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View Poll Results: Which cities do you prefer & seem more interesting?
Canadian cities 54 48.21%
Nordic cities 58 51.79%
Voters: 112. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 08-31-2014, 08:16 AM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

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Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,262,798 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Olivierad View Post
^^^ Why is Swedish an official language in Finland when only small percentage of people speak it? Sweden doesn't have Finnish as official language.

12% of Americans speak Spanish, that doesn't mean signs are bilingual on roads and stuff.
Most Spanish speakers are immigrants to the US, except for a few places like New Mexico (where it is a co-official language) it's not "native" to the country long-term. Finland was part of Sweeden for centuries, and some native Swedish speakers ended up on the Finnish side of the border post-split. It's a bit more akin to Quebec in Canada, where there's a regional long-term minority. Or maybe Basque in Spain.
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Old 08-31-2014, 08:25 AM
BMI
 
Location: Ontario
7,455 posts, read 7,230,779 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ariete View Post
There's the infamous pub tram - "Spårakoff". It has only 5 stops, but one tour takes about 40 minutes, so you don't have to hurry with your beer.





BUT, Helsinki also had a "culture tram", discontinued in 2012, where you could listen to live music or watch photos and art. But it was too slow, so it messed up the rest of the schedules.


Very cool photos.

I like your various trams / trains, I'd like to tryout that Pub tram

I noticed that the signage is bilingual, Finnish/Swedish.
Helsinki-Helsingfors

Is that Helsinki only? Or all of Finland.

Anyway, Nordic cities are nice, clean, look good, well managed but....

I still gotta go with Canada large cities.

As another poster mentioned, Canadian cities are a mixture of US built form
with some european influence in terms of cleanliness and infrastructure.
Best of both worlds and kinda similar to Australian cities.

There are no Nordic cities on the scale of Toronto and Montreal (not sure about Vancouver).

I think Canada does cities well.

Vancouver is drop dead gorgeous, wow...and Stanley Park is unreal good.

Victoria, BC is beautiful.

Halifax has it's charms.

Quebec City is one the best looking cities I've seen.

I even like our capital, Ottawa. A city of many large parks and bike trails.

I'm really impressed with Calgary's skyline, almost gives Toronto a run for it's money.

Edmonton is not thought of much but it actually is very nice too,
the mighty North Saskatchewan River flows right through it creating a deep forested valley.
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Old 08-31-2014, 08:27 AM
 
Location: Sweden
1,446 posts, read 1,948,044 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Olivierad View Post
^^^ Why is Swedish an official language in Finland when only small percentage of people speak it? Sweden doesn't have Finnish as official language.

12% of Americans speak Spanish, that doesn't mean signs are bilingual on roads and stuff.
These Americans that speak Spanish don't come from neighbourhoods that ONLY speak Spanish, most of them are also immigrants.

There are Swedish speaking municipalities in Finland and Swedish is also taught in the last three years of primary education in Finland. For Swedish-speaking Finns, Finnish is taught in the last three years of primary education.
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Old 08-31-2014, 08:29 AM
 
Location: The land where God created :)
230 posts, read 329,444 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
Most Spanish speakers are immigrants to the US, except for a few places like New Mexico (where it is a co-official language) it's not "native" to the country long-term. Finland was part of Sweeden for centuries, and some native Swedish speakers ended up on the Finnish side of the border post-split. It's a bit more akin to Quebec in Canada, where there's a regional long-term minority. Or maybe Basque in Spain.
But are road signs written in Spanish and English in New Mexico? If only English, then Spanish is useless.
French is co-official in Louisiana too..
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Old 08-31-2014, 08:33 AM
 
Location: Sweden
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Olivierad View Post
But are road signs written in Spanish and English in New Mexico? If only English, then Spanish is useless.
French is co-official in Louisiana too..
Swedish isn't co-official in Finland, it's official
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Old 08-31-2014, 08:34 AM
 
Location: Finland
24,144 posts, read 24,703,456 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Olivierad View Post
^^^ Why is Swedish an official language in Finland when only small percentage of people speak it? Sweden doesn't have Finnish as official language.

