The Most Underrated City in Canada

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Hali87

I've heard a lot of mildly negative things about Nanaimo - mostly that it lacks interesting things do do (bathtub races notwithstanding). I'm not sure how much truth there is to this. I remember hearing a singer/comedian on CBC from Nanaimo when I was young ripping on the city, two jokes were memorable:

Q: How is Nanaimo like the moon?
A: Zero atmosphere

Q: How is Nanaimo different from a bowl of yogurt?
A: Yogurt has culture

However I've never been there myself, and if it's anything like the rest of BC, then it's probably great.

Nanaimo is decent. Not to be a homer, but BC cities are generally very vibrant and many coastal British Columbians subscribe to an idea of a "good life" that is relatively urbane and sophisticated (I mean that with no irony!). British Columbians fuss over things like what kind of apparatus their coffee was made in, or how many IBUs their pale ales are, and even though that can be the butt of jokes, I appreciate that more than I'm annoyed by it. You can eat and drink very well here, even in small towns.

What smaller BC cities are missing, generally, is the decent historic architecture to go with that lifestyle. It's too bad that most of these places were built so late and therefore have downtown main streets consisting of ground floor commercial buldings with nothing on top of them to add scale or flourish. Luckily, this is starting to change. Smaller BC cities are certainly ahead of everywhere else in the country of similar size when it comes to building decent, urban infill.

[hipster duck]

Anyway, it's hard for me to pick an underrated town in Canada.

Brockville, Ontario has very solid bones. Stratford is famous for its Shakespeare festival, but not as many people appreciate its Victorian downtown. If they go their act together and turned this parking lot behind their ornate city hall into a real market square, it could almost be like a Flemish Groote Markt.

Moose Jaw, SK, never comes up, but it looks like it has an impressive downtown for a small prairie city.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Anyway, it's hard for me to pick an underrated town in Canada.

Brockville, Ontario has very solid bones. Stratford is famous for its Shakespeare festival, but not as many people appreciate its Victorian downtown. If they go their act together and turned this parking lot behind their ornate city hall into a real market square, it could almost be like a Flemish Groote Markt.

Moose Jaw, SK, never comes up, but it looks like it has an impressive downtown for a small prairie city.

Stratford is terrific but its status as the home of the Festival pretty much keeps it from being underrated. It's kind of in a league of its own.

[Martin Mtl]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Anyway, it's hard for me to pick an underrated town in Canada.

Brockville, Ontario has very solid bones. Stratford is famous for its Shakespeare festival, but not as many people appreciate its Victorian downtown. If they go their act together and turned this parking lot behind their ornate city hall into a real market square, it could almost be like a Flemish Groote Markt.

Moose Jaw, SK, never comes up, but it looks like it has an impressive downtown for a small prairie city.

My God! I can actually almost see it. Nice catch.

[vincefort]

My vote goes to London, it has a big skyline and we almost never hear of it only because of its geographical location which is probably too close to Toronto. If it would be anywhere else in Canada it would feel more important and act as a major regional hub. London is also the birthplace of Justin Bieber who is probably the Elvis Presley of his generation, tourists will soon be coming from all across the world to see where he made his first steps etc...

[king10]

Originally Posted by vincefort

My vote goes to London, it has a big skyline and we almost never hear of it only because of its geographical location which is probably too close to Toronto. If it would be anywhere else in Canada it would feel more important and act as a major regional hub. London is also the birthplace of Justin Bieber who is probably the Elvis Presley of his generation, tourists will soon be coming from all across the world to see where he made his first steps etc...

honestly. I've been to London many times. its not very impressive at all. just flat land with a river running through it. nothing much to see there, unless you like partying with undergrads, then the richmond row has lots of fun bars for you.

[Hali87]

Nanaimo is decent. Not to be a homer, but BC cities are generally very vibrant and many coastal British Columbians subscribe to an idea of a "good life" that is relatively urbane and sophisticated (I mean that with no irony!). British Columbians fuss over things like what kind of apparatus their coffee was made in, or how many IBUs their pale ales are, and even though that can be the butt of jokes, I appreciate that more than I'm annoyed by it. You can eat and drink very well here, even in small towns.

What smaller BC cities are missing, generally, is the decent historic architecture to go with that lifestyle. It's too bad that most of these places were built so late and therefore have downtown main streets consisting of ground floor commercial buldings with nothing on top of them to add scale or flourish. Luckily, this is starting to change. Smaller BC cities are certainly ahead of everywhere else in the country of similar size when it comes to building decent, urban infill.

Agree mostly. Many of BC's smaller cities/large towns do have historic architecture (certainly Revelstoke, Vernon, Nelson, etc.) but then there are others like Castlegar and Salmon Arm (and from my experience, Kelowna) that clearly have more modern roots. Agreed that new construction in BC's smaller centres is generally nicer than in most other parts of Canada.

Stratford is famous for its Shakespeare festival, but not as many people appreciate its Victorian downtown.

I got lost in Stratford on my way to London last year. It was a very nice place to get lost in.

If [London] would be anywhere else in Canada it would feel more important and act as a major regional hub.

This seems like a bit of a broken thought experiment. Would it act as a major regional hub if it were in Alberta? What about PEI? A better statement might be "if Toronto didn't exist London would feel more important and act as a major regional hub".

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Hali87

This seems like a bit of a broken thought experiment. Would it act as a major regional hub if it were in Alberta? What about PEI? A better statement might be "if Toronto didn't exist London would feel more important and act as a major regional hub".

