How similar are Australian cities to those in NA?

[GreaterMontréal]

The blue area just south of downtown is Griffintown. 2006-2011, +67.3% , 6500 in 2011.

the density should go up over time. It was an old industrial district.

[Slyfox]

As an American who has had the privilege of living in New York City, Sydney Australia and has visited Brisbane, Philadelphia, Houston, Phoenix, Balitmore, Washington DC and various other cities I don't see a major difference in the overall appearance of a city. You have a centralized commercial district (CBD) surrounded by smaller mid rises and low rise buildings (With the exception of Houston whose high rises are spread out.) The architecture is similar in modern buildings, differs in the older buildings. The feel of the city is obviously dependent upon the region and its culture. I was not a fan of the architecture in some of the Australian low rise modern residences, but lovely modern high rises. I will say I've never been in a city where I felt as safe as I did in Sydney, even walking around at odd hours of the night.

New York's modern low rise architecture is a drag too, in a different way than Sydney's, but there is so much old architecture to make up for it as well as the modern high rises. Again the city is completely different, Sydney felt like a vacation, laid back and summery, New York is stressful but you feel the power and energy in a way I've never felt from any other city, also the amenities are hard to match (Museums, theaters, clubs, bars).

Population wise is too much to compare, the NYC Metropolitan area is equivalent to the entire population of Australia.

[jens]

Originally Posted by Commentariat

So what do Australian cities actually look like? I will post a few examples from Perth, the city I am most familiar with, to give you an idea. Please bear in mind that all Australian cities are different. Perth is probably the sprawl capital of Australia. It has its own quirks and is quite different from Sydney or Melbourne.

First off, Perth has a huge number of 'townhouses'. They are the most common form of infill. What you do is knock down an old house usually from the 50s-70s and replace it with 3 or 4 new 'townhouses'. There are literally hundreds of thousands of these in Perth. Other Australian cities have them, but not to the same extent.

This is what it looks like from above.





Closer in:



Usually they are built behind each other with a shared driveway due to the shape of the land:

Jesus. What the hell happened to Perth? That is just depressing. Have you people not heard of a garden?

By the way, I like rowhouses and I like town houses. However, this kind of werid hybrid where you have houses behind other people's houses (where there should be gardens) - just a sad way to live.

[Doady]

The problem with having houses behind other houses is there are fewer streets. Streets are further apart, resulting in huge blocks, which is bad for pedestrians. Of course, the lack of sidewalks on those streets doesn't help either.

[strongbad635]

Originally Posted by jens

Jesus. What the hell happened to Perth? That is just depressing. Have you people not heard of a garden?

By the way, I like rowhouses and I like town houses. However, this kind of werid hybrid where you have houses behind other people's houses (where there should be gardens) - just a sad way to live.

Yeah that's seriously sad. Buildings with no discipline of front and back, don't define the street space at all, and don't really provide much privacy without turning inward like bunkers. This kind of building is toxic to good urbanism.

[M.R.Victor]

If you read the description, these townhouses were built on old properties. From that I gather that the lot sizes and street grid layout were already set, and these new developments are simply increasing the total number of residents / inhabitable space. A good thing, in my opinion.

[memph]

Vancouver comes out denser than I expected. And just want to point out that Vancouver's density is not just high-rises in downtown and TODs. There's also low rise apartments at many TODs and elsewhere, and a lot of high density condominium townhouses in the suburbs, as well as quite a lot of duplexes in the city especially east end.

Overall, there's 2,234,521 people in 1,374.97 km2, for a weighted density of 4121 / km2. However, while it's not just downtown, the 99,000 people living in downtown at high densities do provide a significant boost to weighted densities. Without downtown, the weighted density would be only 3520 / km2.

Toronto: 4515 / km2
Montreal: 4472 / km2
Vancouver: 4121 / km2
Sydney: 3455 / km2
Calgary: 2531 / km2
Melbourne: 2459 / km2
Perth: 1770 / km2
Adelaide: 1704 / km2

[ChargerCarl]

Perth reminds me LA. Cudahy has a ton of those long, narrow lots.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

So very similar to Ohio or Michigan.

Nice try but no.

You're coming off like one of those arm chair sports fans in your knowledge of other economies. Your efforts to neatly compartmentalize the Canadian economy is amusing though. Perhaps you should stick to things you know something about as your 'stock' is plummeting.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by M.R.Victor

If you read the description, these townhouses were built on old properties. From that I gather that the lot sizes and street grid layout were already set, and these new developments are simply increasing the total number of residents / inhabitable space. A good thing, in my opinion.

I noticed a few attempts at that here in Toronto. Someone bought 2 detached houses that backed on to each other. They proceeded to tear them both down, build a laneway connecting the 2 streets, then lined it with about 6-8 town houses.

It looked very smart, they likely made a ton of money, but I wouldn't want to see it everywhere like one sees in that aerial of Perth. It does pose an interesting option in our attempts to densify suburbia though.

[memph]

Charting Transport's post on km grid weighted densities has been updated to add New Zealand and Canadian cities.
http://chartingtransport.com/2015/11...#comment-32944

Compare their km grid weighted densities...

Toronto: 5500
Montreal: 5200
Vancouver: 4700
Sydney: 3600
Calgary: 3100
Melbourne: 2600
Adelaide: 1900
Perth: 1800

... to my "district/SA2" level weighted densities per km2.

Originally Posted by memph

Toronto: 4515 / km2
Montreal: 4472 / km2
Vancouver: 4121 / km2
Sydney: 3455 / km2
Calgary: 2531 / km2
Melbourne: 2459 / km2
Perth: 1770 / km2
Adelaide: 1704 / km2

Interestingly, Wellington is denser than any other New Zealand or Australian city by a pretty good margin, and even a bit denser than Vancouver, despite being a pretty small city. Kinda like Honolulu I suppose.

[tayser]

ABS released its updated projections for GCCSAs - metro areas - this week (projections to June 30, 2015).

You can download the data cubes looking at various levels from here: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@....0?OpenDocument




I blabbed on about Melb's CBD to become the most densely populated area of Australia in a year or two: https://urban.melbourne/planning/201...area-australia

[nameless dude]

Most densely populated SA2, yes, but 'area' I think depends on boundaries. Pyrmont-Ultimo is the most densely populated SA2 in Sydney, but that's only because the Potts Point-Woolloomooloo SA2 includes the Garden Island naval base which if you take that out becomes 19K people/km2. Over the long term a lot of growth in inner Sydney lies within the Green Square area, but the SA2 it lies in (Waterloo-Beaconsfield) also contains a lot of industrial land and low density housing. If you use the council's boundaries it's expected to house around 61,000 residents in about 2.8km2 by around 2030, which equates to about 22,000ppkm2, but if the current growth continues in Melbourne CBD I'd guess by that time it'll be more dense than that.