Downtown Canada

[c@taract_soulj@h]

Don't ask why I did this...bordom perhaps? Nonetheless, I captured the downtown maps of most Canadian cities.

The scales are all relatively the same. It's actually neat how much land is amassed (and not) compared to others. Also, it shows how various downtown areas could possibly take riding lessons from others in the country and also how they could be used wisely.

From West to East

Victoria


Vic by sens_31, on Flickr

Vancouver


Van by sens_31, on Flickr

Calgary


Cal by sens_31, on Flickr

Edmonton


Edm by sens_31, on Flickr

Saskatoon


Toon by sens_31, on Flickr

Regina


Reg by sens_31, on Flickr

Winnipeg


Win by sens_31, on Flickr

Windsor


Wsr by sens_31, on Flickr

London


Lon by sens_31, on Flickr

Hamilton (My Hood )


Ham by sens_31, on Flickr

Missisauga...I know...the skyline/city centre just consists of what happened when a condo had quintuplets with an office tower.


Miss by sens_31, on Flickr

Toronto


Tor by sens_31, on Flickr

Ottawa


Ott by sens_31, on Flickr

Montreal


Mtl by sens_31, on Flickr

Quebec City


Que by sens_31, on Flickr

Halifax


Hfx by sens_31, on Flickr

St. Johns


SJ by sens_31, on Flickr

[Aylmer]

One of these things is not like the other! One of these things isn't a grid!

[goodthings]

Mississauga is obviously a standout among all of these. But remember, that's one HUGE construction site that is still in its "fetal" stage. The blocks will get smaller. More new streets (Main St., etc.) will be under construction. Extensions of existing roads (Kariya, Duke of York, etc.) will be under construction. New roundabouts soon to commence construction. The anchors will be detached from the mall. They are now in process of reducing lanes in some of the roads (to 1 lane per direction). Busy, busy, busy!

They just halted all development surrounding Square One, which is good news, because Square One's owners keep on building car-oriented small-box stores. Also, City Council is planning to permanently close a short segment of City Centre Dr. in front of the City Hall to discourage the automobile and not endanger the lives of people using the Celebration Square.

St. John's is somewhat weird. But that's their topography. Who's to blame?

And BTW, are those at the same zoom levels?

[BretttheRiderFan]

No love for Grande Prairie and our marvelous downtown?

[goodthings]

If so, then he has to add a lot more (Yellowknife, Whitehorse, Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie, Brandon, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Brampton, Fredericton, Moncton, Saint John, Barrie, Kingston, etc.)

[BretttheRiderFan]

These maps would have been more effective in sattelite view IMO so we could better see such things as parking lot space, building heights, density, green space etc.

I don't think these maps give justice to, say, Edmonton or Toronto. Not to mention Regina is zoomed in more than all the others

[The_Architect]

Toronto's downtown area is much larger than what is shown.

[Doady]

Is that really Quebec City's downtown? For some reason I thought it was further east and north. Very strange.

Originally Posted by Aylmer

One of these things is not like the other! One of these things isn't a grid!

Yeah I just noticed the organic street pattern in St. John's. I didn't realize it was such an old city.

[PoscStudent]

I find it interesting how so many of the cities downtown's centre around, or feature, a body of water, whether it be an ocean, lake, or river.

Originally Posted by Doady

Yeah I just noticed the organic street pattern in St. John's. I didn't realize it was such an old city.

It is the oldest. The geography has St. John's really messed when it comes to road, it's probably the hilliest city in Canada.

[le calmar]

^ We only see the West End of Quebec City's downtown, the Old City is not even on the map.

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by le calmar

^ We only see the West End of Quebec City's downtown, the Old City is not even on the map.

But is vieux Quebec considered 'Downtown" or "City centre" or whatever you call it?

Interesting note about Quebec city, the first time i went there I asked locals where the "centre ville" was and they looked at me like I came from Mars. Quebec City does not seem to have a singular "downtown", though I may very well be wrong.

[PoscStudent]

Here's a sattelite view of St. John's, the angle shows more of the downtown as well. Most of the area shown is residential with some commercial mixxed in. The business district area, which was traditionally considered the downtown, is pretty much just the length of the harbour and only takes in a few streets north of it.

