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I cannot really think of any North American cities that are particularly like Sydney and Melbourne. The ethnic mix in San Francisco reminded me of Sydney, but that was about it. Capetown, South Africa actually reminded me of Sydney.
The city that I know most like Melbourne is Buenos Aires. But only in an architectural sense.
American cities usually have wider streets, grid patterns, strip malls and less areas suitable for walking.
I cannot really think of any North American cities that are particularly like Sydney and Melbourne. The ethnic mix in San Francisco reminded me of Sydney, but that was about it. Capetown, South Africa actually reminded me of Sydney.
The city that I know most like Melbourne is Buenos Aires. But only in an architectural sense.
American cities usually have wider streets, grid patterns, strip malls and less areas suitable for walking.
Yeah you're right about the wider streets, grids, strip malls and pedestrian hostility. Do you think Boston's streetscape is similar to Sydney's? (albeit with different architecture)
Yeah you're right about the wider streets, grids, strip malls and pedestrian hostility. Do you think Boston's streetscape is similar to Sydney's? (albeit with different architecture)
Melbourne and Sydney are also quite different from each other as well. Melbourne’s trams and associated infrastructure tend to make it’s CBD streets look a lot narrower than they are, and it’s geography facilitated a more classic gridded layout as found in other Australian cities. Another obvious difference is that Melbourne is easily the “taller” looking city.
Sydney feels denser though and somewhat larger despite the minimal population difference, maybe owing to that perceived density. But, with the masses of highrise construction going on around Melbourne's CBD it'll easily outgrow, and "out-tall" Sydney's.
I cannot really think of any North American cities that are particularly like Sydney and Melbourne. The ethnic mix in San Francisco reminded me of Sydney, but that was about it. Capetown, South Africa actually reminded me of Sydney.
The city that I know most like Melbourne is Buenos Aires. But only in an architectural sense.
American cities usually have wider streets, grid patterns, strip malls and less areas suitable for walking.
Portland Oregon kinda reminded me of Melbourne. Strong indie music and art scenes and such...I just felt like the two cities were artistically in-tune with each other.
Sydney, maybe like a much larger San Diego...mostly because something about Sydney seems so 'Southern California'...but Los Angeles is just such a strange city overall...San Diego is a more polished cleaner smaller Los Angeles...with the surf culture and such....but Sydney is more of a LA-type of Magnet for Australians though....
I don't know of any North American city that has laneways and to my knowledge San Francisco, Boston and Toronto don't. Quebec City and New Orleans might, though. Some parts of Lower Manhattan in NYC might also.
Those laneways are really cool though- makes you feel like you're Madrid or Barcelona.
The urban core of my city, Montreal, has quite a few laneways. And Montreal, in general, has more of the feel of a European city than most other North American cities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MarisaMay
I cannot really think of any North American cities that are particularly like Sydney and Melbourne. The ethnic mix in San Francisco reminded me of Sydney, but that was about it. Capetown, South Africa actually reminded me of Sydney.
The city that I know most like Melbourne is Buenos Aires. But only in an architectural sense.
American cities usually have wider streets, grid patterns, strip malls and less areas suitable for walking.
Melbourne and Buenos Aires both have very strong cafe cultures as well, and very strong arts scenes. Of course, one city is Anglo and the other is Latin, but still.
Portland Oregon kinda reminded me of Melbourne. Strong indie music and art scenes and such...I just felt like the two cities were artistically in-tune with each other.
Sydney, maybe like a much larger San Diego...mostly because something about Sydney seems so 'Southern California'...but Los Angeles is just such a strange city overall...San Diego is a more polished cleaner smaller Los Angeles...with the surf culture and such....but Sydney is more of a LA-type of Magnet for Australians though....
Melbourne reminded me of a hybrid between Portland and Toronto. Very neat city.
The urban core of my city, Montreal, has quite a few laneways. And Montreal, in general, has more of the feel of a European city than most other North American cities.
Melbourne and Buenos Aires both have very strong cafe cultures as well, and very strong arts scenes. Of course, one city is Anglo and the other is Latin, but still.
To me Montreal looks quite similar to the non-hilly parts of Philadelphia (similar density, city land-area, population and grid layout); aside from its francophone culture and party culture, it struck me as much more like a Northeast US city than a European city. Old Montreal was the only part that felt European to me.
Buenos Aires is incredibly dense relative to Melbourne though and is massive. Buenos aires feels somewhat similar to Manhattan at street level (BA has a sea of seemingly unending midrise buildings similar to much of Upper Manhattan).
If Sydney has an urban population of 5 million there are 6 urban areas in the USA with population of over 5 million
1 New York--Newark, NY—NJ—CT 18,351,295
2 Los Angeles--Long Beach--Anaheim, CA 12,150,996
3 Chicago, IL—IN—WI 8,608,208
4 Miami, FL 5,502,379
5 Philadelphia, PA—NJ—DE—MD 5,441,567
6 Dallas--Fort Worth--Arlington, TX 5,121,892
7 Houston, TX 4,944,332
But Sydney has a per capita GDP that surpasses even the wealthiest per capita cities in the USA which are all much smaller.
Yeah I guess Sydney isn't rife with towers in the park the way north American cities are.
How do you think the urban scales of Toronto and Melbourne compare? Do Melbourne's commercial arteries (e.g. Sydney Road that goes thru Brunswick) compare with Toronto's (e.g. Queen St. west) in intensity and length of interrupted shops/restaurants/bars? How would you say their immediate cores compare?
Do you think Sydney's total amount of urban streetscape is more or less than Toronto's?
Sydney rd. seems more like a Yonge St., running out of the core north deep into the suburbs. But it's not as wide as Yonge st and indeed to my eye Aussie cities seem a bit less developed than North American cities like Toronto. Going down Sydney rd. compared to Yonge st. even north of bloor shows the difference.
There is just something off with the quality of the buildings and streetscape in Aussie cities.
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