Ugly Suburban Sprawl Capital of Canada

[The Jabroni]

For the most car dependent Western Canadian city, it's Calgary hands down. Toronto and the outer 'burbs is the overall worst IMO.

[MonkeyRonin]

If there's anything I've learned from this thread its that Canadians seem to struggle with the concept of percentages.

Oh well, at least I can take solace in the fact that Tokyo is still more suburban than us...I mean, they've got 27 million suburbanites after all, right?

[vid]

I might not know percentages but I least I make an effort to understand the information I'm using before trying to prove a point with it.



You can't use this boundary to say "Thunder Bay isn't dense" compared to other cities which have properly defined boundaries. Sudbury's urban area includes not only large undeveloped areas, but one of the largest lakes found entirely within a single municipality in the world!


View area in Google Maps

Not only is that not an urban area, but because of the terrain, it never can be.

[shreddog]

Originally Posted by The Jabroni

For the most car dependent Western Canadian city, it's Calgary hands down.

That's an interesting statement considering that Calgary has very high transit usage rates and actually runs high speed rail transit almost to the edge of its developed footprint (for the 3 existing lines anyway). Can you substantiate your claim about it being the "most car dependent"?

== EDIT ==

Based on the link provided by Acajack in post #61, percentage of car communters in the big 4 Western cities in 2006*:

Edmonton = 83.0%
Winnipeg = 78.7%
Calgary = 76.6%
Vancouver = 74.4%

While this doesn't absolutely disprove that Calgary is the most car dependant, it almost does

*Note, since 2006 all cities except Winnipeg saw increases to their rail transit networks, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the percentage of car commuters decrease in those 3 burgs.

[shreddog]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

If there's anything I've learned from this thread its that Canadians seem to struggle with the concept of percentages.

Oh well, at least I can take solace in the fact that Tokyo is still more suburban than us...I mean, they've got 27 million suburbanites after all, right?

Well here's another way to look at it:

From Milton to Bowmanville, we pretty much have continous sprawl - disjointed sprawl to contiguous sprawl to some density pockets surrounded by SFH back to contiguous sprawl and then more disjointed sprawl. Some blocks are still open, but that pretty much is the GTA sprawl corridor along the 401. This runs for a distance of over 110 kms. Which is greater than the distance from Calgary to Canmore for those familar with that drive.

I still remember when Wonderland was first built - you had to drive for about 15 minutes through farmland to get there - we all thought it was out in the middle of nowhere! Yet now it is in a sea of urbanity! No sprawl there, just lovely dense form.

Back to the OP; without specific criteria, it's not possible to classify what is worst so it's only personal opinion (or grudge). Both Doug and Wooster brought up some good points. In the end though, just about all the post 1950 built form in the country looks pretty much the same (just less colourful in Kanata). Yes we have seen changes in the past 10 years, but really, are we likely to see something like the Plateau built anytime soon? (Sorry NYCC, MCC, etc will never be like the Plateau)

In the end, from Gaia's perspective, it all sucks.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Cambridgite

For the ugliest suburbs, I think the southwestern Ontario cities are pretty bad. Same with the prarie cities.

GTA subdivisions use a lot of brick, which I think is a nice contrast to the vinyl siding you see down the road in places like Kitchener, Guelph, or London.

St. John's has pretty ugly sprawl too, but it's not as vast and at least the topography is interesting.

Without any doubt, I agree Montreal has the ugliest sprawl. In my mind, there is nothing worst than a flat roofed house with aluminum siding. The multi-family architecture is a degree lower than elsewhere as well. You just can't copy Old Montreal with cheap, affordable materials.

[Spoolmak]

Totally abbotsford. Prob the only city on that list with no skyline

[manny_santos]

London has a lot of problems with low-density sprawl, but for the most part it's not any worse than other Canadian or American cities.

That said, the Toronto area is diverse in terms of how it has dealt with sprawl. There was a Toronto Star article on the subject on Sunday, and Markham has done a lot more to prevent unchecked sprawl than Brampton.

[The_Architect]

I've heard Toronto be described numerous times as "Vienna surrounded by Phoenix". Which actually makes sense when you look at the city proper vs. the CMA.. The city proper of Toronto is one of the densest, especially the downtown area, and then the sprawl outside of it is ridiculous and pretty car-dependent.

I said Montreal just to screw with the numbers.
That and you could interpret "worst sprawl" as "ugliest sprawl", which Montreal would definitely win. It's a stretch.. but whatever.

[flar]

I think Ottawa has the worst sprawl in terms of being spread out. The greenbelt really makes the city take up a lot of space, but there are also a lot of other large undeveloped spaces within the city (mostly owned by the NCC). There is also a lot of unevenness to development even within places like Barrhaven and Kanata. And then there are all these other little islands of development (eg, Bell's Corners, Blackburn Hamlet) and exurbs (eg, Manotick, Stittsville, Greely). The Quebec side is worse for randomly spaced development.

Only Quebec City can approach Ottawa when it comes to sprawl. Calgary and the GTA have some monstrously alienating suburbs, but at least they are compact and continuous.

