Is there ever going to be another "new, big city" in the US or Canada?

[brickell]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

i obsess over this thing every time.

it's fun and telling. Because it's not like most of these cities stopped growing. They just slowed down relative to others.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by lio45

I don't know much about it but I've always guessed it would be a "worst of both worlds" situation - Big City tax bills but quasi-rural setting.

Staten Island doesn't really have high taxes or quasi-rural living. Residential property taxes in NYC proper are generally lower than surrounding suburbs (commercial taxes are vastly higher but that's another story); income taxes are higher because there's a city income tax and none in the burbs, but something like 70% of the income tax is paid by the city's 1% wealthiest (few who live on SI); for most, it's a nominal tax.

The built form is quite urban in the North Shore, where most people live, dense suburban sprawl in the South Shore, and the West Shore is either industrial or empty (parkland or undeveloped industrial land). Basically the western third of the island is uninhabited. South Shore is mostly Italian and former Soviet and hence leans more conservative; North Shore is multiethnic, more like Brooklyn/Queens/Bronx and leans more progressive.

[ue]

Originally Posted by lio45

And it's likely you bought gas there, patronized a restaurant there, or even maybe shopped there while on your way.

Anyway, ue, I don't mind if you want to agree to disagree. Personally, I'm not going to change my mind, if there's an area in this city where tall tacky glass penises are going to be erected (pun only semi-intended), then I'd rather it not be in the UNESCO World Heritage Site old core or anywhere right next to it.

P.S. I pointed out the Montreal example previously - you regret that the CBD didn't erase Old Montreal, really? The area where Montreal's CBD is at the moment used to be considered quite a ways away from downtown Montreal, FYI, back in the day.

I never said that about Old Montreal. I even made a point earlier that Old Quebec should be preserved as much as possible, while still not being relegated to an outdoor museum.

RE: Mississauga. It's where the airport is, major businesses, and if coming from the US or Southwestern Ontario, which have more people than anything north/east, you go through Mississauga. Likewise, more of the Golden Horseshoe's population lives in the west, where Mississauga would be closer than Downtown Toronto. It's not a perfect analogy and its on a different scale, but similar idea.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by ue

I never said that about Old Montreal. I even made a point earlier that Old Quebec should be preserved as much as possible, while still not being relegated to an outdoor museum.

RE: Mississauga. It's where the airport is, major businesses, and if coming from the US or Southwestern Ontario, which have more people than anything north/east, you go through Mississauga. Likewise, more of the Golden Horseshoe's population lives in the west, where Mississauga would be closer than Downtown Toronto. It's not a perfect analogy and its on a different scale, but similar idea.

I think the idea though is that Quebec City is kinda unique in that the central part of the city is on a point that sticks out into the river, and that most of the population in the metro area, the province, Canada and indeed North America, is to the west of the city, or to the south of it - in the latter case necessitating going through Ste-Foy in order to access the city.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

I recently "discovered" the old core of Charlesbourg by accident. Wow. Cool hidden gem!

Before that, I think my previous visit was in the late 1990s when I bought one of my first cars - we drove from Sherbrooke to pick up a '89 Dodge Shadow 2.5 turbo 5-speed manual that I got for $500, the girl selling it was living in the middle of Charlesbourg sprawl. A great deal at the time...

FTR, that freshly-plated Dodge passed through Ste-Foy and the bridge (the newer one) with me at the wheel not too long after, never to return to Charlesbourg

You might have passed through Beauport going to Charlevoix, North Shore destinations, or Orleans Island, though - only once, really?

I've been there but the north shore of the St. Lawrence east of Quebec City is one of the areas of (populated) Quebec that I know the least.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

And it's likely you bought gas there, patronized a restaurant there, or even maybe shopped there while on your way.

.

Yes, every time we go to Quebec City we always end up doing something in Ste-Foy. We sometimes stay at a hotel there too.

I'd venture that almost everyone who goes to Quebec City by road ends up doing something in Ste-Foy during their trip.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Staten Island doesn't really have high taxes or quasi-rural living. Residential property taxes in NYC proper are generally lower than surrounding suburbs (commercial taxes are vastly higher but that's another story); income taxes are higher because there's a city income tax and none in the burbs, but something like 70% of the income tax is paid by the city's 1% wealthiest (few who live on SI); for most, it's a nominal tax.

