar architecture.

Halifax is a little strange in that it was very successful in its early years (up until 1880 or so) and then growth slowed. In most North American cities, growth picked up around that time. Cities like Providence became a lot bigger as new industries developed, but the Maritimes lost industry to places like Ontario after they became a part of Canada. These days Halifax is doing well compared to places that still had a lot of manufacturing jobs.

It is also difficult to compare cities because no city in New England is directly comparable. Halifax is the biggest city within a day's drive whereas even Portland is quite close to Boston. In cases like that you get a lot of things concentrated in the city that wouldn't otherwise exist - major universities, hospitals, regional offices, media, and so on.

So true. The city feels MUCH bigger than it really is.
Beautiful photos flar.

Antigonish · #20 Posted: **Mar 8, 2011, 8:12 AM**

The deceiving thing about Halifax is the (former) City of Halifax is probably only ~125,000 people but Bedford/Sackville/Dartmouth/Cole Harbour areas really make Halifax a decent sized city population wise. For a city so compact near downtown the Metro is actually really spread out, almost like a horse-shoe completely around the harbour.

Halifax is a really interesting place to explore, I recomend it to anyone interested!