Which Canadian Cities have Suburbs?

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by jonny24

Not if you live there

Just being a small town near a larger town doesn't make a town a suburb.

I'm from there, and yes, it is arguable. Every kid from all of those towns except Ingersoll are bussed in to one of the four Woodstock high schools, and most adults work in one of Woodstock's auto manufacturing plants. Almost anyone in Ingersoll who doesn't work for CAMI or the services works in Woodstock as well.

[megadude]

I fished Pittock Lake in Woodstock a few years ago and have passed through a couple of those towns, either by train or car.

When I was at school, there was this one girl from Ingersoll who had a huge crush on me but I always rejected her advances. She says she had been approached by someone around there to become a stripper. She was either lying or the talent pool for peelers is really shallow. Anyway, she ended up in relationship with the janitor of our residence.

I would say this is arguable and is the main point of my question. There are surrounding towns that have characteristics of suburbs, so in that sense, yes you might say they are suburbs. But at the same time, I don't imagine people really say "suburb" there.

So I'm wondering how big does a town or city have to be before people start saying suburb. Kelowna, Windsor, London, KWC, TR and some Eastern cities were the ones I was curious about.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Does it really matter though? They can be kind of annoying from an OCD perspective but governance-wise it seems to work. Don't know if either of inter-municipal fighting or intra-municipal fighting like they have in the big Prairie cities is better than the other.

Yes, each municipality seems to generally attract their own political temperaments. Hence, someone from the suburbs might disagree with Vancouver’s decisions but they don’t live there so it’s not that big of a deal.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by Hali87

The Abbostford-Vancouver relationship seems a bit different from the typical suburban and a bit more like KWC-Toronto or Hamilton-Toronto. Theyr're far enough apart that frequent commuting doesn't seem like an attractive option but close enough to still be part of the same overall "area".

I know a fair number of people who live in Abbotsford and work in Vancouver.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

I know a fair number of people who live in Abbotsford and work in Vancouver.

That sounds brutal. What's the commute like?

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Hali87

That sounds brutal. What's the commute like?

I’ve heard that during rush hour, TCH between 202nd Street (Walnut Grove/Carvolth/Langley North) and Abby is a joke.

In fact, this one year, JT was one hour late to his meeting in Abby because of traffic.

[Loco101]

I was in Vancouver last Summer and the traffic was quite busy at times but it was nothing like the GTA. We were actually visiting friends who moved there from Oakville, ON a couple of years ago. They said that they laughed when people there complained about traffic because it is nothing like the GTA. Even the QEW going through Oakville is worse than any highway in the Vancouver area according to them because in Vancouver, busier times are more predictable whereas in Oakville (or anywhere in the GTA) congestion happens at any time during the day and evening and often.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Loco101

I was in Vancouver last Summer and the traffic was quite busy at times but it was nothing like the GTA. We were actually visiting friends who moved there from Oakville, ON a couple of years ago. They said that they laughed when people there complained about traffic because it is nothing like the GTA. Even the QEW going through Oakville is worse than any highway in the Vancouver area according to them because in Vancouver, busier times are more predictable whereas in Oakville (or anywhere in the GTA) congestion happens at any time during the day and evening and often.

I’ve noticed the same thing myself. Family of mine in the Fraser Valley avoid going into Metro Vancouver unless absolutely necessary, because of the traffic.

Having lived in Toronto for just short of 4 years, I find Vancouver to be really not that bad. Toronto is traffic hell, even on weekends. Highway 1 through Burnaby is bad at 5:00pm, but by 7 or 8 it’s clear sailing, while the 401 through Toronto is slow at all hours until almost midnight. Weekends are smooth sailing in most of the Vancouver area, though the Lion’s Gate Bridge is often a bottleneck.

[vid]

Originally Posted by Loco101

I was in Vancouver last Summer and the traffic was quite busy at times but it was nothing like the GTA. We were actually visiting friends who moved there from Oakville, ON a couple of years ago. They said that they laughed when people there complained about traffic because it is nothing like the GTA. Even the QEW going through Oakville is worse than any highway in the Vancouver area according to them because in Vancouver, busier times are more predictable whereas in Oakville (or anywhere in the GTA) congestion happens at any time during the day and evening and often.

