Canada's 30 Largest UAs on One Page

[vid]

Re-do this with Google Earth. Go to Tools > Options > set the Elevation Exaggeration to 0.01, and take every photo from the same "eye alt" (bottom right).

Here is Toronto with an eye alt of 100km (that is, what the city would look like if you were 100km above it):



And Vancouver:

[RWin]

For map geeks out there (like me) here's another cool tool for comparing things on a map:

http://mapfrappe.com/

[Razor]

Interesting maps..Thanks MiddelJohn

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Maybe in real life. But around here you're more likely to see people complaining that they're smaller than shown as we love density and hate sprawl!

I was thinking the opposite for Ottawa considering it's sprawl.

[middeljohn]

Thanks vid. My method (to resize the photos in paint so the scales are identical) wasn't all that bad given the rather primative method, but I see now I included a lot of greenspace for Vancouver within urban regions.

[SignalHillHiker]

Another fun exercise... comparing CMA boundaries. CMA populations are generally what we use to reference our cities, but the criteria used to create them - though implemented fairly across the board - favours some cities more than others.

All of these are at the same scale, just to compare:



I always joke that if the St. John's CMA was as geographically large as Halifax's, we'd have a higher population. That's not true, but we'd be around 300,000 people.

Here's the map if you want to poke around yourselves. But PLEASE NOTE: If you search for a city, then load it, the map automatically chooses the best zoom setting. So you have to refresh the zoom every time you load a new city in order to get a comparable scale.

http://geodepot.statcan.gc.ca/GeoSea...767.gif&lang=E

[middeljohn]

I don't know enough about Halifax to say this with any certainty, but it seems unlikely to me that there is a significant number of people travelling 130km into town for work each day.

[Denscity]

Wow only St Johns is smaller than Vancouver on that comparison.

[SignalHillHiker]

I don't know how the CMA boundaries are determined - but I imagine they start with the core municipality, and add on, correct?

Is there any CMA that doesn't include the entirely of the City of X at its core? If that's the case, then - because Halifax is a Regional Municipality - it would include the whole HRM from the get-go, which is roughly the same size as its CMA. (That's also why, on a technicality, St. John's is the largest City in Atlantic Canada, ).

But in Halifax's case, the giant size doesn't really add a whole lot of population.

St. John's CMA: 196,000 (2011)
Halifax CMA: 390,000 (2011)
St. John's is exactly 50% the size of Halifax

St. John's Urban Area: 165,000 (2011)
Halifax Urban Area: 297,000 (2011)
St. John's is 55.5% the size of Halifax

5.5% isn't that big of a deal. It's not like the giant CMA is changing its rank. Even ranking the largest urban areas in the country compared to the largest CMAs, Halifax only drops one position from 13th to 14th.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Denscity

Wow only St Johns is smaller than Vancouver on that comparison.

Probably because you guys are building up geographically. lol If we flattened your mountains, you might be wider.

[SignalHillHiker]

One thing that strikes me is how jagged the borders of the Montreal CMA are. It looks to me like they aren't getting the benefit of the more arbitrary lines you see for other CMAs, like Toronto and the prairies.

I bet if Montreal if straight lines like that, its CMA would have a much higher population.

Also, Halifax and Vancouver are claiming a lot more of the ocean than we do. lol

[middeljohn]

I was referring more the disparity of CMA land NE vs SW of Halifax. Halifax is hardly in the center of its own CMA, which is an oddity compared to pretty much every other CMA.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by vid

Re-do this with Google Earth. Go to Tools > Options > set the Elevation Exaggeration to 0.01, and take every photo from the same "eye alt" (bottom right).

Here is Toronto with an eye alt of 100km (that is, what the city would look like if you were 100km above it):

Get your magnifying glass...

[middeljohn]

Toronto is simply massive. And oddly enough, it's also the most densely populated UA in North America.

[Wooster]

Originally Posted by vid

Re-do this with Google Earth. Go to Tools > Options > set the Elevation Exaggeration to 0.01, and take every photo from the same "eye alt" (bottom right).

Here is Toronto with an eye alt of 100km (that is, what the city would look like if you were 100km above it):

This is interesting. I've always wondered whether google earth built area comparisons are apples to apples when for instance Calgary is at 3500 ft and Vancouver is 0ft (therefore Calgary would appear closer if eye altitude was different)

[craner]

Be fun to see LA at this scale.

[SignalHillHiker]

There ya go:

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by middeljohn

I don't know enough about Halifax to say this with any certainty, but it seems unlikely to me that there is a significant number of people travelling 130km into town for work each day.

No, there is certainly a rural commuter shed with some rural residents commonly travelling in the 50km range, but this is a very small number relative to the population of Halifax. The CMA is mainly what it is due to the creation of the Halifax Regional Municipality which is officially our city limits but much of it is rural areas that have nothing to do with Halifax. The merger included most (but not all) of Halifax county. I don't know - or at least remember - why they chose that area to merge.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by middeljohn

I don't know enough about Halifax to say this with any certainty, but it seems unlikely to me that there is a significant number of people travelling 130km into town for work each day.

There is almost no population in those places. The eastern 2/3 of the land area in the Halifax CMA has only around 5% of the population (it used to have 1 out of 23 council seats), and most of that is in the western side of the district, which is mostly commuters.

The UA/population centre similarly used to (not sure if it still does) exclude places like Fall River, which are bedroom communities of the city that happen to be too low density or too poorly connected to other parts of the UA to be included. These are not rural areas with farmers that are being lumped in with the city. If anything Halifax's CMA may be a little undersized on the western and northern ends, which are the parts that would make a real difference population-wise.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I don't know - or at least remember - why they chose that area to merge.

My guess is they did this just to cut down on the number of municipal governments relative to the population. It wouldn't make much sense to make these areas a county with under 10,000 people, and Guysborough already covers a large area.

[Innsertnamehere]

LA doesn't even fit on the screen.. (mind you some outer portions of the GHTA don't fit either, never mind the essential greater golden horseshoe mega city with K-W and St. Catherines included)

[TownGuy]

Calgary and Edmonton would dwarf Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver if they had similar populations. Doesn't bode well for them as they get larger.