Melbourne vs. Vancouver

[SpongeG]

Melbourne vs. Vancouver: City planner puts urban centres head to head

From alleyways to suburban development, the two cities have a lot to learn from each other

CBC News Posted: Apr 20, 2017 12:59 PM PT Last Updated: Apr 20, 2017 12:59 PM PT


Swanston Street in Melbourne (left) and Robson Street in Vancouver (right). City-making columnist Brent Toderian compares the two cities ranked in the top three most liveable places in the world. (CBC)

The current title holder for the most liveable city in the world is Melbourne, Australia, but as CBC's regular city columnist Brent Toderian tells On The Coast host Stephen Quinn, the Australians are taking notes from Vancouver.

"We are the city that they study more than any other city on the planet and I find it fascinating to look at what it is about our system that they're trying to learn from because it can teach us about ourselves," Toderian said.


He points out the suburbs in Melbourne are lacking, and that's where the city could learn the most from the Lower Mainland's regional design.

"We're building urban places — transit supportive, walkable, bikeable places out in the suburbs."

"They've got a commuter rail, they've got their tram system, but they've got no mixed use density out in the suburbs. It's all car oriented."

Active alleyways

The glaring difference between Vancouver's downtown and Melbourne's downtown is how the Australian city has utilized its lanes and alleys by making them into public spaces.

"They completely rethought all the barriers... and in the 90's [Melbourne] transformed that," Toderian said, commenting on the potential of Vancouver's aesthetically diverse back lanes.

The city did revamp the alley east of Granville Street between Smithe and Robson and a similar project is set to take place in the alley south of Alberni Street between Burrard and Bute.

"We tip-toe into these kind of ideas, they went big into it and they transformed a whole network of their alleys and lanes."

Toderian put the two cities head to head and here's how they compared:

Culture and art in the downtown and inner city: Melbourne wins.

"Their architecture is more adventurous, more colourful, more fun, and they do their civic city building better."

Downtown housing: Vancouver wins.

"The idea that we put a lot of people right downtown, Vancouver wins by far. Family housing, housing that may be expensive but it can physically fit families, and we have 7,000 kids in our Downtown, [Melbourne] is very jealous of that."

Public transit: Vancouver/Melbourne tie.

"They're the only Australian city that didn't rip up their trams back in the advent of the car. It's not just a piece of transportation infrastructure, it's identity, it's civic building, it's part of their brand.

"We move more people per capita on our transit system than they do, but there's the piece of it about how it also fits in with their identity."

Public realm design: Melbourne wins.

"We're good, but they're excellent at it. An overall walkable downtown, I give them the slight advantage, their midrise architecture is very adventurous."

...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...lity-1.4076935

[trofirhen]

Melbourne definitely seems more "savvy" in many domains, particular the pedestrian. Keep in mind that Melbourne once functioned as the capital of Australia
and received a heritage of architectural bestownments, Vicotrian finery and elegance, far moreso that exists at all in Vancouver. This helps out greatly with their treatment of alleys.
But like other large Australian cities, it's fallen ino the patter of a sea of LA-density sprawl, and that's why they want to develop Vancouver-style to break free of that.
Melbourne, roaring toward 5 million. They seem to have developed a an energy and a plasma, all their own. Wish Vancouver could be that much more daring.

Nice city-pair & info, Sponge

[a very long weekend]

the architecture in melbourne is a lot better. vivid, varied and eclectic, a stark contrast with that feeling of impending doom you get when you spend any time looking at vancouver's archi-monolingual skyline. also, it feels older, more substantial.

also, melbourne is an exciting place to be, not as many chain restaurants, everything is open much later, and in the bustle it feels a lot more like london that it does like vancouver.

the point on the suburbs is sort of right. but in melbourne, they distinguish between outer suburbs and inner suburbs. an inner suburb of melbourne is what people in vancouver just call vancouver. ie. the suburban single family home neighborhoods that make up most of the city. most of these suburbs in melbourne, feel like denser versions of a quasi-urban area such as strathcona in vancouver.

toderian is 100% right though that the outer suburbs of melbourne are garbage (think maple ridge and surrey) and the vancouver ones (burnaby, new westminster) are better.

for people who've never been to australia, it's very eye-opening. i was showing my australian friend around san francisco and he was politely impressed with this and that. it was only when he was showing me around melbourne that i got why SF struck him as relatively mediocre. melbourne far less car-dominated than SF (or vancouver) and cleaner, but it's also just so vibrant and walkable. there's no place in north america even to compare it to you really have to just say london, or maybe some german city.

[Vin]

He points out the suburbs in Melbourne are lacking, and that's where the city could learn the most from the Lower Mainland's regional design.

"We're building urban places — transit supportive, walkable, bikeable places out in the suburbs."

"They've got a commuter rail, they've got their tram system, but they've got no mixed use density out in the suburbs. It's all car oriented."



I just need to say this:

Melbourne city puts their very best in design and urban infrastructure in the CBD area around the Yarra River. You can't even compare downtown Vancouver's planning to Melbourne's. Melbourne's downtown got many things that we reject or curtail here (eg. the Grand Casino/mall, active retail and food/beverage based alleys, and really tall skyscrapers popping up in former industrial lands outside the tradional CBD) or perhaps too poor to implement (eg. street cars and extensive commuter railway). You don't see the level of poverty, drug use and homelessness like in Vancouver.

The only reason why we have great suburbs is because they are actually city centres of other jurisdictions, NOT VANCOUVER. The suburbs of Vancouver proper are actually very hick, and not much different from Melbourne's sprawl. Recently, the backward policies of Vancouver have actually helped the suburbs grow even faster.

So yeah, if Melbourne wants to learn from us, they should be learning about how to set up new jurisdictions in the suburbs, and not actually learning from City of Vancouver's planning, or the so-called "regional design" per se, with the exceptions of perhaps a couple of neighbourhoods such as Yaletown, and to a smaller extent Coal Harbour that came with massive foreign investments, which were great in bringing residents downtown. The beautiful mountains and ocean did not come from planning.

[a very long weekend]

Yeah, I've never understood Vancouver's agressive zero-commercial activation of waterfront policy. Very few north American cities activate the waterfront, but usually that's because of freeways and industrial works. In Vancouver, the city really went to the mats for the developers so they could sell suburbs-quiet housing on the downtown waterfront. It's just another one of those things, you do a seawall walk and afterward you get this feeling of "wow, that was actually quite boring." Only exception is Granville island. Melbourne is like a Granville island City.

[GilmoreStation]

How does Brisbane compare to Sydney & Melbourne?

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by GilmoreStation

How does Brisbane compare to Sydney & Melbourne?

Me, all I know is that its metro population is around 2.5 million; very very close to Vancouver.