Last time I was in Toronto we got stuck on the DVP for 45 minutes at midnight on a Friday.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Does it really matter though? They can be kind of annoying from an OCD perspective but governance-wise it seems to work. Don't know if either of inter-municipal fighting or intra-municipal fighting like they have in the big Prairie cities is better than the other.

Would it not make sense to amalgamate some municipalities though, as has been done in Ontario? (I ask this genuinely as a BC outsider who has lived in Ontario most of my life and have lived through municipal amalgamations)

I could see Burnaby being annexed by Vancouver and New West, and I could see the two North Vancouvers amalgamating. Maybe also Coquitlam splitting between Port Moody and PoCo.

On the other side of the coin I would question whether Surrey needs to be as massive as it currently is. Should it be that big? Should South Surrey be part of White Rock, since it’s much closer than Surrey’s city centre?

I can see arguments on either side of these situations and I’d be interested in insight from anyone more familiar than I am with BC municipal politics.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

Would it not make sense to amalgamate some municipalities though, as has been done in Ontario? (I ask this genuinely as a BC outsider who has lived in Ontario most of my life and have lived through municipal amalgamations)

I could see Burnaby being annexed by Vancouver and New West, and I could see the two North Vancouvers amalgamating. Maybe also Coquitlam splitting between Port Moody and PoCo.

On the other side of the coin I would question whether Surrey needs to be as massive as it currently is. Should it be that big? Should South Surrey be part of White Rock, since it’s much closer than Surrey’s city centre?

I can see arguments on either side of this situation and I’d be interested in feedback from anyone more familiar than I am with BC municipal politics.

I'm too lazy to look for references so you'll either have to take my word for it or do some digging yourself, but my understanding is that just about all high-profile amalgamations that occurred when it was en vogue in Canada, like Winnipeg and the big Ontario cities, actually increased administration costs.

Ok so I made a little effort digging through the syllabus for the last class I remember that talked about this...This paper (https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/imfg/...line_final.pdf) studied Toronto's shift from Metro Toronto to the mega City of Toronto. It concludes in saying that while mergers may achieve economies of scale in smaller towns, they're unlikely to do so with big cities. It notes other benefits to mergers though, like addressing externalities and introducing more socioeconomic diversity to a city's tax base and responsibilities. However, it also notes that these benefits can also be achieved through strong regional bodies which do all that, while maintaining more nimbleness and citizen-responsiveness...which is pretty much the structure that Vancouver has with the 21 municipalities united by the Metro Vancouver Regional District.

Don't get me wrong, I have fantasy amalgamation maps saved on my computer like any other nerd haha. But, speaking for myself, when I try to think of it from a more practical perspective, there really aren't any great arguments for amalgamation. It really just makes the map look cleaner. As an example, let's think of the two primary municipal issues right now: housing affordability and transit provision. It could be argued that having more municipalities creates more places that want to build downtowns and urban neighbourhoods of their own, whereas a unicity might concentrate it more. Or that multiple munis better respond to the development preferences of residents. For transit, it may seem parochial that suburban municipalities (Surrey being the most recent example) get to attract rapid transit levels disproportionate to their ridership/density, but it doesn't seem to me like it's any more parochial than rapid transit politics in Calgary or Ottawa (or hell, Toronto). Sure our cities all have to get something out of regional transit plans, but the fact that integrated regional transit plans are created at all is what matters. Believe me, I'd love to be able to argue for amalgamations that would reduce all the weird myopia that some citizens have, but I just can't think of any good reasons for it.

[urbandreamer]

I'd like to argue Waterloo is a suburb of Kitchener. Originally a very small village that sprawled into Kitchener over the past 120 years.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

I'd like to argue Waterloo is a suburb of Kitchener. Originally a very small village that sprawled into Kitchener over the past 120 years.

You might do better arguing that Cambridge is a suburb of Kitchener-Waterloo. But that really doesn't work either ...

in any event, there's a cadre in Waterloo who would develop serious indigestion if they were described as a suburb of Kitchener, and one wouldn't want that ...

[megadude]

I don't know why but I've barely spent any time in KWC other than tubing at Chicopee, partying with some Laurier people, visiting Galt two years ago and just passing by or passing through on the way to somewhere else. I really should go drive and walk around KW to get the feel of the place.

So with that disclaimer out of the way, I am going to suggest Waterloo is indeed a suburb of Kitchener!