Most businesses are in the centre of the downtown but over the next few years there should be a shift to the west end of downtown. Right now there are four proposals for the west end, three which are around 12 stories.This should become the modern downtown while the rest will remain the old downtown heritage area. It will make a lot more sense seeing there is a fair bit of undeveloped, or underdeveloped, land and it's much flatter and overall it's just less controversial.

[le calmar]

Yeah that's a good question. QC downtown would probably be the area where stand the parliament and the few highrises, right next to the old city. The old city probably is a neighourhood on its own, just like Old montreal is.

[vid]

They're not at the same scale, the scale on Google Maps changes as you change latitude. You should have used Google Earth instead.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by c@taract_soulj@h

The scales are all relatively the same.

Not really, you can see from the scale at the bottom left that some of them are completely different from others. Windsor, Regina, Halifax, and St. John's are zoomed in about twice as close as the others.

Originally Posted by PoscStudent

I find it interesting how so many of the cities downtown's centre around, or feature, a body of water, whether it be an ocean, lake, or river.

Well yeah, because the "downtown" is typically the oldest part of the city (or close to it), and most cities were built near water primarily for transport purposes (pre-trains).

[goodthings]

Originally Posted by The_Architect

Toronto's downtown area is much larger than what is shown.

Ditto to Mississauga. Their "downtown" designation from the new Official Plan stretches from the 403 to the QEW.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by PoscStudent

I find it interesting how so many of the cities downtown's centre around, or feature, a body of water, whether it be an ocean, lake, or river.

Most cities and towns in Canada pre-date the railroad, so naturally nearly all of them were founded close to the then-available mode of transport. Plus, without a nearby water supply people would die in the days before aqueducts and whatnot. Water's also been essential since the industrial revolution, and Canada is almost entirely newer than that.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by goodthings

Ditto to Mississauga. Their "downtown" designation from the new Official Plan stretches from the 403 to the QEW.

It is interesting because this is the third "downtown" designation for Mississauga. The original downtown of Mississauga was Cooksville (at Highways 10 and 5), then there was Mississauga City Centre. And when the province came up with the Places to Grow Plan, the city proposed this new downtown boundary, which encompasses both the original downtown of Cooksville plus Mississauga City Centre, as "precincts" of Downtown Missisauga, and much more for the Urban Growth Centre (UGC). The province did not accept this as an Urban Growth Centre because they considered it too large and elongated.

While every other municipality came up with small UGC in order to fullfill the the intensification and density requirements of the Places to Grow Plan more easily, the City of Mississauga proposed a UGC that was even larger than Downtown Toronto. To see the original proposed boundary of the UGC, now the boundary of "Downtown Mississauga" on the very last page of this document: http://www5.mississauga.ca/agendas/p...owthCentre.pdf

[c@taract_soulj@h]

Google Earth would have been a good tool to use...this was just a quick thing I put together (Who gives a flying duck about downtown Niagara Falls or Grand Prairie anyways) jk...A few side notes though...the scales do differ as you zoom in and out and move around so nothing is ever exact when you compare to different cities. I would have liked to use a few more Maritime cities and some more in Ontario though.

I also get that Downtown Toronto is immense but the said map just gives you a general idea of the main part of the area and most of us anyways are well aware of where you can find it and what it looks like. Bloor and Yonge (Midtown) is nearby but you can only fit so much onto a certain zoom level and a computer screen for that matter. Just the closer you get, the more you can grasp the layout.

With that said, Regina's downtown is looks pretty dinky on a map (but dense in person) when it's zoomed out so that's why I decided to go in a little bit closer. Quebec City has a core but I find it hard to call it a typical downtown, so I agree with Rico. I may as well have put in the Old City instead. Mississauga (North York West) though still just reminds me of an orgy of condos and a few office towers thrown in the mix to even it out.

In essence, a satellite view would very well tell more of a tale about the layout of the cores. I'll try and play around and see if I can rig something up at some point

[Architype]

If SSP maps only identified office buildings that might be a good tool for comparison.

For instance the Regina map is probably a good indicator of the downtown area:
http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/maps/?cityID=71