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What's sort of different is that Vancouver builds a lot more tall dense high rise residential, while Seattle sort of talks about it but then builds some mid-sized infill here and there. There's parts of Vancouver suburbs like the center of Richmond that now almost seem as dense as neighborhoods like Belltown just above downtown Seattle. Both cities/metros still have a mostly a lot of 20th Century suburban single family neighborhoods, but Vancouver you'll find high rise residential in adjacent suburbs as well.
Some Canadian cities seem much more willing to build and mandate denser suburban development--while in much of the US you have too many NIMBYs and regulations to build denser suburbs. That seems to be one difference. In Canada though it's more like Europe where the government will make decisions for the "collective good" whereas in the US there's more an emphasis on "indivual rights".
The other difference is that Vancouver feels a lot more international in terms of who you see there(there's a lot of foreign nationals living and staying there). Seattle feels like a very American city with a decent-sized Asian immigrant population and then smaller Hispanic and black populations.
So when you are talking historic architecture, Chicago certainly has a great deal more. It is also the birthplace/workplace of of the Chicago School of architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright (largely considered the greatest American architect of all time, Chicago has the most buildings by him on Earth),
I agree with most of what you've posted, but Frank Lloyd Wright is a Wisconsinite through-and-through, doing lots of early work from Chicago as a young adult but settling back near his home country outside Madison and building Taliesin, where he lived and worked (wintering in Arizona beginning in 1937) from 1911 until his death in 1959).
It's a very important disctinction, considering the prairie/usonian designs he pioneered were directly tied to the Driftless landscape of Wisconsin. The "Prairie School" he founded "emulated the flatness of the plains and the natural limestone outcroppings of the Driftless Area." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliesin_(studio)
Illinois has a tiny speck of the Driftless over near Galena, 3-4 hours away from Chicago. The Driftless landscape and the landscape of 95+% of Illinois are very different and would have influenced a young FLR to go a different direction.
Outside this point, yes, the architecture (and architectural history) of Toronto simply can't touch Chicago's. I think pretty much everyone would agree.
As for whether Canadian cities are similar to American cities, well, for me they generally are, but I've always lived sorta-near the Canadian border. Similar vibe/accents/outlook. Quebec is its own thing, as many have said already, it and Montreal have some unique attributes, just like some American cities do. Overall, though, to me they're very similar overall.
As for whether Canadian cities are similar to American cities, well, for me they generally are, but I've always lived sorta-near the Canadian border. Similar vibe/accents/outlook. Quebec is its own thing, as many have said already, it and Montreal have some unique attributes, just like some American cities do. Overall, though, to me they're very similar overall.
They're similar, there's some slight difference in terms of development and culture, but fairly close in many ways(though there's places like Quebec or Atlantic Canada they feel more unique). It's sort of like New Zealand and Australian cities are fairly similar in many ways, and then while there's obviously cultural differences and much different landscapes, cities in both nations aren't all that different in feel and look from many places in Canada(or even a few US cities). I was hosting some Australian friends and they though Vancouver BC just felt like some Australian city that they never visited before. All four nations though share the English language and an colonial past and mostly grew up rather recently in terms of urban growth.
What's sort of different is that Vancouver builds a lot more tall dense high rise residential, while Seattle sort of talks about it but then builds some mid-sized infill here and there. There's parts of Vancouver suburbs like the center of Richmond that now almost seem as dense as neighborhoods like Belltown just above downtown Seattle. Both cities/metros still have a mostly a lot of 20th Century suburban single family neighborhoods, but Vancouver you'll find high rise residential in adjacent suburbs as well.
Pre dense infill and postwar-mass immigration, say in 1960, I'd guess Vancouver and Seattle felt much more similar. Also with a strong blue-collar element as port cities. I talked to a relative who visited Vancouver in the early 60s and couldn't remember many high rises. It must have been a completely different city, in a way say, Manhattan would have been less obviously changed.
Some Canadian cities seem much more willing to build and mandate denser suburban development--while in much of the US you have too many NIMBYs and regulations to build denser suburbs. That seems to be one difference. In Canada though it's more like Europe where the government will make decisions for the "collective good" whereas in the US there's more an emphasis on "indivual rights".
You could also argue that NIMBYs and restrictions on dense development restrict developer's rights and newcomers right to live in new housing for the neighborhood. Though Vancouver is planned at a higher level (metro-wide) than an American metro would be. There's also a very weak demographic gradient between inner city and outskirts, though Seattle perhaps comes closest. Seattle's violent crime levels wouldn't be that unusual for a Canadian city, though a few other American cities come close.
Not fully. Canadian cities tend to not have any or many "ghetto" areas and not as much street violence as some parts of American cities. Canadian cities also have sort of a different feel (in my opinion with the exception of Toronto). Other than that they aren't too different.
Pre dense infill and postwar-mass immigration, say in 1960, I'd guess Vancouver and Seattle felt much more similar. Also with a strong blue-collar element as port cities. I talked to a relative who visited Vancouver in the early 60s and couldn't remember many high rises. It must have been a completely different city, in a way say, Manhattan would have been less obviously changed.
Yes, that's very true--I think Vancouver started building denser back in the 1970s--and then Asian immigration really boomed in the 1980s. Here's a picture of Vancouver in 1960, it looked like Victoria BC looks today.
Other Pacific NW cities like Seattle and Portland have all changed pretty significantly in the last 30 years, though I think it's interesting how Vancouver has really aggressively pushed building tall dense residential(even if the market was overbuilt for foreign investors and now probably due for a correction). A lot of neighborhoods outside the downtown areas in Seattle and Vancouver look similar, but there's kind of something a little different about Canadian cities. I lived in Edmonton for 4 years, and if you asked me to decsribe what's different about Canada it's hard to articulate, but it's sort of slightly more orderly, more sort of generic denser housing complexs in more suburban areas, and there's a certain type of commercial development in neighborhood commercial strips--there's something about Canadian cities that looks a little different. Also you rarely find many run down areas--everything looks cleaner. Though compared to anywhere else in the Americas, the US and Canada are basically siblings.
Unlike most American cities, many Canadian cities have dense thickets of hi-rise buildings scattered throughout the outer areas of the city and surrounding suburbs. Look off into the distance in these shots of Toronto and you can see hi-rise apartments dotting the landscape mixed in amongst the suburban single family houses.
I agree with most of what you've posted, but Frank Lloyd Wright is a Wisconsinite through-and-through, doing lots of early work from Chicago as a young adult but settling back near his home country outside Madison and building Taliesin, where he lived and worked (wintering in Arizona beginning in 1937) from 1911 until his death in 1959).
The "workplace" I mentioned was for Wright. I knew he is from Wisconsin. He moved to Chicago at 20, started his career there, married and started a family there, and rose to fame there and then more or less became a traveling luminary working all over the place. Pretty sure both Packer and Bears fans can lay a claim to Wright.
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