The built form is quite urban in the North Shore, where most people live, dense suburban sprawl in the South Shore, and the West Shore is either industrial or empty (parkland or undeveloped industrial land). Basically the western third of the island is uninhabited. South Shore is mostly Italian and former Soviet and hence leans more conservative; North Shore is multiethnic, more like Brooklyn/Queens/Bronx and leans more progressive.

Interesting info! I recall driving through SI a year (ish) ago trying alternate routes through the area (the Hudson bridges and tunnels all seem to be a PITA to cross if you're there at the wrong time of day) and I distinctly recall that the realization "I'm actually in NYC!" was quite amusing/shocking while there - it was basically all empty land... I probably have the West Shore in mind; I don't remember my exact trajectory, but I for sure had to drive the 440 on my way to the NJ Turnpike.

Out of curiosity, are there older little town cores on that island? Anything worth visiting...?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by ue

I never said that about Old Montreal.

But that's your logic - instead of having the newer CBD further away, you say you want it squarely in the old core.

I even made a point earlier that Old Quebec should be preserved as much as possible, while still not being relegated to an outdoor museum.

Preservation is quite incompatible with the requirements of a modern, functional CBD where any big corporation might want to place their own tasteless shiny giant dick taller than the existing neighboring dicks (each of which takes at least an entire block). For your info, Paris is pretty much doing the same thing as Quebec City there - could it be that the cities have at least something in common, i.e. a core worth preserving?

A tasteful, high-quality proposal for something tall isn't automatically going to be a no go in the old parts, but it's a good thing that the actual CBD isn't there. It's nice to be able to build, in an actual CBD... it's in fact a pretty major criterion.

RE: Mississauga. It's where the airport is, major businesses, and if coming from the US or Southwestern Ontario, which have more people than anything north/east, you go through Mississauga. Likewise, more of the Golden Horseshoe's population lives in the west, where Mississauga would be closer than Downtown Toronto. It's not a perfect analogy and its on a different scale, but similar idea.

It's certainly not comparable, given that you have Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City and all of Quebec, and all of Atlantic Canada, to the east of Toronto.

You can easily find people on SSP who enter Toronto via the east (myself, Acajack). Let's see if anyone here would enter Quebec City from the east...

Plus, Mississauga kinda grew into a bit of a something, no? Thanks to being a decent nexus. It's not abnormal. That's common sense.

[ue]

Ugh I don't understand why you're making this so complicated.

Look at Downtown Manhattan. It's NYC's "Old Montreal/Quebec" and yet it has layers of different architectural styles. It continually reinvented itself. Anyways, I wouldn't advocate for that per se, at least not within the Walled City. But newer buildings can be tastefully integrated into the old core, see Edifice Price.

I dont understand your point about "it's nice to be able to build"... you could do that in St-Foy, the Old City, Levis, Beauport, whatever. Not that it would happen, but if there was incentive, it could. You don't need to be in St-Foy to do that.

What I don't understand is why you're willing to accept a suburban, auto-orientated, banal CBD. Like I've mentioned multiple times, St-Foy isn't a bad location, but it is a bad design and if it were more fine-scaled and with complete streets, I wouldn't cause a fuss over it. I find the fact that a CBD such as St-Foy is accepted in Quebec City, with such a walkable pre-war fabric, very ironic.

See, I knew you were gonna throw that point re: Mississauga at me. But, if you look at the whole continent, most of the population is to the south and west of Toronto, just like for Quebec City. I'm using your exact argument for St-Foy as a nexus for QC, and extrapolating it to a different scale, although even you make mention of the greater number of people lying to the west and south even outside of Quebec. That isn't to say there aren't people to the east, but it is a smaller proportion than in the other directions that would transit through Toronto. Regardless of if anyone on SSP lies to the northeast of QC doesn't really matter, does it? This is an urban-orientated forum and not a true cross-section of society. My point with Mississauga is that yes, it is a nexus, and yet it never usurped the CBD of Toronto, despite Downtown Toronto not being central in the region.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by DRG901

I think Austin/San Antonio will grow into a major corridor. The two cities are about 70 miles apart and both booming- Austin @ 931,000/ SA @1,400,000 or so. And in between you have the fast growing San Marcos (60,000 in 2015 estimate- up from 44,000 in 2010) and New Braunfels (70,000 in 2015 estimate- up from 57,000 in 2010).

