Small Cities That Offer a Good Urban Experience.

[Chadillaccc]

Woodstock Ontario - my shitwad fuckhole of a hometown - while being a deathtrap if you're anything other than straight and white, definitely offers an urban experience. Unfortunately the downtown is really only one very long street and in the heart of the core there's only like 2 or 3 side streets. But still, lots of shopping, diners, the movie theatre is there, at least one art gallery, the city museum… etc.

I believe Woodstock is the only city in Ontario (might be the country?) with all of its original administrative buildings still in tact, including the Oxford County Gaol (jail) which now houses some city offices or something.



Ontario's small cities/towns are almost universally quite lovely... Woodstock, Stratford, St. Thomas, Tilsonburg, Orillia, Parry Sound, Owen Sound, Tobermory, Paris, Elora… the list is crazy long.

[Razor]

I haven't been in years, but I remember St. Catherines being pretty nice and having a healthy vibrant downtown at that time. It seemed to have an array of small businesses, shops, and pubs.It's maybe 150k, or roughly the size of Kingston. I agree Saint John NB looks great!.

[harls]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Woodstock Ontario - my shitwad fuckhole of a hometown

Tell us how you really feel.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Razor

I haven't been in years, but I remember St. Catherines being pretty nice and having a healthy vibrant downtown at that time. It seemed to have an array of small businesses, shops, and pubs.It's maybe 150k, or roughly the size of Kingston.

I was just going to post that. Downtown St. Catharines is a bit gritty, but it has been undergoing some great changes over the past decade or so.

Orillia is another worthy of mention in Ontario, at least based on what I've seen of it.

And I'll throw Collingwood into the discussion too, though it's probably a bit small compared to other places noted. Yet it swells during the ski season, and has become more of a summer activity destination too. Its "suburban" parts lack character but its downtown does not.

I haven't been to many smallish cities outside of Ontario, but some of the ones mentioned like Charlottetown and Saint John definitely fit the thread. I've been to both.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by flar

In the <200,000 category, I would say Saint John, Guelph, Kingston, St.John's and probably not much else

Under 100,000 is tough, maybe Stratford, Niagara-on-the-Lake, maybe some other tourist towns, not much else

I would actually place Charlottetown and Fredericton above Saint John. SJ is larger, and looks a lot more impressive, but in terms of urban offerings on the ground, it's actually got less going on. As mentioned above, though, it's moving in the right direction and has improved in the past few years. It still, it remains for me one of those cities that's more about its future potential than its present reality.

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Woodstock Ontario - my shitwad fuckhole of a hometown - while being a deathtrap if you're anything other than straight and white, definitely offers an urban experience.

We get it...you don't have good memories of Woodstock. In the early 90's I had to go to Woodstock for work reasons and I never got any particularly negative vibes about the place.

[acottawa]

Depending on whether you count it as it’s own town or as a suburb of KW, then St Jacobs might be on the list. There is a walkable historic village, a massive farmers market, plus hotels, a theatre, outlet mall and big box stores. It even has a corporate headquarters (Home Hardware).

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Depending on whether you count it as it’s own town or as a suburb of KW, then St Jacobs might be on the list. There is a walkable historic village, a massive farmers market, plus hotels, a theatre, outlet mall and big box stores. It even has a corporate headquarters (Home Hardware).

Kind of the opposite of “urban experience”, no?

[ue]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I'm giving a second vote to Lunenburg, that place is right out of a postcard and a great grid of main street shops.

As I know Alberta well, I will say I enjoy Hinton. Less of the urban experience (it's a logging city), but is right at the gates of Jasper National Park and the mountains. Some great little restaurants and breweries along the Yellowhead, and a fantastic base camp for hiking, trails, mountain biking, bouldering and outdoor pursuits. Plus the Beaver Boardwalk is the world's longest freshwater boardwalk and a stunning hike for families:

Hinton is so ugly and car-centric. Just no.

What it looks like from above


Street level


The charming downtown


The old residential area


Hinton is very close to Jasper and there's some outstanding nature in the vicinity but it really doesn't qualify for the purpose of this thread. It's an ugly post-war lumber town with no urban experience whatsoever.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Proof Sheet

We get it...you don't have good memories of Woodstock. In the early 90's I had to go to Woodstock for work reasons and I never got any particularly negative vibes about the place.

Lmfao! Ok

[SpongeG]

I loved Kingston, I got to live there 2 summers, it was great.

Coming from the West I found many small towns in Ontario have a much more Urban/City feel than towns out here in BC.

napanee

greaternapanee.com

gananoque

inengineering.ca

picton

i.pinimg.com

[Fischbob]

Originally Posted by someone123

How many of these smaller cities have 1 or more full-service grocery stores in an urban storefront-like format? Or a full ecosystem of specialized smaller food stores stores (e.g. produce, butcher, bakery) that can fully serve somebody who lives in one specific location and walks to the shops they need to buy small quantities on a daily basis?