As for ugliness, that's a feature of all suburban developments.

[MolsonExport]

Sprawl? All of them. Really. Outside of the core, they mainly look the same. Perhaps less so for Victoria, Lower Mainland (with the exception of Abbot's-fart, which is in thrall with sprawl), St. John's (NF), and maybe Halifax. Toronto sprawls (905), Montreal sprawls (Laval: epitomized by the clock tower and Reno Depot; and the never ending south/north shores, Vaudreuil, Repentigny, etc.). Ottawa sprawls. KW IS 99.99% sprawl. London is 99% sprawl. Quebec City is 90% Sprawl. The prairie cities sprawl. Sudbury sprawls. Thunder Bay? You betcha!

[MolsonExport]

Change thread. I propose a "post your ugly sprawl pictures" contest. Let's be in thrall with sprawl.

I wanna see your best. Gimme Dumbcentres! Canary-yellow suburban houses with red tile roofs! Mississausage subdevelopments! The four-headed monster of KWCG (part of the Accenture group)! Quebec City's insanely disproportionate freeway network.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by The Jabroni

For the most car dependent Western Canadian city, it's Calgary hands down. Toronto and the outer 'burbs is the overall worst IMO.

I don't have the official numbers but I am pretty sure Quebec City has the lowest transit modal share of all Canadian cities with metro populations above 700,000.

[Acajack]

There is a whole neighbourhood of these beauties near where I live:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Rue+de+Fourni%C3%A8re,+Gatineau,+Qu%C3%A9bec&sll=45.486721,-75.604493&sspn=0.001354,0.003479&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Rue+de+Fourni%C3%A8re,+Gatineau,+Communaut%C3%A9-Urbaine-de-l'Outaouais,+Qu%C3%A9bec+J8T+5A8&ll=45.486437,-75.708335&spn=0,0.006958&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=45.486437,-75.708335&panoid=iI461Ni28boFKHam2toHbQ&cbp=12,261.12,,0,5

They are known as "quads", and have no backyards because there are four homes in each building split up into four quadrants.

If you zoom out from Streetview they look kinda freaky on the satellite view. I think the roofs may be metal.

[flar]

A great take on Barrhaven (suburban Ottawa)

• Video Link

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by shreddog

In the end though, just about all the post 1950 built form in the country looks pretty much the same (just less colourful in Kanata). .

Funny how Kanata's renown is Canada-wide...

[Wharn]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

KW IS 99.99% sprawl. London is 99% sprawl. Quebec City is 90% Sprawl. The prairie cities sprawl. Sudbury sprawls. Thunder Bay? You betcha!

I think it is a little unfair to classify all low-density development as "sprawl". This phenomenon is defined by its highly segregated land usage and auto-dependent design. London and Kitchener certainly exhibit sprawl along their edges (I feel sorry for you, living in Hyde Park), and Sudbury just appears to sprawl mostly because the city is built on bloody rocks, and you can't necessarily divide the city into neat little blocks based on that. Never been to Thunder Bay, so I can't comment.

As for Toronto, I honestly believe the soul-destroying suburbs popping up around the urban fringe right now are partially a result of the Greenbelt. Think about it for a second: the Greenbelt is put into place to discourage outward sprawl, but all this does is limit the supply of land, driving up its price, giving the already-greedy developers less incentive to build mixed-use subdivisions and just cram in as many houses as they possibly can. Look north of Major Mackenzie for evidence of this. Same goes for Ottawa; the Greenbelt there doesn't stop sprawl, it just pushes it out towards Kanata, so what you have is a city growing outwards with a useless ring of bad farmland in the middle and longer commute times for the poor bureaucrats who happen to live in Hell's Half Acre.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by freeweed

And this kind of sprawl is 10x worse in most large US cities. I agree that it's the worst kind of sprawl possible. You're also right in that it's the one thing Calgary does right - there's virtually no "bedroom community" type development here. A couple of small towns and that's it. Otherwise the suburbs are at least contiguous with, and generally well integrated into, the existing city.

At least the GTA manages semi-decent transit to its far-flung corners. Try doing an equivalent commute in an otherwise progressive city like Seattle - it's a total car-fest.

And Seattle is one of the better ones in the suburbs. Many Southern cities have NO transit at all outside the inner city areas, forget the distant suburbs.

[O-Town Hockey]

Growing up in Kanata, I can tell you that the Kanata/Stittsville area takes the cake for suburban sprawl in Canada (in terms of growth and banality). One thing that does differentiate it, though, is that Kanata also has its own employment base with thousands of high tech jobs, making it a little more self-sufficient than most traditional suburbs. I think that's the reason it has become such a large suburb. Also can't forget that we have our own NHL team, currently a pretty crappy one though .

A portion of Kanata's large high tech park:

[Highinthesky]

Originally Posted by Wharn

London is denser than Winnipeg or Edmonton? I refuse to believe this.

It is not denser than Winnipeg or Edmonton, the charts area stats are wrong for London. The urban area of London is 200 and something square km the chart says but the actual city is about twice that at 420 square km.

So London's density is 837 not 1619.