But they have little connectivity. New Braunfels and San Marcos are both in good spots, you have access to both cities but it will take time for the areas to combine (I've driven that stretch of I-35 and there's little there between San Antonio and San Marcos).

Besides, both can become mega cities without relying on each other.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by lio45

Interesting info! I recall driving through SI a year (ish) ago trying alternate routes through the area (the Hudson bridges and tunnels all seem to be a PITA to cross if you're there at the wrong time of day) and I distinctly recall that the realization "I'm actually in NYC!" was quite amusing/shocking while there - it was basically all empty land... I probably have the West Shore in mind; I don't remember my exact trajectory, but I for sure had to drive the 440 on my way to the NJ Turnpike.

Yup. You were on the West Shore Expressway, which goes through absolutely nothing. You're in NYC but it looks like you're in the middle of rural nowhere. Most of that land is either zoned industrial/warehouse and not yet developed, or protected parkland (a giant, mostly undeveloped park called Fresh Kills).

Originally Posted by lio45

Out of curiosity, are there older little town cores on that island? Anything worth visiting...?

There's a nice-looking fort, some historic buildings from the 1600's, and a few cute commercial centers (mostly around the Staten Island Transit stops), but honestly, I wouldn't call anything in SI a must-see.

There's a Tibetan art museum. I guess that's sorta interesting. And the eastern/northern parts of the island are quite hilly and scenic in parts. Decent midrise infill on the North Shore, especially on the harbor and near transit. Stuff like this-
http://www.yimbynews.com/2017/01/rev...en-island.html

[lio45]

Originally Posted by ue

Ugh I don't understand why you're making this so complicated.

Look at Downtown Manhattan. It's NYC's "Old Montreal/Quebec" and yet it has layers of different architectural styles. It continually reinvented itself. Anyways, I wouldn't advocate for that per se, at least not within the Walled City.

Manhattan is the exception; very few places can pull off continually reinventing themselves and not come out much worse off than if they'd preserved their built heritage more.

As I pointed out, I think Paris' case applies way more than Manhattan's here. Should Paris continually reinvent itself? Seems to me that preservation is a much safer bet.

But newer buildings can be tastefully integrated into the old core, see Edifice Price.

It's almost a century old, and that's precisely the point - they CAN tastefully integrate, provided there's a limited number of them, their design is high-quality and extremely carefully studied and chosen, and even then, there's basically no vacant land anymore to accomodate such buildings, so it's tricky. Totally incompatible with the requirements of a functional, modern CBD.

I dont understand your point about "it's nice to be able to build"... you could do that in St-Foy, the Old City, Levis, Beauport, whatever. Not that it would happen, but if there was incentive, it could. You don't need to be in St-Foy to do that.

No, you can't have just any company buying enough contiguous lots, razing what's on them, and building their glass corporate midrise headquarters "in the old city". Not even in Old Lévis.

What I don't understand is why you're willing to accept a suburban, auto-orientated, banal CBD.

Same reason Parisians accept theirs, I guess. Rather have it there than in the heart of the city, and it has to be somewhere.

See, I knew you were gonna throw that point re: Mississauga at me. But, if you look at the whole continent, most of the population is to the south and west of Toronto, just like for Quebec City. I'm using your exact argument for St-Foy as a nexus for QC, and extrapolating it to a different scale, although even you make mention of the greater number of people lying to the west and south even outside of Quebec.

Why would you look at "the whole continent"? The only thing that matters is what's within driving distance. These are the people who keep passing through, stopping for gas, food, hotels, shopping even, and helping anchor the CBD.

Which set of groups seems closer to being somewhat balanced to you?

Set 1:

Group A: All Americans from all the Great Lakes areas, Ontarians from SWO

Group B: Ontarians from Eastern Ontario, all Ottawans, all Montrealers, all the Québécois, and anyone from Atlantic Canada


And Set 2:

Group A: All Ontarians; all Yankees; all New Englanders; nearly all Québécois; all people from Atlantic Canada

Group B: People from Saguenay and the sparsely-populated North Shore.


I don't think it's anywhere near as true that all roads to Toronto go through downtown Mississauga. Seems obvious from the above, in any case.

(And if we want to be more accurate about this, you also have to factor the likeliness of visits, which for Toronto helps the east - places like Ottawa and Montreal in the east should "weigh" much more than Detroit in the west, for example.)