Saint John currently lacks the former, but does okay in the latter category. The City Market incudes a produce stand with some grocery offerings, a butcher, two fishmongers, a deli and an artisanal bakery. There's also a more standard fare bakery on the Central Peninsula and 1-2 smaller ethnic grocers. The Giant Tiger at Prince Edward Square, while not a full-service grocery store, does have a sizeable grocery section and a decent frozen offering. Plus there's the seasonal farmer's market at Queen Square.

My parents live Uptown and while they do drive to the North End for a weekly haul at Sobeys, most of their intermittent needs during the week are easily met by a walk to one of the aforementioned businesses on the Peninsula and they're regulars at the bakery which is their primary source of bread.

The full-service grocery store has been a bit of a holy grail for Uptown Saint John for as long as I can remember, and has always been framed as a chicken-and-egg problem between population base and neighbourhood amenity offerings. Happily, the "egg" of population growth has really started to come around in recent years, and as JHikka mentioned, expanded amenities have begun to follow. I think it's only a matter of time.

[ue]

Originally Posted by niwell

I thought Lunenburg was pretty neat when I visited a few years ago but it did feel very touristy to me - not particularly lived in. That was my initial impresison though and would be happy to be proved wrong!

Not Canadian but the coolest small city in North America I've spent time in would have to be Astoria, Oregon (pop. ~10,000). It's definitely a tourist town but at the same time did seem to have a significant local presence and establishments that didn't solely cater to visitors. It's the oldest city in Oregon and was originally built to be the largest - it shows and the built environment seems much more substantial than the population would suggest. It helps they seem to be catering to more of a bohemian "urban" tourist that would come for a few days after spending time in Portland (which is what we did). Fantastic beer scene as well, which is the case almost anywhere in the western half of the state.

https://goo.gl/maps/2aYTW1v66ZdCAu1e7

https://goo.gl/maps/etREi98qPHoYpunB9

https://goo.gl/maps/3r8wKYbGAztuEZLZA


The entire Oregon Coast is actually full of great small towns/cities, and I would highly recommend the trip.

Astoria is great! Small cities like that don't really exist in Canada.

Anyway some Canadian examples I can think of:

Nelson, BC


Fernie, BC


Dawson City, YT


Banff, AB


Lethbridge, AB


Moose Jaw, SK


Gimli, MB (may be a stretch with this one, but the core is walkable and there are plenty of amenities around)


Kenora, ON


I'm skipping Eastern Canada for now because there's so many but Stratford, Guelph, Kingston, St Mary's, and Belleville from Ontario come to mind, and Trois-Rivieres and Shawinigan for Quebec. For the Atlantic region, Saint John, Charlottetown, Wolfville, Sackville, Fredericton, and St John's come to mind.

[MonctonRad]

For the Maritimes, there are three categories of small cities and towns that might appeal to the urban enthusiast - capitals, university towns and tourist towns.

Capitals - Fredericton and Charlottetown absolutely - dense walkable cores with many amenities including shops, restaurants, live theatre, art galleries and museums.

University towns - Antigonish and Wolfville definitely. The universities are located close to the urban cores of these towns, and have supported lively downtowns with lots of shops and restaurants. These towns are wealthy and well kept with a lot of visual appeal.

I am not including Sackville NB in this group. Mount Allison itself has a lovely campus, and does support the downtown core, but the town of Sackville itself is stunted because the City of Moncton is only 25 minutes away by car, and this bleeds a lot of economic activity away from the town.

Tourist towns - I would include Lunenburg NS, Saint Andrews NB and possibly Shediac NB in this list. These are all lovely towns with walkable downtowns and interesting shops and restaurants, but like all tourist towns, they can be dead in the off season.

Most other small cities and towns in the Maritimes either are too suburban in character or their downtown cores are lacking in vitality. My own city of Moncton, while prosperous and providing for nearly all amenities, is distressingly suburban in character. I freely admit this. Densification is occurring in the core, with a half dozen six storey apartment buildings either recently built or under construction in the downtown west end, FiveFive Queen and the soon the be constructed 12 storey Saint Bernard Square in the downtown east end, and a rumour of Lafford Properties building two 10 storey apartment buildings south of Main Street. A lot of this activity has been fuelled by the recent opening of the Avenir Centre. Despite this, Moncton is still about 20 years away from having a core with true urbanist appeal.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Fischbob

Saint John currently lacks the former, but does okay in the latter category. The City Market incudes a produce stand with some grocery offerings, a butcher, two fishmongers, a deli and an artisanal bakery. There's also a more standard fare bakery on the Central Peninsula and 1-2 smaller ethnic grocers. The Giant Tiger at Prince Edward Square, while not a full-service grocery store, does have a sizeable grocery section and a decent frozen offering. Plus there's the seasonal farmer's market at Queen Square.

I was going to say, the City Market seems good and is probably one of the nicer historic markets in Canada.

