The Great Canadian Skyline thread for CMAs 1 million and under

[vid]

It is kind of noticeable when there are just white people around, but I guess I am just so used to at least 30% of the people around me being not white. When you're used to seeing other ethnicities besides white people, their absence is noticeable.

[Distill3d]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

chilliwack is full of white people - its weird to see

Are we talking about the same Chilliwack?

I would say that its fairly average for a city of its size in that Caucasians were the majority, but for the most part its a pretty good mix of mainly Caucasian and Aboriginal Canadians.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by vid

It is kind of noticeable when there are just white people around, but I guess I am just so used to at least 30% of the people around me being not white. When you're used to seeing other ethnicities besides white people, their absence is noticeable.

Trust me, I lived in Kobe, Japan for a decent stretch, and there 99.9% of the population is Japanese. I think the largest minority group is Korean, and that is not exactly the stark contrast you see here between many groups

Its a strange e funny when it gets kind of exciting (in a novelty sense) to see another white person (that must be how black people feel in Vancouver, hehe) I lived in the burbs of kobe, where you see very few non Japanese. (it is different in Tokyo and downtown Osaka, where you will see white people and the odd black or brown person).

[vid]

Well they're used to living very plain and unexciting (ethnic diversity wise) lives. I, for one, enjoy the occasional trip on the bus where everyone is talking and none of it is Local Language.

[Metro-One]

And it sure makes the food good in Vancouver

I just find it funny sometimes reading many comments and threads on this forum over the last couple years (especially when involving Americans) where if a community in NA is predominantly white that is seen as "bad" or a "negative attribute."

This has always annoyed me because having travelled to Africa and Asia, it seems most places in the world are predominately one race. I did not see many white, Asian or brown faces in Senegal!

Is a northern native town in Canada bad because it is mostly (if not all) native? No

Same with a Japanese city being nearly all Japanese, a Chinese city being nearly all Chinese, and Indian city being nearly all Indian. etc...

Just because a community is all white doesn't mean it is any less in cultural value, and if you don't think so, you will have to think the same to all other places in the world that are predominately one race.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Distill3d

Yeah, from the pictures I've seen (of Moncton), the nice parts of Chilliwack and Kamloops are uglier than the ugly parts of Moncton.

Moncton is somewhat larger than those two towns. Size-wise it feels pretty similar to Nanaimo and maybe a bit smaller than Kelowna.

Moncton is a bit of a weird case since it is a relatively new town in an old region. For a long time it was a small town and then it became more prominent with the railroad and modern highways. This is "new" for the Maritimes but old for Western Canada. The heritage buildings in Moncton are much better than you'd expect to see in a town in BC and the street layout is a bit older and more compact. In general towns in the Maritimes are much more attractive and feel a bit more urbane for these reasons.

[Metro-One]

Many seem to find Victoria pretty nice when it comes to architecture and the downtown layout, same with Gastown and New Westminster (I have always had a soft spot for New Westminster). I guess it all depends what style you like. I actually like some of the small towns in BC, especially ones such as those in the Thompson Valley, because they have the classic midwest, desert frontier town layout. Kamloops also has this feel, it matches the dry hills, sagebrush surrounding. Also, in the Kootneys, towns such as Nelson have beautiful town cores, the historic courthouses are often very nice. I am happy that the historic architecture in BC is different than the Maritimes, I would have for everything here to be carbon copy of everything there.

[Distill3d]

Originally Posted by someone123

Moncton is somewhat larger than those two towns. Size-wise it feels pretty similar to Nanaimo and maybe a bit smaller than Kelowna.

Moncton and Chilliwack are roughly about the same. I think Chilliwack may edge Moncton out on both area and population. Its not until you factor in the urban and metropolitan areas that Moncton becomes bigger than Chilliwack. Kamloops of course is bigger in population and size than both, but Moncton's metro is larger than Kamloops.

Chilliwack:

pop (2006): 69,217 (city)/80,892 (metro)
area: 260.19 km2 (city)

Moncton:

pop (2006): 64,128 (city)/126,424 (metro)
area: 141.17 km2 (city)/2,406 km2 (metro)

Kamloops:

pop (2006): 86,376 (city)/92,882 (metro)
area: 297.3 km2(city)/5,686.19 km2 (metro)

[someone123]

Do you also consider Kamloops a larger city than Victoria, given the fact that the municipality happens to have more population?

[Distill3d]

Originally Posted by someone123

Do you also consider Kamloops a larger city than Victoria, given the fact that the municipality happens to have more population?

I get the point you're trying to make. Moncton is more defined as the center of a larger metro area, and you would identify say Dieppe as Moncton. Just the same as I would refer to Burnaby more as being part of Vancouver to someone from outside the region. Ignorance is bliss in that regard. We all do it.

