The Most Underrated City in Canada

[Dr Awesomesauce]

^I'm interested to hear more about why you think a camp outside Thunder Bay, for example, is wasteful. Is it a waste of space or resources? I don't remember there being a huge density of camps on the lakes in and around the area. The Muskokas on the other hand...

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Dr Awesomesauce

^I'm interested to hear more about why you think a camp outside Thunder Bay, for example, is wasteful. Is it a waste of space or resources? I don't remember there being a huge density of camps on the lakes in and around the area. The Muskokas on the other hand...

Mostly fuel use. Their camps can be several hours from the city, which is an obvious waste of fuel. Plus they like to go out to do lots of hunting which isn't exactly great of the local ecosystem (too many wolves? let's shoot them all! now there's too many deer! let's shoot them all! etc.). They seem to go off to their camps a fair bit more than most people go to their cottages (though I think growing up in downtown Hamilton I may not have had a perfectly accurate impression of how often middle class folks went to cottages).

[Dr Awesomesauce]

^Fair enough. There is a very different attitude to hunting in the north, however. I doubt that will ever change.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

the exurban area around the Halifax metro is absolutely more prominent than the Toronto metro exurbs. It obviously isn't how most people in Halifax live, and still accounts for a small percentage of population, but a the area that the exurbs of halifax cover compared to other major canadian cities is far larger.

And sure, it doesn't completely wrap around the metro, but it stretches for a good distance between 102 and 103.

To be precise, it doesn't account for how anyone in metro Halifax lives as these areas aren't included within the borders of metro Halifax. But they are mostly within the borders of the Halifax regional municipality which covers 5,490.18 km2 (compared to the GTAs 7,124.15 km2).

I believe the CMA includes the whole municipality.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

As if it needed to be said.

In the grand scheme of things, we're small towns. Ours suburbs are more rural than urban. That's fine.

Paradise (St. John' suburb) has 17,000 people. And it could NOT exist in southern Ontario. It just couldn't. It's too rural. I could be suburb of Sudbury or Thunder Bay... but TO has millions of people. It's not the same question or answer.

Half of Paradise is rural, and half (now more than half) is SFH suburban. I don't see much difference, if any, between it and an Ontario or other Canadian suburb (except for the lack of higher density housing). The style of the houses is a variation of the same suburban idea, just exclusively vinyl.

The point you are making might apply to some other areas in the SJs CMA however, but such rural exurbs can also be found surrounding Vancouver.

The only things that the SJs CMA has which are really unique are the cores of the original coastal villages.

[memememe76]

It's pretty obvious Richmond, BC should be on this list. Doesn't get enough credit for being one of the few Canadian suburbs that can be a tourist attraction in itself. The best Chinese food outside of Asia. Two fun night markets. Some truly beautiful condo buildings. Enthusiasm for transit. Steveston is still a bit of a hidden gem, even among locals. As opposed to so many other airport hubs where nothing of note is nearby, Richmond's proximity to an airport (a major one too) enhances its urban fabric.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Architype

Half of Paradise is rural, and half (now more than half) is SFH suburban. I don't see much difference, if any, between it and an Ontario or other Canadian suburb (except for the lack of higher density housing).

The bold is precisely what's being discussed.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Mostly fuel use. Their camps can be several hours from the city, which is an obvious waste of fuel. Plus they like to go out to do lots of hunting which isn't exactly great of the local ecosystem (too many wolves? let's shoot them all! now there's too many deer! let's shoot them all! etc.). They seem to go off to their camps a fair bit more than most people go to their cottages (though I think growing up in downtown Hamilton I may not have had a perfectly accurate impression of how often middle class folks went to cottages).

That's not how hunting works though. There are very strict laws about what your can and can't hunt, and human hunting isn't happening at a large enough scale to affect ecosystems in Canada.

Returning briefly to the Maritime sprawl thing, I didn't want to get too argumentative and give the impression that I disagree that it is a bit more exurban/low density in nature, 'cause it is. I just don't think its related to land use planning so much as land availability (and the fact thst most of that land is too rocky and thin-soiled for farming uses, so that was never really there.)

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

That's not how hunting works though. There are very strict laws about what your can and can't hunt, and human hunting isn't happening at a large enough scale to affect ecosystems in Canada.

There's enough people who go hunting that it obviously has substantial impacts on the regions where hunting occurs. Plus that's roughly the logic the people who support hunting seem to use.

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Returning briefly to the Maritime sprawl thing, I didn't want to get too argumentative and give the impression that I disagree that it is a bit more exurban/low density in nature, 'cause it is. I just don't think its related to land use planning so much as land availability (and the fact thst most of that land is too rocky and thin-soiled for farming uses, so that was never really there.)

If it's not good as farmland it should be protected as wilderness.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Beedok

There's enough people who go hunting that it obviously has substantial impacts on the regions where hunting occurs. Plus that's roughly the logic the people who support hunting seem to use.



If it's not good as farmland it should be protected as wilderness.

Maybe you know some real rednecks, but most hunters are cognizant of those laws and respect them. Hunters are some of the leading voices in wildlife conservation.

And actually, a lot of the wilderness land around Halifax is protected from development, which is ironically part of the reason the rural and suburban development leapfrogs around so much, and so far from the city, unfortunately.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Is hunting endangered animals not a waste for the people who enjoy that? Waste is waste whether people enjoy it or not, and there's far less wasteful things that can be just as much fun.

Everything we do has an environmental impact. Just existing is bad for the environment. So where do we draw the line of what should be allowed or not? Is something fine so long as you've determined it's "just as much fun"? That's not a particularly convincing argument, and cottages aren't exactly representative of an unsustainable environmental disaster that are detrimental to our health or economy (quite the opposite for most people who have one, I'm sure).

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Maybe you know some real rednecks, but most hunters are cognizant of those laws and respect them. Hunters are some of the leading voices in wildlife conservation.

That's northern Ontario for you.

Originally Posted by Drybrain

And actually, a lot of the wilderness land around Halifax is protected from development, which is ironically part of the reason the rural and suburban development leapfrogs around so much, and so far from the city, unfortunately.

I don't mind leaping to a huge degree, it's bad and adds needlessly to commute times, but it's not as bad as purely low density development. Dense regions outside a greenbelt (like some of what Ottawa has) are serviceable by Transit and fairly easy to intensify. Low density stuff like what is common in the Maritimes or Niagara region is much harder to fix.

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Everything we do has an environmental impact. Just existing is bad for the environment. So where do we draw the line of what should be allowed or not? Is something fine so long as you've determined it's "just as much fun"? That's not a particularly convincing argument, and cottages aren't exactly representative of an unsustainable environmental disaster that are detrimental to our health or economy (quite the opposite for most people who have one, I'm sure).

They're a waste of fossil fuels, driving so far out to them. If we're going to keep fossil fuels (and the endless chemicals derived from them) affordable we need to make cuts to many things.

[Nouvellecosse]

Residential development in rural areas isn't hard to fix. If no one wants to live in a particular house then tear it down and the plot will be reclaimed by the surrounding forest within a year or two.

[Wishblade]

This aerial image shows most of the Halifax urban area and its sprawl patterns:

http://www.viewpoint.ca/media/images..._4160x2763.jpg