[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Doady

I think the difference with Canada is not about being more high-rise friendly. For whatever reason, apartment living and transit seem to be more part of Canadian culture. Even before the condo apartment boom, thousands of rental apartment buildings were built throughout the suburbs of Toronto during the 60s and 70s. In Montreal and Quebec, there are less suburban high-rises, but you still have post-war neighbourhoods from that time are full of low-rise and mid-rise apartment buildings and multi-storey, mixed-use strip malls, like Montreal-Nord. So even without high-rises, the decline in density after the pre-war era and outside of the inner cities is not as drastic in Canada. The urban areas of Canada are not as polarized in terms of city vs. suburb, high density vs. low density, apartments vs. detached houses, transit vs. cars compared to those of the USA. There isn't such a distinct boundary and dividing line between city and suburb, if any at all, and maybe because the politics aren't focused so much on division. More suburban transit and higher suburban densities just gets in the way of division, and I think the focus on dividing people instead of connecting people is the root of these differences.

Canada also didn't massacre its cities with expressways to nearly the same extent, hence much less sprawl.