[someone123]

One town that has a very low profile but is actually pretty good is Truro, NS. It is not as picturesque as Lunenburg but:

- It has a red brick downtown with a main civic square and historic library and municipal buildings, farmers' market, full sized Sobeys in walking distance, a bunch of restaurants, shops, services, etc.
- It has a CA population of just under 50,000.
- It has nice historic neighbourhoods and houses for sale within walking distance of the middle of town that cost $150,000-300,000.
- Victoria Park is a real gem (maybe one of the nicer historic parks in Canada), and walking distance to the middle of town.
- It has passenger rail and bus service to Halifax.
- It's a 40 minute drive to YHZ.
- It's a 1 hour drive from downtown Halifax.

I would not call it a city and maybe urban is a stretch but it measures up pretty well against a lot of other towns. I think it will eventually become more popular than it is right now.

[Hali87]

It's interesting in that I could see Moncton overtaking Saint John and Fredericton in terms of urban offerings, based on its current trajectory. It seems like there is a lot of new midrise/mixed use construction which is enlarging the walkable downtown area quite a bit, while DT Fredericton and UT Saint John are more "established" but not growing as quickly (in terms of new buildings). It feels like a switch was flipped in recent years and Moncton went from being very suburban-focused to very downtown-focused, and the demand seems to be there for substantially more downtown retail, etc.

Sydney and the surrounding parts of Cape Breton are another interesting case study, like Saint John a lot of the most densely built-up parts are a bit under-used/under-populated but the area is basically a cluster of small towns (total pop. ~100,000) each with their own reasonably dense, walkable downtown. It's the kind of place that would check a lot of the boxes if another 20,000 or so people moved (back) into these denser areas, but as of now the way things are dispersed across the region, it's not really a practical place to get by without a car, etc. I think within the next 10-20 years it will bounce back as a relatively attractive city to live/work in, and Sydney proper seems to be focusing a lot on reinvigorating its downtown (new NSCC campus, etc).

On the other side of the country, I'd mention Kamloops as a contender. It has quite a bit more heft than the Nelson/Revelstoke/Kaslo type interior towns, an interesting, walkable downtown, a walkable secondary commercial node (Tranquille, across the river from downtown) but has a "practical place to live" rather than touristy feel to it.

Vernon is another interior city that might fit the bill. The central parts felt a bit more "urban" to me than nearby Kelowna, despite Kelowna having some taller buildings. I supposed it depends what you're looking for, but I found that (relative to each other) Vernon had more of a "small city" feel whereas Kelowna had more of a "large resort town" feel. I'm not sure how the amenities compare within walkable parts but I think I would have given the edge to Vernon when I lived in that part of the country, about 10 years ago. I imagine things have changed a bit since then.

[905er]

I don't have a lot of experience with smaller cities outside of Ontario, but within Ontario, I'd have to say

Burlington
Kingston
Goderich

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by someone123

One town that has a very low profile but is actually pretty good is Truro, NS. It is not as picturesque as Lunenburg but:

- It has a red brick downtown with a main civic square and historic library and municipal buildings, farmers' market, full sized Sobeys in walking distance, a bunch of restaurants, shops, services, etc.
- It has a CA population of just under 50,000.
- It has nice historic neighbourhoods and houses for sale within walking distance of the middle of town that cost $150,000-300,000.
- Victoria Park is a real gem (maybe one of the nicer historic parks in Canada), and walking distance to the middle of town.
- It has passenger rail and bus service to Halifax.
- It's a 40 minute drive to YHZ.
- It's a 1 hour drive from downtown Halifax.

I would not call it a city and maybe urban is a stretch but it measures up pretty well against a lot of other towns. I think it will eventually become more popular than it is right now.

Truro sort of reminds me of a smaller version of Abbotsford, but incidentally with a larger and busier core. A sort of country-city that is the focal point of a heavily-populated agricultural area, but not really an urban one. That said, it does have a few nice walkable areas, decent food/retail/parks, etc, as you mentioned. It also has a satellite campus of Dal that has a similar look and feel to Acadia or STFX (though smaller).

I could see it becoming more significant over the next 20 years or so as the Halifax commutershed pushes north - there's Clayton Park-style subdivisions going up as far out as Lantz now and at that point Truro is probably a much quicker commute than DT Halifax, when accounting for traffic.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Hali87

It's interesting in that I could see Moncton overtaking Saint John and Fredericton in terms of urban offerings, based on its current trajectory. It seems like there is a lot of new midrise/mixed use construction which is enlarging the walkable downtown area quite a bit, while DT Fredericton and UT Saint John are more "established" but not growing as quickly (in terms of new buildings). It feels like a switch was flipped in recent years and Moncton went from being very suburban-focused to very downtown-focused, and the demand seems to be there for substantially more downtown retail, etc.

It seems like 1990-2005 or so was roughly peak suburbia around the Maritimes, plus it coincided with a relatively weak economic period. It's easy to see a bunch of things as "normal" in various towns and cities when they are really a kind of dire low point.

Moncton has always had more growth but it didn't translate into much improvement from an urbanism perspective. But now that is changing.