Okay, this is not serious talk, but as mentioned, Kitchener is the more historic of the two. And the area is known for a top ranking tech. school and a well known tech industry.

Blackberry and UW are in Waterloo. This follows the same model of San Fran/Oakland. Stanford and Cal outside of the big city of SF. The big tech companies also outside the city.

For Boston, Harvard and MIT are in Cambridge. Not sure where their tech companies are though.

Also, Kitchener clearly has a rougher downtown in terms of looks and people from what I understand. Like you'd find in a city vs. suburb situation.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by megadude

I don't know why but I've barely spent any time in KWC other than tubing at Chicopee, partying with some Laurier people, visiting Galt two years ago and just passing by or passing through on the way to somewhere else. I really should go drive and walk around KW to get the feel of the place.

So with that disclaimer out of the way, I am going to suggest Waterloo is indeed a suburb of Kitchener!

Okay, this is not serious talk, but as mentioned, Kitchener is the more historic of the two. And the area is known for a top ranking tech. school and a well known tech industry.

Blackberry and UW are in Waterloo. This follows the same model of San Fran/Oakland. Stanford and Cal outside of the big city of SF. The big tech companies also outside the city.

For Boston, Harvard and MIT are in Cambridge. Not sure where their tech companies are though.

Also, Kitchener clearly has a rougher downtown in terms of looks and people from what I understand. Like you'd find in a city vs. suburb situation.

I would not describe Kitchener as "more historic" (it was first settled, at most, a couple of years before Waterloo), it is just the larger of the two. Rather than "city-suburb", they more resemble neighbourhoods of the same city, with Downtown and Uptown as urban nodes. Nobody in Kitchener would think of themselves as going "out" to Waterloo, as one goes out to a suburb. Re high tech, larger firms tend to cluster in Waterloo, while start-ups seem more likely to locate in Kitchener in recent years. I suppose that Waterloo high tech could be said to have a more suburban aspect to it, as it tends to exist in low-rise campus-type settings.

[megadude]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I would not describe Kitchener as "more historic" (it was first settled, at most, a couple of years before Waterloo), it is just the larger of the two. Rather than "city-suburb", they more resemble neighbourhoods of the same city, with Downtown and Uptown as urban nodes. Nobody in Kitchener would think of themselves as going "out" to Waterloo, as one goes out to a suburb. Re high tech, larger firms tend to cluster in Waterloo, while start-ups seem more likely to locate in Kitchener in recent years. I suppose that Waterloo high tech could be said to have a more suburban aspect to it, as it tends to exist in low-rise campus-type settings.

That's my understanding as well regarding considering them the same city. Which is just like Boston/Cambridge. I haven't been there for 30 years but it seems to me that in most situations, people consider them one and the same. Same with MTL and some of its burbs.

Another city vs. suburb dynamic would be that the hockey team plays in the "city" as opposed to the "suburb", which I am only using jokingly, but Waterloo does have many characteristics of a suburb.

Also, the campground is in Waterloo. I almost took my inflatable boat to fish Laurel Conservation Area but it's more known for rough fish like carp.

I don't think there's any camping in TO, but there is in Oakville at Bronte PP, Brampton at Indian Line Campground and the edge of Scarboro/Pickering at Glen Rouge. There are more in the suburbs, just farther away.

One opposing factor would be that Chicopee Ski "Resort" is in Kitchener. It has a proper chair lift so it's not some rinky dink little ski operation like Earl Bales or Centenntial Park in TO. The ski resorts in the GTA with chair lifts are in places like Milton, Caledon and Uxbridge.

I was also thinking about Bingeman's Amusement Centre as KWC's version of Wonderland in Vaughan, and it's in Kitchener, but then again La Ronde is in Montreal proper. And TO does have Centreville on the islands and had Ontario Place on Lakeshore and those places are pretty comparable to Bingemans.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

I'm too lazy to look for references so you'll either have to take my word for it or do some digging yourself, but my understanding is that just about all high-profile amalgamations that occurred when it was en vogue in Canada, like Winnipeg and the big Ontario cities, actually increased administration costs.