[ue]

I wouldn't call La Defense totally suburban and auto-centric. Regardless, you seem very willing to accept the status quo, which I don't understand on an urban-orientated forum. Sainte-Foy, even though it was built up post-WWII, could be far better. La Defense is actually a decent example of this, as is Zuid-as in Amsterdam and Canary Wharf in London. Not great, but decent. A better example would be the city centres of bombed out European centres like Amsterdam and Berlin. North American examples that are on the right track would be Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, North York, Don Mills, are decent examples though not fully there. Something like New Urbanism on the CBD scale may exist somewhere in the US that I'm unfamiliar with.

[Pavlov's Dog]

There are quite a few cities in the almost there category with 2 million plus in the metro area.

Richmond, Virginia has been mentioned. If I were to speculate on real estate and the conditions were that I had to be locked in for 25 years, Richmond would be my choice. It's pretty darned cheap right now. Fantastic historical core and plenty of room to grow. Its the next logical growth point on the Bosh/Wash corridor. If the race/crime issue continues to improve it could boom.

Mobile/Pensacola have already been mentioned. Another great choice from a smaller starting point.

Spokane and Boise are good small-metro choices. Tri-Cities, Washington is also dirt cheap and good lifestyle and should boom

In micro-metro St. George, Utah and Bend, Oregon have both been booming massively the past 25 years and should continue to do so. Their only limits are public lands constraining their growth. Idaho Falls should also boom. It has a large Mormon population giving it a high inherent growth rate and is close to lots of gorgeous scenery. In 120 they could all be at 1-2 million.

[pdxtex]

Originally Posted by Pavlov's Dog

There are quite a few cities in the almost there category with 2 million plus in the metro area.

Richmond, Virginia has been mentioned. If I were to speculate on real estate and the conditions were that I had to be locked in for 25 years, Richmond would be my choice. It's pretty darned cheap right now. Fantastic historical core and plenty of room to grow. Its the next logical growth point on the Bosh/Wash corridor. If the race/crime issue continues to improve it could boom.

Mobile/Pensacola have already been mentioned. Another great choice from a smaller starting point.

Spokane and Boise are good small-metro choices. Tri-Cities, Washington is also dirt cheap and good lifestyle and should boom

In micro-metro St. George, Utah and Bend, Oregon have both been booming massively the past 25 years and should continue to do so. Their only limits are public lands constraining their growth. Idaho Falls should also boom. It has a large Mormon population giving it a high inherent growth rate and is close to lots of gorgeous scenery. In 120 they could all be at 1-2 million.

i dont have a good handle of whats going on out in spokane. its got all the makings of a western outdoor town, big mountains, ski hill, trails, snow and sun. but i dont know how robust the job market is right now. it is cheap though, its priced like a modest midwest city. so far ive only heard inklings of portlanders and seattle folks going there. boise seems more likely to be the NW city rising. its the state capital and largest city, and its a college town too. its like a west coast madison, with skiing too. never been to richmond but it seems interesting. its almost a port city too.

[SFTransplant]

I don't know if it fits the criteria of the original post but I think the next batch of US cities to jump from small/medium to larger in the next few decades are areas that have small town charm, liberal gentrified pockets, are affordable and have room to grow exponentially. In this case, Charleston, Boise, Tucson, Bend, Savannah, Providence, etc., Millennials will continue to drive urban growth as will retirees. Most of the larger urban centers are becoming too expensive for college grads and too crowded for the elderly. I think the hip towns with great scenery and/or architecture are going to explode.

[Xing]

I'm always thinking the northwest US could use more major cities. We obviously have Seattle, and Portland, but maybe Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, could step up their biggest cities? Boise maybe? I'm thinking real far down the road.

[ChargerCarl]

I'd like to see Portland develop into more of a major city.

[dc_denizen]

Agree, there is no reason that Portland couldn't look at least more like Austin in terms of new projects. The skyline is stuck in the 1990s, new prominent buildings would be nice to complement all the infill

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Xing

I'm always thinking the northwest US could use more major cities. We obviously have Seattle, and Portland, but maybe Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, could step up their biggest cities? Boise maybe? I'm thinking real far down the road.

it is kinda a crazy that a whole quadrant of the country only has two metros over 1M people.

however, i don't necessarily see this as a bad thing. it would be nice if montana, idaho, and wyoming could stay as wild as possible.