Canada's Next Major Metropolitan Areas?

[hipster duck]

Back to the original topic, when I think about "major metropolitan areas" in Canada, I don't just think about population numbers but regional/national/international presence.

In that sense, I don't think of Hamilton as a major metropolitan centre, since it's not even really a regional centre, if we're defining region relatively broadly.

On the other hand, Halifax is a major metropolitan centre, even though it's quite a bit smaller than Hamilton. It is the most important city for about 2 million people over a vast area.

When I think of Canada's major metropolitan areas, the list goes (in order), with pauses for differences in relative importance.

Toronto

Montreal

Vancouver

Calgary
Ottawa-Gatineau
Edmonton

Winnipeg
Quebec City

Halifax

St. John's
Saskatoon/Regina

Victoria

London ON
Kelowna
Saint John, NB

(at this point I don't really have a sense of order, so I'm just going to list some regional mid-sized cities that have a pull over a local catchment area):
Hamilton
Niagara Region
KWC
Windsor
Kingston
Sherbrooke
Trois Rivieres
Chicoutimi
Sudbury
Thunder Bay
Moncton
Charlottetown
Lethbridge
Fort Mac
Nanaimo
Prince George

I'm sure there are others.

[kora]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

When I think of Canada's major metropolitan areas, the list goes (in order), with pauses for differences in relative importance.

Ottawa-Gatineau
Edmonton

Winnipeg
Quebec City

Halifax

I would even place Halifax in the same league as Winnipeg and Quebec

[kora]

Also, I would suggest Edmonton is not in the same league as Ottawa or Calgary. Ottawa is the national and political capital of the country. Calgary is a business behemoth. Edmonton is the provincial capital and a major university centre, but it doesn't measure up to either city.

[Blader]

Originally Posted by kora

Also, I would suggest Edmonton is not in the same league as Ottawa or Calgary. Ottawa is the national and political capital of the country. Calgary is a business behemoth. Edmonton is the provincial capital and a major university centre, but it doesn't measure up to either city.

Where's the analysis? What you posted is true, but, from that, you can't draw the conclusion that I've bolded.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by kora

Also, I would suggest Edmonton is not in the same league as Ottawa or Calgary. Ottawa is the national and political capital of the country. Calgary is a business behemoth. Edmonton is the provincial capital and a major university centre, but it doesn't measure up to either city.

I tend to agree that Edmonton has a lower place in the national consciousness relative to Ottawa and Calgary, but to play devil's advocate Edmonton is the provincial capital of one of four big provinces, the fifth most populous metropolitan area, a major resource hub and a gateway to the resources of Northern Canada.

Halifax is important but without the population its a bit hard to rank it on par with Winnipeg and Quebec.

[ssiguy]

I wouldn't put Saint John as a metro area. It has a small regional population and has lost most of it's stature over the last 30 years to Fredricton and Moncton. It is a much smaller draw than Kelowna or Windsor.

I would put London more in Victoria's league as both are cities that a relatively close to major metros but will never be absorbed into them like, for example, Abbotsford or Kitchener. They maintain their independent regional draws for health, education, social services, entertainment, and shopping and even 50 years from now they never have to worry about becoming "just another suburb."

[someone123]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

Halifax is important but without the population its a bit hard to rank it on par with Winnipeg and Quebec.

It just depends on how much importance you think population has relative to the other stuff. I think other factors can be a lot more important although in the case of Halifax vs. Winnipeg or Quebec City, most of those other factors are kind of similar too. All 3 are provincial capitals for example.

In the global GaWC ranking, for what it's worth, Zurich is up near the top. Kinshasa meanwhile is a "sufficiency" city with 11 million. Quebec City, Winnipeg, and Halifax are all in the same sufficiency tier.

In terms of major qualitative differences on the ground, all else being equal, population is significant but not as significant as people on SSP tend to make it out to be. I think a factor of 2 difference is down around the lower end of what is noticeable, while a factor of 10 difference is where it becomes really hard not to notice.

[someone123]

One noticeable thing is that Canadian cities in a few cases seem to be pulling ahead of their American counterparts; they are becoming more "major" within a wider North American context. Canadian cities are growing, Sunbelt cities are growing (often in a not-so-great way), but the ones in the middle seem somewhat stuck. This includes coastal US cities that have ossified not because of a lack of economic opportunity but because of NIMBYs and corruption that has made new infrastructure prohibitively expensive.

For part of the 19th and 20th centuries, Saint John NB, Portland ME, and Halifax were more or less triplets. And Halifax was often seen as the least likely to succeed because it had the least successful heavy industry. But by the 1980's Halifax had pulled ahead of Portland a lot and now after this last round of construction I think Portland looks like a much smaller and more modest city. Portland is mostly restored Victoriana and parking lots while Halifax is building modernist glass stuff all over the place. I'm not sure that any New England or Northeast US city is developing like Halifax is. In 20 years I would guess that Portland ME will still look kind of like it does today while Halifax will be very different.

[Jaws]

Originally Posted by kora

Also, I would suggest Edmonton is not in the same league as Ottawa or Calgary. Ottawa is the national and political capital of the country. Calgary is a business behemoth. Edmonton is the provincial capital and a major university centre, but it doesn't measure up to either city.

"behemoth"? Compared to what? Calgary's delusions of grandeur knows no bounds.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by kora

Also, I would suggest Edmonton is not in the same league as Ottawa or Calgary. Ottawa is the national and political capital of the country. Calgary is a business behemoth. Edmonton is the provincial capital and a major university centre, but it doesn't measure up to either city.