Ok so I made a little effort digging through the syllabus for the last class I remember that talked about this...This paper (https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/imfg/...line_final.pdf) studied Toronto's shift from Metro Toronto to the mega City of Toronto. It concludes in saying that while mergers may achieve economies of scale in smaller towns, they're unlikely to do so with big cities. It notes other benefits to mergers though, like addressing externalities and introducing more socioeconomic diversity to a city's tax base and responsibilities. However, it also notes that these benefits can also be achieved through strong regional bodies which do all that, while maintaining more nimbleness and citizen-responsiveness...which is pretty much the structure that Vancouver has with the 21 municipalities united by the Metro Vancouver Regional District.

Don't get me wrong, I have fantasy amalgamation maps saved on my computer like any other nerd haha. But, speaking for myself, when I try to think of it from a more practical perspective, there really aren't any great arguments for amalgamation. It really just makes the map look cleaner. As an example, let's think of the two primary municipal issues right now: housing affordability and transit provision. It could be argued that having more municipalities creates more places that want to build downtowns and urban neighbourhoods of their own, whereas a unicity might concentrate it more. Or that multiple munis better respond to the development preferences of residents. For transit, it may seem parochial that suburban municipalities (Surrey being the most recent example) get to attract rapid transit levels disproportionate to their ridership/density, but it doesn't seem to me like it's any more parochial than rapid transit politics in Calgary or Ottawa (or hell, Toronto). Sure our cities all have to get something out of regional transit plans, but the fact that integrated regional transit plans are created at all is what matters. Believe me, I'd love to be able to argue for amalgamations that would reduce all the weird myopia that some citizens have, but I just can't think of any good reasons for it.

Those are all good points.

I know that in the old Metro Toronto, there was an effort by the member municipalities to create their own city centres, particularly Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke. North York had some success with this, but not so much the other two, especially since amalgamation. I read earlier this week that Scarborough’s city centre has been losing jobs as companies leave the area and move into downtown Toronto.

Meanwhile in Metro Vancouver there are individual efforts by Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, and Coquitlam to develop their own city centres. I can imagine there would be less of that in Burnaby, for example, if it were amalgamated with Vancouver.

[vid]

After amalgamation, Thunder Bay tried to create a new city centre, but it resulted in the decline in the two existing city centres, so then it tried to prop them up with failed experiments and now the whole city is crap.

Vancouver's model isn't too bad, really. Things that need to be regional, like health care delivery and transportation, are regional, while less important things are local.

Ontario went with amalgamations in the 90s because it was an easy way for the province to say "look! fewer politicians!" (they reduced the size of the legislature for the same reason) but it didn't really accomplish anything it was intended to, other than that. In Northern Ontario's case, the creation of District Social Services Administration Boards to cover regional issues actually made the situation even worse.

[urbandreamer]

I'm doubling down on my assertion that Waterloo is a suburb of Kitchener. Belmont Village is in Kitchener and is arguably an older suburb of Kitchener as is Bridgeport. Meanwhile most of Waterloo was built up post WW2 and has a very spread out suburban feel. Would Waterloo Lutheran have been founded if neighbouring Berlin's German Lutheran population base didn't exist? Even the LRT feels more urban as it travels through Kitchener than Waterloo. GRT was formerly Kitchener Transit not Waterloo transit. Waterloo is to Kitchener what North York is to Toronto: a small village turned suburb!

[wave46]

It's hard to say whether amalgamation is a bad thing.

Certainly, there are dozens of little 'cities' of a few blocks each in New Jersey near New York City that might function much better as a single city.

Would Winnipeg have weathered the 1980s and 1990s as well if its well-off citizens could flee outside of the old city's limits into the dozen smaller cities and starve the city of revenue, a la Detroit?

The Ontario amalgamations aimed to remove a whole level of government, which didn't work because, uh, the responsibilities of that government still existed. So, when the Region of Sudbury became 'The City of Greater Sudbury' all the Regional stuff still had to be taken care of. It might have made certain things simpler (Regional plows used to have to raise their plow blades when they weren't on "regional" roads, which made locals wonder) but it made other things much more complex.

That's why the 'City of Ottawa' encompasses a pile of farmland outside the City that doesn't really share the character of the city itself. Whereas something like Nepean is basically contiguous with the City and probably should be a part of it.

Interestingly, the City that might have benefited most from amalgamation might've been Kitchener-Waterloo, but coincidentally (wink, wink) they were spared that pleasure.