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Vancouver and Philadelphia are two opposite cities in a lot of ways. Vancouver feels a lot more modern than Philadelphia. It's a lot cleaner and only San Francisco and Seattle can at least match it's natural setting, imo.
The overall vibes in both cities are quite different as well, imo.
The thing is though Vancouver redeveloped a core that was fairly dense to begin with--and a lot of old industrial land. The core area and parts of the West End was built up prior to the automobile era to begin with--it's just that much of it was redeveloped since the 80s. Not much different than what a lot of other old port cities have done. Vancouver feels dense and vibrant in part because of the location of the city. The downtown/West End is surrounded on three sides by water on a fairly compact peninsula. The rest of Vancouver has occasional pockets of activity, but it feels fairly suburban. Canadian cities usually have more random high rise residential construction though even in the more suburban parts.
On the other hand comparing a city like Vancouver to Sun Belt cities is a different story--since a lot of those cities had a surplus of cheap land and no geographic boundaries to build new business districts in outer neighborhoods or suburbs and exurbs for miles... Vancouver is a city that like San Francisco is pretty geographically constrained.
Fair points though it does show that thoughtful design can maintain and enhance vibrancy in the modern form with consistency
I will be honest in that my experience with Vancouver is limited but it feels like a more compressed sunbelt than does say Seattle based on my limited experience
almost like areally big version of the harbor east are in Baltimore if that makes sense (but again with my caveat of a very little experience so this is based on a quick and limited exposure)
Vancouver at ground level looks and feels like a traditonal downtown imo. Compressed sunbelt is unusual because its far from it. It truely is one of the most complete downtowns in N.A. Beautiful Stanley Park, great shopping, great cultural amenities, nightlife, restaurants and surprisingly plenty of old. Also I like the use of the waterfront on all three sides. Even the convention center is pretty nice blending with the waterfront. On of my all time favorites.
Vancouver at ground level looks and feels like a traditonal downtown imo. Compressed sunbelt is unusual because its far from it. It truely is one of the most complete downtowns in N.A. Beautiful Stanley Park, great shopping, great cultural amenities, nightlife, restaurants and surprisingly plenty of old. Also I like the use of the waterfront on all three sides. Even the convention center is pretty nice blending with the waterfront. On of my all time favorites.
Vancouver makes the most of it's waterfront--the edge of the West End/Coal Harbour blends nicely with Stanley Park as well.
I've always found the older part of Vancouver's downtown on the eastside from Gastown to Chinatown to be sort of interesting though. Despite the fact that the lower Eastside is basically like Canada's Tenderloin, it's got a somewhat gritty vibe in between the mix of the more gentrified Gastown to the sketchier parts. There's some older architecture from earlier in the last century that's fairly interesting. Chinatown isn't what it used to be, but the whole area is really the historic heart of Vancouver.
The West End by comparison and the Robson corridor of Vancouver feels a little more manicured and safe, so that's the area that most people see of Vancouver. That's really the part of Vancouver they want to show off to the world. There's some great Japanese restaurants on Denman street just down the road from Stanley Park...
I realize your post is based on your personal assessment, which you are fully entitled to. Regarding this last point, however, DT Vancouver and Center City Philly have popualtions of 54,690 and 57,239 respectively. While you may find Vancouver better geared towards supporting a DT residential population, the cores of the cities themselves end up attracting almost identical populations.
That 54,690 figure for Vancouver doesn't include the West End, which should be included as the OP specified in the original post.
Vancouver downtown has a phenomenal setting. Jaw dropping beautiful.
Also you can walk to amazing gigantic Stanley Park from just about anywhere downtown.
That 54,690 figure for Vancouver doesn't include the West End, which should be included as the OP specified in the original post.
For simplicity sake, I stuck to the DT areas. Please note, however that the 57,000 figure for Philly doesn't include Queen Village, Bella Vista (and Hawthorne) or Northern Liberties, which should be included as the OP specified in his original post:
Quote:
Originally Posted by bballniket
Please treat "Greater Center City Philadelphia" as the region bounded by the following: Washington Ave to the south, Spring Garden Street to the north, [jm02 note: Northern Liberties] Front Street to the east, and the Schuylkill River to the west. This means do not include University City or regions of the Art Museum Area north of Spring Garden Street in your comparison, but do include the Italian Market area (i.e. Bella Vista north of Washington St.), Hawthorne north of Washington St., Queen Village north of Washington St, Old City, and sections of the Art Museum Area south of Spring Garden St
The point of my post was not, however, to get into a pi**ing match about the populations of the cores of each city. It was in reply to a comment a previous poster had made seeming to indicate the Vancouver was more inclined to draw individuals to live in its core. In truth, each city has a high number of folks living in their respective cores and adjacent neighborhoods. I suspect Philly has more, as it should given it has a considerably larger population.
Last edited by Pine to Vine; 06-17-2013 at 07:29 PM..
I realize that Philadelphia is a much larger city than Vancouver, but I felt that perhaps their central districts- while quite different from one another- are quite comparable to one another in scope.
I can't really comment because I haven't been to Vancouver, but Vancouver is considered a model city for urban design. It's style is noted for being able to integrate dense residential development with parks and green space. Philadelphia was planned well in its initial development (though it wasn't always followed), had some dark, dark times in the 20th Century, and is now making a comeback. That's from a development perspective.
This isn't to denigrate Philadelphia. I'm just saying it hasn't been planned as well. This is changing and for the better. Considering how good Center City is now, I think it'll only get better. That said, I really want to go visit Vancouver.
This isn't a comment on Vancouver's CBD, but the style of Translink's Skytrain TODs in the suburbs (esp in Burnaby) seems eerily similar to that used in suburban TODs in the DC metro (especially those in Arlington).
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