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There was a forum on Downtown Calgary on CNC a few days ago: How to transform a ghost town downtown afterwork to a vibrant downtown. I just saw that. This is after I posted the thread, so I didn't know much about Downtown Calgary before hand. I know some about Downtown SJ: it's all always active, day/night. Just lots to do. The skyline is dense but short. It has a nice balance of office/housing and hotels. Light rail runs right through downtown.
San Jose an't no Ft Lauderdale or Burnaby when it's over a million with a defined downtown core that doesn't sleep after work.
The only reason why Ft Lauderdale's population numbers seem so low is due to its small land area. The density in Ft Lauderdale vs San Jose isn't too far off. Combine the cities immediately next to Ft. Lauderdale and you have a pretty large population. Ft. Lauderdale is to Miami what San Jose is to San Fransisco, which is why I brought it up.
Ft. Lauderdale, like San Jose, also has somewhat of a downtown core with its share of ongoing nightlife:
Are you sure? Its downtown sure doesn't snooze when work is out.
I tried to think of some random points of comparison that I could find with a quick web search. Which was tougher than expected... many nightlife listing sites count on self-advertising, etc., which means results are inconsistent. But...
I came up with these:
Comedy clubs downtown
Calgary 3, San Jose 2.5 (one's a murder mystery dinner theatre)
Nightclubs
Calgary 10, San Jose 19
Live music
Calgary 15, San Jose 18
Gay clubs
Calgary 5, San Jose 5
Smoke shops (inc. head shops)
Calgary 9, San Jose ~4
Art cinema
Calgary 1, San Jose 3
24 hour McDonalds
San Jose 5, Calgary 5
24 hour diners
San Jose 1, Calgary 1
Restaurants open til midnight - 4am (excluding Denny's or IHOP):
San Jose 15 (?), Calgary 15
I'm not seeing enormous differences, although San Jose has a handful more nightclubs and live music spots.
Whoops... I mucked up the comparison of 24hr McDonald's restaurants. Turns out neither city has a Rotten Ronnie's of any sort downtown. I blame the McDonald's website itself for this erroneous search result.
I won't get into Calgary vs. San Jose, but Calgary is one of a number of Canadian cities that punch above their weight in terms of downtown and urban vibrancy, at least in the USA-Canada context. Places like Ottawa and Quebec City are like this too.
Canadian cities in general tend to be denser than US cities. For whatever reason, the idea of a skyscrapper outside of downtown has been anathema in the US, which makes them seem very suburban in general. London Ontario has tall buildings everywhere outside of downtown (mostly apartment blocks, 10+ stories) whereas where I live now, Columbus, has just a handful of buildings over 10 stories outside of the central downtown/OSU corridor. Many, many, many US cities are exactly the same.
Canadian cities in general tend to be denser than US cities. For whatever reason, the idea of a skyscrapper outside of downtown has been anathema in the US, which makes them seem very suburban in general. London Ontario has tall buildings everywhere outside of downtown (mostly apartment blocks, 10+ stories) whereas where I live now, Columbus, has just a handful of buildings over 10 stories outside of the central downtown/OSU corridor. Many, many, many US cities are exactly the same.
It's so true and the same case with Europe/Latin America. In San Jose downtown core, you have dense high rise cluster there-all the high rises you want, up to nearly 30 story due to flight path but very few multi story or high rises outside downtown, except along the high rise corridor where the transit runs.
You rather have a downtown empties at night than the downtown that is always active?
Unless you live downtown, and active downtown doesn't hold much appeal. Instead of stuff amongst the office towers, you have vibrant neighbourhoods surrounding the downtown core such as Kensington, Mission and Inglewood that have a mix of housing, commercial/retail and restaurants/bars/pubs.
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