Canada's Most "Urban" Small Cities and Towns

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Trevor3

It's really all perspective. If you're from Toronto, Halifax is small. If you're from Atlantic Canada, it's quite large.

Regardless of perspective, I think Halifax (and Victoria, and St. John's) occupies a big enough place in the Canadian psyche and is substantive enough of a city to not be considered "small" in the sense that this thread is probably going for.

[MonkeyRonin]

Charlottetown and Fredericton definitely deserve to be on here, though they kind of occupy that awkward space between being a small city and a large town (and for whatever reason, don't seem to have too many peers of their size in Canada).


Now as for some urban towns - Brockville, ON (pop. 22,000) has probably the most muscular downtown of a city that size I've seen in this country. The surrounding housing meanwhile is typical old school, small town Ontario. So, urban, but not too dense.





Stratford, ON (pop. 30,000) meanwhile has a really extensive downtown the size of cities many times its size (like say, Guelph or St. Catherine's), albeit not quite as grand as Brockville's.





Nelson, BC (pop. 10,000) is pretty low-slung aside aside from a few standout landmark buildings, but is also very extensive and impressively vibrant.





Lunenburg, NS (pop. 2,000) doesn't quite have the commercial core of those larger towns, but being an old east coast town it has a nice tightly packed residential fabric.





After awhile, all these towns (at least in Ontario) start to kind of look the same and all have more or less the same form with little appreciable difference in urbanity, but some standouts would nonetheless include the likes of:

Cobourg (18,000)





Port Hope (16,000)





Carleton Place (10,000)

[SignalHillHiker]

Great post. I'd add Paris, ON, as well. I'm in love with that place.

DSC_2705 by Do Anh Vu, on Flickr

[eemy]

I've always felt Owen Sound has a pretty decent downtown for a city its size as well. Goderich has a lovely downtown, though it's not nearly the same since the tornado.

[SignalHillHiker]

Woody Point has a little main strip. This picture show quite literally all of it, but it's not bad for a village of 300 people.

Great Northern Peninsula by R C, on Flickr

[ue]

^ Reminds me a bit of Riverport, NS but more colourful. Love the mountain backdrop.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Great post. I'd add Paris, ON, as well. I'm in love with that place.

DSC_2705 by Do Anh Vu, on Flickr

Paris Ontario is very not urban. It is Ontario small town, although I don't think of it as having typical suburban sprawl, as a place like Stratford does.

[kwoldtimer]

This thread is morphing into the smaller cities/towns with good cores thread, which I don't think is the same as "most urban". What are the urban amenities and how does the core relate to the suburbs?

[SignalHillHiker]

That street is beautiful and urban enough to me. I'm sure the experience of it is different - you can't even walk on the pretty side. But I love it.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

This thread is morphing into the smaller cities/towns with good cores thread, which I don't think is the same as "most urban". What are the urban amenities and how does the core relate to the suburbs?

True, but a good core is part of that objective measure of urbanity, such as how the core relates to the suburbs. It's probably the single most important part, really, if we're trying to be objective.

Once you get into amenities and atmosphere, it becomes so subjective. I, for example, love a dingy, artsy feel in a city with a strong culture. I absolutely hate setbacks. If you have a front lawn, you might as well be camping, to me. That eliminates some perfectly urban cities from feeling truly urban to me, or offering the amenities I look for. The Ship Inn is far more important to me than Mile One Centre.

A guy from Liverpool replied to one of my picture threads and described St. John's as "such a distinctive and singular culture - and it does feel quite British in certain respects - usually the worst ones...". That's just exactly it, exactly what I want to spend my life in. So Charlottetown just isn't what I want, whereas Portland, Maine, is a bit closer.

[flipv]

Small town Ontario is where it's at. I can't even think of my favourite. Maybe Paris. I love the rowhouses nestled against the Grand River and its little terraces with restaurant patios. Bliss.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by flipv

Small town Ontario is where it's at. I can't even think of my favourite. Maybe Paris. I love the rowhouses nestled against the Grand River and its little terraces with restaurant patios. Bliss.

As far as I know, those are private balconies and only one coffee shop opens out onto the river. There also used to be a shop that sold nice cotton lingerie. Very urban indeed.....

If backing onto the Grand River is your thing, I'd take Elora over Paris any day. Probably wins on the "urban-meter" as well.

[BretttheRiderFan]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Regardless of perspective, I think Halifax (and Victoria, and St. John's) occupies a big enough place in the Canadian psyche and is substantive enough of a city to not be considered "small" in the sense that this thread is probably going for.

I made the mistake of letting people interpret it as they wished, but you're bang-on. Halifax was definitely not the type of place I was thinking of.

[flipv]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

As far as I know, those are private balconies and only one coffee shop opens out onto the river. There also used to be a shop that sold nice cotton lingerie. Very urban indeed.....

If backing onto the Grand River is your thing, I'd take Elora over Paris any day. Probably wins on the "urban-meter" as well.

Many have restaurant patios now.

Paris is also set in a river valley with wooded slopes behind it.. It's scenic.. It's the whole package. Can't beat Paris.

[Acajack]

Isn' t it kind of a depressed town in a rust belt fashion?

[eemy]

I'd agree with kwoldtimer here. While there are fewer buildings built right up to the river like in Paris, the ones in Elora are more picturesque. It's downtown also seems bigger and more vibrant to me, but that might simply just be that Elora is more touristy than Paris.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Isn' t it kind of a depressed town in a rust belt fashion?

It's a scenic place, but that's more or less how it comes across, from what I've seen of it. I believe it is growing, given its proximity to Cambridge, Brantford, Hamilton, etc, but I couldn't say what its present economy is based on. To note, I haven't been there for five years, so maybe it has more to offer than what I remember.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

This thread is morphing into the smaller cities/towns with good cores thread, which I don't think is the same as "most urban". What are the urban amenities and how does the core relate to the suburbs?

I'd say a good core does more for urbanity than a lack of suburban sprawl does - especially considering the latter (in small town Canada) is usually a product of economic/demographic stagnation and the resultant decay (both physical and in amenities), which also takes away from any substantive sense of urbanity that the town might have otherwise had.

Towns like Stratford have their share of suburban sprawl, but their cores have prospered in parallel. Whatever's happening on the periphery, a good core usually means good urban amenities.

If we're just looking for "least suburban" though, how about Francois, Newfoundland? The entire village is car free!





https://www.morganscloud.com/2012/09...-newfoundland/

[ue]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

As far as I know, those are private balconies and only one coffee shop opens out onto the river. There also used to be a shop that sold nice cotton lingerie. Very urban indeed.....

If backing onto the Grand River is your thing, I'd take Elora over Paris any day. Probably wins on the "urban-meter" as well.

Paris' backing onto the Grand River is perhaps the most scenic (moreso than Elora), but in terms of wider urban appeal, Fergus probably has both beat.

[Calgary Brutalist]

Whistler and Moose Jaw.