Which US city is planned most like a Canadian/ European city? (subway, transportation)

[ABQSunseeker]

A Frenchman L'Enfant is responsible for much of the planning and design of DC. Baron Haussmann gave Paris it's grand boulevards with radiating avenues, open spaces and vistas, and, again, DC echoes these ideas.
Does it result in a city that seems "European?" Except for its low height profile, only somewhat.
The most European feeling city in Canada or the US is Quebec City, but it grew that way, it wasn't planned.

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by JMT

No, Lexington doesn't have an urban growth boundary. It has a boundary beyond which the city limits of Lexington cannot expand, but Lexington's suburbs are free to sprawl at will.

I was gonna say, from the air it looks just like any other town. Downtown in the middle surrounded by a ton of low density sprawl and single family homes. Doesn't remind me of Europe.

I'd say Boston #1. San Fran has the density and unique housing look you don't see as much of in the US.

[Billiam]

Why Canada? Canada's Eastern Cities look like many of our eastern Cities. Their western cities look like ours. We are too similar to set us apart and say Canada and Europe when you should just say Europe. Anyway, Id say Boston becasue like many European cities, Boston has a non grid system. But DC is the most European (Paris) like city that was planned (excluding Georgetown, which was once Georgetown, MD until taken in by DC. Its not planed like DC)

[Ann_Arbor]

^ I agree, but Canadian cities (pound for pound) are much more compact/dense than ours. Though Canada has embraced the subdivision, it appears they have more of a growth boundary. This is evident if you look at the aerials over Port Huron/Sarnia, Detroit/Windsor and to a lesser extent Vancouver/Metro Seattle. Maybe that's were the Canadian and European coupling came about.

[CubsGiantsIndiansfan2008]

Candian cities are not at all like European cities.

[CubsGiantsIndiansfan2008]

And another thing is, when we have a topic like this, the four cities that come out on top are always:

Boston
Washington D.C.
New Orleans
San Francisco

But the thing about that is:

All these cities are quintessentialy American.

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by CubsGiantsIndiansfan2008

Candian cities are not at all like European cities.

But they're normally much more dense than our cities and have much greater mass transit usage.

Take Calgary for instance (just picked random).

This is a city with 1,100,000 people in the metro, but with a transit system that delivers 43% of the downtown workforce and transports 130,000,000 rides per year.

Their downtown has over 250 highrises.



It's a city that's around the same size as Buffalo, NY or Salt Lake City, but you're going to see a MUCH larger skyline, a much higher density over the metro area, and much greater transit usage. Canadian cities look much more like US cities, but they function more like European cities. They're kinda like US cities on steroids. I think they have the best characteristics of both types of cities.

Transit Ridership:

Calgary: 130,000,000
Salt Lake: 35,500,000
Buffalo: 25,600,000

[Billiam]

this is true, but from the title, it says Canadadian/European, saying they are the same, which is very untrue, except in the far east provinces

[memph]

I'd say even the far eastern Canadian cities are more like American cities overall.

I think Washington is most planned like a European city (Paris), but with more wide boulevards.

[pvande55]

I nominate Portland OR. The State has an urban growth boundary that hems in development. However I heard one industry was unable to expand due to the boundary. It also has the ridiculous effect that land outside the boundary, even 100 m, is worth $5000 per acre when inside it is worth $100000.