What city skylines do you think underperform for their population?

[Symz]

I've always felt Windsor's skyline could be more than what it is.

I was surprised and impressed with the size and density of Regina's skyline when I first saw it.

I was just wondering what Canadian city skylines of cities under 500,000 you guys thought weren't punching their weight with respects to how large in population they are?

And to add to that, which Canadian city skylines for cities under 500,000 do you think are quite impressive for their population?

[Nicko999]

Montreal could do more... but I'm bias.

[Razor]

Well judging from the sky-line alone, you wouldn't know that Ottawa was a metro of over a million people..It's got fairly large sprawl though. I think it wins (loses) hands down.

[Roquentin]

Quebec City, maybe Saskatoon

[isaidso]

Ottawa, Edmonton, KW, St. Catharines, Quebec City, and Montreal.

[Chadillaccc]

KW, Windsor, Oshawa, St. Catherines and Hamilton are all too close to Toronto and London (the actual major financial centers of Southern Ontario) to need tall business towers.

Regina has an impressive skyline because most major business in Saskatchewan is centered there. Same reason why Calgary has a far denser skyline than Edmonton even though it's only 200 000 people larger.


I would say for how remote they are, Thunder Bay and Sudbury have the most underwhelming skylines in Canada. Keep in mind, Sudbuy's CMA is only 60 000 people smaller than Regina's... and Sudbury is the de-facto capital and resource distribution hub of all of Northern Ontario east of Wawa which is a population of nearly 600 000... so I'd say Sudbury wins when you consider the logistics of skylines and the need for larger buildings.

[caltrane74]

Kitchener's skyline is pathetic for a city closing in on 500,000 people.

[thurmas]

Ottawa, Quebec, Hamilton, Saskatoon

[MolsonExport]

Underperformers: Kitchener-Waterloo (hands-down the most disappointing "skyline"), followed by Ste. Cath, Ottawa.

Overperformers (if there is such a thing): Regina, Saskatoon, Halifax, Calg.


London has not been a financial centre for two decades, since the hollowing out of the 90s and the migration (due to buyouts) of Insurance/banking HQ to other centres.

[MonctonRad]

Even though I'm a loyal Monctonian, I would have to admit that Moncton is a definite underperformer.

The CMA is nearly 140,000 and yet we only have one building which is 20 stories (and an ugly one to boot). The city is defined by sprawl and, while the downtown area is quite acceptable at the street level, the skyline is pretty pitiful.

Things may change in the future as the city continues to grow at a fairly robust pace, and the downtown is starting to show signs of renewed vigour but it will remain a challenge to promote a proper image for the city on a forum such as this.

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by isaidso

Ottawa, Edmonton, KW, St. Catharines, Quebec City, and Montreal.

Please explain the Edmonton reference. Curious.

[WhipperSnapper]

Guelph, Kitchener/Waterloo, 905 and some others that aren't coming to mind


I disagree on Ottawa. It's not tall but has a sizable dense core surrounded by hundreds of towers in the more suburban areas.

[feepa]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Same reason why Calgary has a far denser skyline than Edmonton even though it's only 200 000 people larger.

Calgary Metro Population (2006): 1.076 M
Edmonton Metro Population (2006) 1.034 M

Care to explain where you derived the 200,000 mark from? (I believe Edmonton has closed the gap some more in the last 5 years)

[Coldrsx]

In this case Feepa, the City stats make more sense...

1.1 Cal versus about 780k Edm

Regional dispersion is part (far from all) of the reason why our downtown is smaller. We have far more of a dispersed employment base.

Also, with the river valley being what it is, it is hard to capture the real skyline, let alone including the south top of bank one.

[big W]

Well for a larger skyline than its size suggests all discussion should start and end with Yellowknife. Look at pics of their skyline and then think they only have 20K people there.

[Coldrsx]

^indeed it is impressive, but it also somewhat serves a much larger area...

[flar]

Edmonton and Saskatoon shouldn't be mentioned in this thread, they have fine skylines for their pops. Montreal is fine, too.

With no skyline at all really, I think K-W takes the cake. St. Catharines and Oshawa are very weak. Windsor's isn't very good either. Hamilton and Ottawa have tons of buildings but their skylines are plateaus with too many non-descript 15-20 storey buildings.

I don't really expect metros under 200,000 to have much of a skyline.

[caltrane74]

If there was no World War 1 and World War 2, Kitchener-Waterloo might have had a better skyline.

My reasoning: it has the largest concentration of Germans in Canada and it would have been a good place for German banking and Industrial conglomerates to set up shop with their brethren to make ground in the North American market. But the war killed that along with all the German Industrial Capacity and K-W was forced to renounce it's German Heritage so all options for being a German heartland/financial centre in North America ended right there.

[kw5150]

In person, Edmonton has a cool skyline...there are so many condos there. pLus if you took all of the other condos on the south side of the river and put them in the main skyline it would be even more impressive.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Definitely St. John's. For a city of almost 200,000 people, the tallest office building downtown is only about 63m tall, with the other handful of offices only being about 50m tall.