That being said, as far as Kamloops and Victoria, without the knowledge that Victoria wasn't just all one city, no, I wouldn't call Kamloops a larger city than Victoria. However, I'm still rather ignorant on the boundaries of the other cities that make up Victoria. I couldn't tell you where Saanich began and Victoria ended. Its somewhat seamless like that.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by someone123

Moncton is a bit of a weird case since it is a relatively new town in an old region. For a long time it was a small town and then it became more prominent with the railroad and modern highways. This is "new" for the Maritimes but old for Western Canada. The heritage buildings in Moncton are much better than you'd expect to see in a town in BC and the street layout is a bit older and more compact. In general towns in the Maritimes are much more attractive and feel a bit more urbane for these reasons.

Indeed, the history of European settlement in the Moncton area is as old (or older) as many other places in the Maritimes, with the first Acadian settlers arriving in 1733. They were deported in 1755 but the settlement was re-established by Pennsylvania Dutch immigrants in 1766.

Moncton stayed a rural community however until about 1850 and then mushroomed due to the shipbuilding industry and then the railway. The majority of the early growth was from 1880-1920 therefore Moncton "feels" to be about the same age as many central and western Canadian cities. It is therefore a little atypical compared to other cities in the Maritimes which feel comparatively older.

There is one house in Moncton however which does date from the 1760's.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Distill3d

Are we talking about the same Chilliwack?

Maybe he is talking about this one, which is all white.

activerain.com

Originally Posted by vid

It is kind of noticeable when there are just white people around, but I guess I am just so used to at least 30% of the people around me being not white. When you're used to seeing other ethnicities besides white people, their absence is noticeable.

In Thunder Bay? Really?

[vid]

To be fair, 90% of that 30% is native. But I see non-native non-white people on the bus all the time, and I shop at Superstore which is very popular with the Asian community. Our East Indian and African populations are getting quite big. Some days I see as many as 20 black people now!

In suburban areas it is more white but where I live, at least 30% of the people are not white. Possibly more.

We are one of the most diverse metros with less than 200,000 people in the country. KW is 85% white. We're 89% white. But we probably have higher concentrations of non-whites (typically natives) than KW.

[Distill3d]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Maybe he is talking about this one, which is all white.

activerain.com

That's the only GOOD Chilliwack.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

I'm currently in North Bay for school and there's a decent amount of Chinese and Mexicans up here. Granted, they're temporary and students but they're always here along with the local natives the odd black person or South Asian.

[Biff]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Maybe he is talking about this one, which is all white.

activerain.com

yeah, but they have "Gone gone gone, she been gone so long
She been gone gone gone so long", for some time now so i hardly think he is talking about that Chilliwack.




.......bam! I have been waiting to use that line for about 20 years now. Fffeeewww....that feels good.

[SpongeG]

skimming through - i didn't mean it in a racist way - just that Vancouver is extremely multi-cultural - i see 90% of the time non-whites - i live in an area full of asians - mostly koreans, i see arab or iranian students at the ESL school up the street when they let out, when I hang out with my pakistani friend in surrey we go to the all the indian shops or bollywood movies, even superstore in surrey is 75% or so non-white, just hanging out in downtown you are surrounded by all kinds of people there doesn't feel like a "majority" the way you feel it in a place like Chilliwack or Parksville which seem predominately white compared to my day to day life

so when I say Chilliwack is "full of white people" it's a different thing to what I am used to and I remember what a diverse city I live in

anway living here you don't really think of it until you go somewhere and feel surrounded by white people - not being white you don't feel out of place in vancouver metro as you might in chilliwack or the island etc.

Originally Posted by vid

To be fair, 90% of that 30% is native. But I see non-native non-white people on the bus all the time, and I shop at Superstore which is very popular with the Asian community. Our East Indian and African populations are getting quite big. Some days I see as many as 20 black people now!

In suburban areas it is more white but where I live, at least 30% of the people are not white. Possibly more.

We are one of the most diverse metros with less than 200,000 people in the country. KW is 85% white. We're 89% white. But we probably have higher concentrations of non-whites (typically natives) than KW.

According to Statistics Canada 2006 community profiles, Thunder Bay's CMA is 2.7% visible minority, which is around what I would've guessed. So it must be natives that make the difference. Thunder Bay is 8.3% native.

By contrast, the Kitchener CMA was 13.8% visible minorities in 2006, but was only 1% native. That doesn't even take into account all the Serbian and Romanian immigrants that KW took in in the 90s, or the large Portuguese population in Cambridge. Our foreign-born population is nearing 25%, one of the highest in the country. And given the regions growth, all of these numbers are surely a little out-of-date. I know the South Asian population has exploded in Cambridge since 2006 and the city now has 3 mosques for a population of 130,000.

So Thunder Bay is still whiter. But as Metro-One said earlier, it shouldn't be a competition.

[isaidso]

Halifax is only 7.5% visible minority. The largest visible minority population was black (13,265), followed by Arab (3,840) and Chinese (3,105). I would have thought the black population was much higher, but it's quite possible that there was an under count. That happens on a regular basis.