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That's a great shot. Even better will be when the new Bow tower is completed. Gonna be one of the tallest buildings in Canada.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicago60614
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
I thniCanda comaaportively is overall not very popualted considerig land mass. It is not nearly like europe. Mucu of its infrastructure is based o conditions such as whether or popualtion and even lifetyle. I factI would say that lidfetyle has much to do with the difference regardless.It lke tryig to cmnpare japn to europe really ;they devlop because of chocie realt of the people and condtions. Americans just don;t see public transportation in the same light or really want to adopt it in numbers that make it grow. When i ws i cities lie New York I can see that puvlic transport is needed more just to hqandle the numbers and the expense of private. Certqanly I didn't see the upper incomes really riding the subway or botherig to own a car often. They took taxis as I did most times or were riding those helicopters or limos I saw so many of. Qutie differnt i LA tho but agian I beleive wthether as aot to do with that and lifestyle choice, I have ehard form the peope that moved form NYC ofte tha the main reson is cost why they never owned a car ad it wasn't just the cost of the car really.I stil find it hard to believe when told by former people living in NYC what a company provided car and parking space was really worth in cost savings if owned a car
I'm sure most cities have planned streets, but you get into the city centers of most European cities and they are most definitely not planned for the most part.
Most Americans stay in the pretty and old city centers, get to the outer areas of European cities and you get large apartment buildings, and ring roads...
Over all, I'd say San Francisco does a pretty good job of having a pretty European layout, density, building types.
It seems to me that very few Europeon cities were planned (some obviously were, but the older cities were not). Most just happened. Thag and Dort the barbarians did not sit down together and lay out a street grid and zoning plan. They just built their lodges. Pretty soon Andorgud and Buke built lodges nearby. Eventually there were a lot of lodges and the spaces in between became streets. Much later, they tried to rebuild the city and realign streets, but THag and Dort's chosen locaiton still impacts the way the city is set up. Further, as the city grew, Thag and Dort's huts were rpelaced with low rise "modern" buildings. Those buildings are still there and they do not want to destroy them so the build the behemoths elsewhere.
Most US cities were planned. A group got together and siad "Lets build a city here" Then they planned it they way that they thought a city should be laid out. Many US cities were planned with expansion space accounted for in the plan. If a dentist opened up, they had a dental building, not just set up in Thag's old Hut.
I do not see a lot of simlarity between any older Eurpoepan city and any US city.
If I were to tag any city as somewhat european in character, I would point to the lower peninsula of Charlseton S.C. or maybe to parts of Boston. However even thses cities were established by people who planned to create a city. I am not sure that we have any cities that just happened they way that so many European cities did.
Over all, I'd say San Francisco does a pretty good job of having a pretty European layout, density, building types.
I'd say San Francisco might be one of the closer ones. But the street grid is uncommon in the old cores of European cities while San Francisco has a rather regular grid, though with a bit of variation. And some cities like London don't have a grid anywhere.
Also some of the housing stock seems rather unique to San Francisco or at least to the US. I don't think the "Victorian" houses in San Francisco exist in European cities. Though each European country has different housing style so that shouldn't really make San Francisco non-European ish.
One further issue is that a lot of common design elements in European streets are illegal in the US. You can't have something like an "old quarter" in an American city, with streets so narrow you can touch the buildings on each side by stretching out your arms and swaying from side to side. Fire codes and various other modern building codes have made that illegal. The handful of places where this exists to a small extent were built long ago and were grandfathered into the law via ad hoc exemptions.
Most American building codes require a grade separation between the "street" and the "sidewalk," so, we also don't have mixed-use "squares" that extend between buildings at the same grade, with drivers expected to exercise "due diligence" rather than relying on pavement markings or instructional signs. That's a major difference.
These are some of the reasons that areas of US cities which are meant to look "European" still don't end up looking particularly European. Almost all of them have been re-engineered over the years to make them friendlier to cars or to implement modern building code elements.
To me cities like Boston, Philly, DC and also places like Charleston or New Orleans
NY has similarities and SF too but I find much of the hosuing stock to feel too different, maybe not as much NYC but Manhattan does not feel eurpoean on layout, some of the other boroughs do more so
One further issue is that a lot of common design elements in European streets are illegal in the US. You can't have something like an "old quarter" in an American city, with streets so narrow you can touch the buildings on each side by stretching out your arms and swaying from side to side. Fire codes and various other modern building codes have made that illegal. The handful of places where this exists to a small extent were built long ago and were grandfathered into the law via ad hoc exemptions.
Most American building codes require a grade separation between the "street" and the "sidewalk," so, we also don't have mixed-use "squares" that extend between buildings at the same grade, with drivers expected to exercise "due diligence" rather than relying on pavement markings or instructional signs. That's a major difference.
These are some of the reasons that areas of US cities which are meant to look "European" still don't end up looking particularly European. Almost all of them have been re-engineered over the years to make them friendlier to cars or to implement modern building code elements.
There are parts of Boston and Philly that have streets this narrow
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