Considering places like Medicine Hat and Red Deer are fairly important I would say London would be important. In PEI it would probably dominate the Maritimes.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Hali87

This seems like a bit of a broken thought experiment. Would it act as a major regional hub if it were in Alberta? What about PEI? A better statement might be "if Toronto didn't exist London would feel more important and act as a major regional hub".

Well it would give Alberta that one solid mid-sized city it's missing and Ontario would still have KW, Windsor, and Saint Kitts. We would want something in return though..ha

[BretttheRiderFan]

To the guy who mentioned Moose Jaw, very interesting choice! As much time as I've spent in Saskatchewan I never really went to Moose Jaw apart from driving by on the Trans Canada. I mean, the last time I was actually in the city I was probably 8 years old. Just drove down Main Street on street view and it's incredibly impressive for a prairie city its size. There's a lot of history there and it rivaled Regina and Saskatoon in the early 21st century.

Fun fact: The first game that the predecessor to the Roughriders (The Regina Rugby Club) played was a 16-6 loss to Moose Jaw.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Considering places like Medicine Hat and Red Deer are fairly important I would say London would be important. In PEI it would probably dominate the Maritimes.

Do they feel more important or have a greater hegemony than London though? My point re: PEI was that London's population is about 4-5x that of PEI, so could London, PEI: Population 500,000 even exist as such? What would be the point? (I'm assuming that Charlottetown would still be there and London's main industries would remain the same). My understanding is that London is largely a service/financial centre for its surrounding area - if the population of the surrounding area were 1/5 of the population of the city itself, there would be much less of a need for most of the industries around which the city (as I understand it) is based.

[BretttheRiderFan]

Heck, London's student population is about the same as the city of Charlottetown.

[ssiguy]

I would say Kamloops and Nanaimo are underrated and Vancouver and Kelowna are vastly over rated. Victoria is very highly rated but that's because it deserves to be.

I wouldn't say Brantford is underrated because no one thinks highly of the place but that's because it's a dump. It's lousy reputation is one it deserves.

London is a very nice and liveable city but I wouldn't say it's underrated because I have always found that London has a good reputation. Even here in BC where most of the population has never been east of Calgary, those who know London always seem to say "I've heard London is a very nice city". You certainly don't hear that same comment from people about Hamilton, Kitchener, or Windsor.

Even if you are in Toronto and say you are from London it uniformaly get's a positive response unlike Ham/Kit/Win.

I, however, have always thought Hamilton was underrated. It has a real urban vibe , character, and bones unlike Kitchener which more of " that place you drive thru on your way to Waterloo".

I think Windsor and Chatham are underrated.

[vincefort]

I was born in London but moved to Sherbrooke, Québec when I was not even 1 year old. I remember countless times in my early years telling people I was born in London, Ontario and them telling me they had never heard of that city. When you see a picture of the skyline for the first time it's not amazingly big but still you're like "He, that's kind of a big city!" I have the feeling that another city that big in Québec would get far more attention and recognition than London gets, I could be wrong though.

Photo from wikipedia:

[SignalHillHiker]

I brought this question up with Mom when she stopped by for tea this afternoon. She said Victoria and, to a lesser extent, Vancouver.

She said they may as well be on the other side of the world and she finds it strange that, excluding the Olympics, they're never mentioned here. "You at least see a commercial on a Montreal television station, or a news story out of Toronto. But you might not even hear the word Vancouver spoken aloud in a year."

And she finds them exceptionally beautiful cities and said people there are up-to-date when it comes to the latest methods for "being your best you and living your best life."

I asked Dad too but he had no opinion.

[Architype]

^ I think Victoria receives about seven times as many tourists per year as Newfoundland does (or at least a lot more). They probably don't need to advertise. But we don't see much advertising for it over here either, which might actually mean it's still underrated.

[SignalHillHiker]

Wow! I know ours aren't actually as impressive as we seem to think, given the whole back-patting, hospitality streak in the culture and the popularity, locally, of our tourism promotions - but I would never have expected a city Victoria's size would be doing that much better. Bravo to them!

[RyLucky]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

I brought this question up with Mom when she stopped by for tea this afternoon. She said Victoria and, to a lesser extent, Vancouver.

She said they may as well be on the other side of the world and she finds it strange that, excluding the Olympics, they're never mentioned here. "You at least see a commercial on a Montreal television station, or a news story out of Toronto. But you might not even hear the word Vancouver spoken aloud in a year."

And she finds them exceptionally beautiful cities and said people there are up-to-date when it comes to the latest methods for "being your best you and living your best life."

I asked Dad too but he had no opinion.

Interesting! Here (Calgary), we don't see Montreal on the news much, but hear TONS about Vancouver and Toronto. There are a lot of people here from all places in Canada (though probably fewer from Quebec than other provinces), so people hear a lot about cities and towns that are far away. It definitely depends on which circles you work/hang out in too. A lot of people go to school outside of Calgary and know people from coast to coast I think. Folks are always moving here from the Maritimes, NFL, ON, SK, BC, and small towns in AB.

[Architype]

This graphic illustrates the most common foreign view of Canada; any city not indicated here is underrated.




It seems to not even matter that Toronto is in the wrong area.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by RyLucky

Interesting! Here (Calgary), we don't see Montreal on the news much, but hear TONS about Vancouver and Toronto.
...

Try watching the French channel, and see how long it takes for Montreal to be mentioned! Back in the "day" before all the language laws, Montreal was in our news a lot; the Canadian economy was closely tied to Montreal!