12% of Americans speak Spanish, that doesn't mean signs are bilingual on roads and stuff.
Swedish speakers are a long-lasting linguistic minority, so it is for historical grounds. There was Swedish-majority areas already around 1200 in Southern coastal Finland.

Sweden has Finnish as a recognized minority language, though not official.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
Finland was part of Sweeden for centuries, and some native Swedish speakers ended up on the Finnish side of the border post-split.
Most chose to stay, as all their possessions and land was here. Many native Swedish speakers had lived here for centuries, so they didn't even have any ties to Sweden anymore.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BMI View Post
I noticed that the signage is bilingual, Finnish/Swedish.
Helsinki-Helsingfors

Is that Helsinki only? Or all of Finland.
Swedish road signs are only in cities/muncipalities where there is a strong Swedish-speaking minority.

Blue are bilingual Finnish/Swedish, red bilingual Finnish/Sami:
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Old 08-31-2014, 08:35 AM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

Over $104,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum and additional contests are planned
 
Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,262,798 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BMI View Post

As another poster mentioned, Canadian cities are a mixture of US built form
with some european influence in terms of cleanliness and infrastructure.
Best of both worlds and kinda similar to Australian cities.

There are no Nordic cities on the scale of Toronto and Montreal (not sure about Vancouver).
.
If you go by metropolitan area, both Copenhagen and Stockholm are roughly the same size as Vancouver. Smaller than Vancouver by urban area. Metro area maybe too broad for the Nordic cities, tacking in neighboring cities with a bit of commute connection. The outer parts of both Nordic cities are "patchier" than Vancouver. While Vancouver, like a typical western North America city, is built up even if not always that densely continuously and then ends, the Nordic cities have gaps of lighter development in the outer suburbs. Going north from Vancouver, suburbia doesn't end into rural, it ends to uninhabited land. Perhaps one of the starker contrasts in North America. Look at the dark gray north of Vancouver:

Nobody lives here
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Old 08-31-2014, 08:43 AM
 
Location: Sweden
1,446 posts, read 1,948,044 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nei View Post
If you go by metropolitan area, both Copenhagen and Stockholm are roughly the same size as Vancouver. Smaller than Vancouver by urban area. Metro area maybe too broad for the Nordic cities, tacking in neighboring cities with a bit of commute connection. The outer parts of both Nordic cities are "patchier" than Vancouver. While Vancouver, like a typical western North America city, is built up even if not always that densely continuously and then ends, the Nordic cities have gaps of lighter development in the outer suburbs. Going north from Vancouver, suburbia doesn't end into rural, it ends to uninhabited land. Perhaps one of the starker contrasts in North America. Look at the dark gray north of Vancouver:

Nobody lives here
Metropolitan area is definitely too broad for Stockholm- List of metropolitan areas in Sweden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm from Solna, a district north of Stockholm's city centre but I still consider it to be Stockholm. It is it's own municipality, but I feel like it should be Stockholm, city boundaries need to change However it is a part of Stockholm's urban area.

Last edited by Rams_Lord; 08-31-2014 at 08:54 AM..
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Old 08-31-2014, 09:45 AM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
26,785 posts, read 37,774,664 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jakral View Post
Infact there is a bus stop almost dead centre in the picture of the link you gave me only one post ago. That tiny blue sign with two sheets of bus routes hanging further down on the pole. For some reason there was no shelter at that particular bus stop. Easy to overlook, I see. .
A road like this here would have bus service as well. People from the residential area nearby would generally have to walk to it if they want to take the bus (generally 500 m or less).
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Old 08-31-2014, 09:48 AM
 
Location: Gatineau, Québec
26,785 posts, read 37,774,664 times
Reputation: 11561
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jakral View Post
. After looking at the map, I see there is a metro station about a mile from that neighbourhood.
One mile is almost 2 km. Most people except teenagers and those without a car would not walk that distance to take the metro. (Though some people might take a bus, bike or drive and park at the metro if parking is available. Especially for trips to the city centre if parking there is difficult and expensive.)

Regardless of where you are in the world, it's difficult to effectively provide transit service to low-density suburban areas.
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