Comparing ‘Urbanism’ across NA cities

[rdaner]

Great video that ranks Toronto as #2.

 

[jje1000]

Great video that ranks Toronto as #2.

IMO the 40% car usage cutoff may need to be revisited, given that car-usage can also fluctuate over time based on policy and economics, and not necessarily built-form (you can see how DTES in Vancouver is somehow excluded, same with some very urban chunks of Philly that they themselves point out in the video).

I wonder if a system that also considers plus/sub-40% non-car usage neighbourhoods with a bonus/penalty multiplier system, along with a similar comparison of pedestrian traffic, could capture more of the nuances?

 

[Sunnyside]

IMO the 40% car usage cutoff may need to be revisited, given that car-usage can also fluctuate over time based on policy and economics, and not necessarily built-form (you can see how DTES in Vancouver is somehow excluded, same with some very urban chunks of Philly that they themselves point out in the video).

I wonder if a system that also considers plus/sub-40% non-car usage neighbourhoods with a bonus/penalty multiplier system, along with a similar comparison of pedestrian traffic, could capture more of the nuances?

I think it would’ve been useful to have an either/or for car usage and density to meet the criteria. Density is a fairly objective measure for “urbanism” despite how auto-centric it might be. Likewise, high active transport/transit usage alone can be a good indicator, but is not flawless (outer Toronto likely fits this bill). I think if you showed high density in red and high active transport/ transit in yellow as outliers to the crossover explored in the video (in orange) you’d get a more comprehensive understanding.

Side note, I was a little bit surprised to not see Hamilton in the honourary mentions, considering it was a larger prewar city than Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. Maybe it’s the low active/transit usage that knocked it down.

 

[MisterF]

Side note, I was a little bit surprised to not see Hamilton in the honourary mentions, considering it was a larger prewar city than Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. Maybe it’s the low active/transit usage that knocked it down.

Hamilton was larger than Ottawa in the more distant past but it passed Hamilton sometime in the 1920s. By 1941 Ottawa had 215,000 people while Hamilton had 176,000. Definitely debatable which city has the bigger pre-war core. Either way the two have very different development histories since. The fact that Ottawa has rapid transit probably helps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_Canadian_cities_by_census#