Edmonton may be Calgary/Ottawa-sized, yet it seems closer to Winnipeg in terms of stature.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

I'm not sure that any New England or Northeast US city is developing like Halifax is..

ç

Only if you don't consider Boston and a few others "New England" or "Northeast U.S."

But yeah, I know what you mean. Good post.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by Jaws

"behemoth"? Compared to what? Calgary's delusions of grandeur knows no bounds.

Compared to Edmonton for starters, Edmonton's insecurity at being in our shadow knows no bounds... lol.

Originally Posted by Docere

Edmonton may be Calgary/Ottawa-sized, yet it seems closer to Winnipeg in terms of stature.

Pretty much. Edmonton has a lot going for it and I hope that the city will become it's own biggest booster instead of it's own biggest hater (Just the impression I get every time I go there).

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Only if you don't consider Boston and a few others "New England" or "Northeast U.S."

Actually I was thinking of Boston. It is Ground Zero for NIMBYs and not much better when it comes to corruption and inefficiency. To fix their highways they implemented a crazy $22B plan than includes underground highways covered in what are now strips of grass in the downtown core years later. Halifax is doing a similar thing now, at a smaller yet proportionally similar scale, but it is going to cost something like $40-60M and the land will be covered in highrises. If Halifax were run like Boston the project would be a $1B+ pork barrel highway scheme.

Number of highrises under costruction according to the SSP database:

Boston - 6
Halifax - 8

This isn't complete for either city and a couple of the Boston highrises are taller than anything in Halifax but, well, you'd expect a statistic like that to be a huge slam dunk for Boston if it were developing at anywhere near the same rate.

[ciudad_del_norte]

Well it took about two hours longer for that to get messy than I originally expected.

[kora]

Originally Posted by Jaws

"behemoth"? Compared to what? Calgary's delusions of grandeur knows no bounds.

Compared to the other 2 peer rivals. It's a global business centre and many international organizations have recognized this.

[kel]

Before moving to Alberta I had the impression that Calgary was definitely the mega city in Alberta , but after living in both cities(Calgary first than Edmonton) I feel that Edmonton is easily the most underrated city in the country. In many aspects it feels bigger Than Calgary. Yes Calgary has the head offices and a larger downtown but after that I don’t really think it has Edmonton beat in any other category unless you count that it’s 1:45 closer to the mountains. Just my outside perspective.

[ErickMontreal]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Back to the original topic, when I think about "major metropolitan areas" in Canada, I don't just think about population numbers but regional/national/international presence.

In that sense, I don't think of Hamilton as a major metropolitan centre, since it's not even really a regional centre, if we're defining region relatively broadly.

On the other hand, Halifax is a major metropolitan centre, even though it's quite a bit smaller than Hamilton. It is the most important city for about 2 million people over a vast area.

When I think of Canada's major metropolitan areas, the list goes (in order), with pauses for differences in relative importance.

Toronto

Montreal

Vancouver

Calgary
Ottawa-Gatineau
Edmonton

Winnipeg
Quebec City

Halifax

St. John's
Saskatoon/Regina

Victoria

London ON
Kelowna
Saint John, NB

(at this point I don't really have a sense of order, so I'm just going to list some regional mid-sized cities that have a pull over a local catchment area):
Hamilton
Niagara Region
KWC
Windsor
Kingston
Sherbrooke
Trois Rivieres
Chicoutimi
Sudbury
Thunder Bay
Moncton
Charlottetown
Lethbridge
Fort Mac
Nanaimo
Prince George

I'm sure there are others.

I would put Moncton instead of Saint John in your list. Moncton is obviously the leading city in New-Brunswick.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

London ON
Kelowna
Saint John, NB

You're being far too kind here to Saint John for reasons others have mentioned. Saint John is above cities like Peterborough and maybe Kingston but slightly below the likes of London (i've never been to Kelowna myself so I can't say with certainty). Saint John has a tremendous metropolitan Uptown area which hits way above its weight. Aside from that it's fairly standard fair.

Perhaps i'm being too tough on SJ but seeing it that high up on your ranking was a bit shocking.

Originally Posted by ErickMontreal

I would put Moncton instead of Saint John. Moncton, is obviously the leading city in New-Brunswick.

Saint John's Uptown obliterates Moncton's Downtown as fair as metropolitanism is concerned. Having more people =/= being more metropolitan.

Moncton is a couple blocks of Downtown surrounded by strikingly offensive suburbanism. It just happens to have more suburbs than SJ and be on the path of the TCH.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Saint John has a tremendous metropolitan Uptown area which hits way above its weight. Aside from that it's fairly standard fair.

Back in the good old days I think Saint John's prominence was almost entirely due to its commercial and industrial activity. These were enough to carry the city in 1870 but it didn't have much in the way of major, enduring public institutions. It is kind of like an older, smaller Hamilton.

Even UNB ended up in Fredericton instead of SJ (the SJ campus opened in the 60's). New Brunswick's setup is very similar to that of American states, which isn't surprising since it was established by Americans. But being in Canada, NB ended up with about 1/4 of the industrial development.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by JHikka

You're being far too kind here to Saint John for reasons others have mentioned. Saint John is above cities like Peterborough and maybe Kingston but slightly below the likes of London (i've never been to Kelowna myself so I can't say with certainty).

It's true; Moncton has become New Brunswick's most important city, in terms of economics and in raw population. Saint John still feels bigger and more important when you're down on the street, but it isn't.

Is it below London, though? London has always struck me as the quintessential "oh, another small city in Ontario" city. Whereas Saint John is still its (much smaller, admittedly) province's second city, and one of more historically important and still one of the largest cities in the region, even if it has in recent years been overtaken in prosperity and growth by others.