# The most North-american city outside of N America



## melbguy (Jan 23, 2007)

@ monkeyronin, have you been to Melbourne to back up what your saying? Like from when Melbourne was established, to around the 70's-80's, Melbourne was entirely based upon British design. Excluding the outer suburbs, quite a majority of buildings are heritage listed, almost every building in the inner to the mid suburbs are heritage listed or at least have heritage protection. I'm not saying Melbourne is one thing or another, i acknowledge and believe that it is a mix of allll sorts of '-iseds' (Americanised, Europeanised if you will, etc).

But again, what would you define as North American? Because we have a lot of different aspects from different North American cities, and a lot from European cities, its incredibly diverse, and you can't truly understand this from a photo of the CBD or other places around Melbourne, but from walking through the Arcades through the city, or the alfresco cafés of Chapel Street and St. Kilda, and just really experiencing every inche of this beautiful city. I'm not saying Melbourne isn't North-Americanesque, but surely it can not be THE most NA city outside of NA, as I would hate to see Melbourne be seperated into one particular definition.


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## rick1016 (Jan 16, 2005)

I'm from North America and am currently living in Melbourne, Australia. I can tell you that from experience, although Melbourne has quite a few similarities with North America, it's quite different.

For example, this grid system many of you speak of is mainly in the city, from my experience. Most North American cities use the grid system though out the suburbs as well.

Another example, Melbourne does have quite a few freeways, but not as many and not nearly as congested as a North American city would have. When you are using roads and such, in North America, you will see signs saying "Highway xx *west* Toronto" meaning that this way will take you west towards Toronto. In Australia, they don't seem to use North, South, East and West. Instead, the sign will say "Highway xx Melbourne"


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## KIWIKAAS (May 13, 2003)

Specific differences aside, Australian and New Zealand cities have more similarities to North American cities than can be said of any other countries.
Certainly no where in Europe or Asia.

For the most American like cities my vote goes as follows:

Perth
Gold Coast
Adelaide
Melbourne


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## aussiescraperman (Apr 5, 2005)

rick1016 said:


> I'm from North America and am currently living in Melbourne, Australia. I can tell you that from experience, although Melbourne has quite a few similarities with North America, it's quite different.
> 
> For example, this grid system many of you speak of is mainly in the city, from my experience. Most North American cities use the grid system though out the suburbs as well.
> 
> Another example, Melbourne does have quite a few freeways, but not as many and not nearly as congested as a North American city would have. When you are using roads and such, in North America, you will see signs saying "Highway xx *west* Toronto" meaning that this way will take you west towards Toronto. In Australia, they don't seem to use North, South, East and West. Instead, the sign will say "Highway xx Melbourne"


well the eastern suburbs are pretty much all grid, out where eastlink is being built. around where i live


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## rick1016 (Jan 16, 2005)

Does not seem that way. I'm in the Northeastern Suburbs, pull out a Melways.


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## trainrover (May 6, 2006)

Taller said:


> The GO system in Toronto is an excellent commuter train system


Then are we to believe that all of its passengers grumblings and complaints about that network are simply phony? "Excellent"? It's not even electrified anywhere . . .


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## trainrover (May 6, 2006)

Koolkid, I declared from the outset of this thread that I'm interested in where it'll lead us all . . .

Anyhow, I myself still can't pick a city I take to be the most American-resembling one, which is probably good, right?


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

trainrover said:


> Koolkid, I declared from the outset of this thread that I'm interested in where it'll lead us all . . .




Interestingly, this one managed to stay quite civil... but all these types of threads lead in the same direction. Vague, half baked ideas dreamt up by people basically unaware of far away cities, negatively stereotyped in order to place their own favoured region in a better light, sprinkled in with grains of truth. But other than that... great fun! :cheers:


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## monkeyronin (May 18, 2006)

melbguy said:


> @ monkeyronin, have you been to Melbourne to back up what your saying? Like from when Melbourne was established, to around the 70's-80's, Melbourne was entirely based upon British design. Excluding the outer suburbs, quite a majority of buildings are heritage listed, almost every building in the inner to the mid suburbs are heritage listed or at least have heritage protection.


No, but analysing pictures, maps, and statistics all put Melbourne in a very North American style of urbanity.

Being based upon a British design is not a uniquely non-American thing, as many Canadian cities are, and Northeastern US cities are as well (Boston, Toronto, Portsmouth, etc.). Same goes for historic architecture, especially cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Montreal, which are all much older than Melbourne, and became large established cities earlier on. 

Basically...while Melbourne may have many European influences...so do many cities in North America.



> But again, what would you define as North American?


Its a bit hard to define, as like on any continent, there is a fairly wide variety of cities, but in my opinion, in terms of things being either unique to/common in North America, or originating in North America:

1. The built form - skyscrapers mostly in the CBD (as well as a nice inventory of classic srapers), detached houses and some low rise apartments surrounding that. Basically, it needs to be centralised and have been developed around the train.

2. Gridded streets & freeways, cul-de-sacs and curving streets in the suburbs. Looking at street maps, Melbourne seems to follow this model for the most part. 

3. Density - high density in the inner city with low density in the burbs, and an overall low density due to copious suburbs. I seem to have lost the chart, but in terms of urban area density of Canadian, American, and Australian cities, you had Los Angeles and Toronto around 2700/sqkm, New York and Sydney around 2,500/sqkm, and Montreal and Melbourne at 2,000/sqkm.

4. Surface parking lots, car dependancy, etc. Thankfully, this doesn't apply much to Melbourne. 

5. Diversity & immigration. 

Now I'm not saying Melbourne isn't unique, as it certainly is, however, it (and all other Australian cities) has more in common with North American cities than anything else.


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## raggedy13 (Jan 25, 2007)

I would say Sydney is up there but mostly I think this because it just did such a good job at looking like a generic American city in the Matrix.

Overall though it seems difficult to define a North American city. The most significant similarities (in terms of built form) include the presence of a core of skyscrapers, a street grid, and a radiation of detached-single-family-housing-based suburbs from the core. All of these differ to varying degrees though across NA cities. Some of the older ones don't have proper street grids at their cores, number/height/location of highrises differs as well as some metros have significant numbers of suburban highrises, and in some metros there is more multi-unit housing being built than detached single family housing these days.


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## KIWIKAAS (May 13, 2003)

I think Sydney fits in closer to the north eastern model of cities (such as Boston).


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## KIWIKAAS (May 13, 2003)

A ''car'' suburb in Perth W.A.


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## Yardmaster (Jun 1, 2004)

What's a typical North American City anyway? Surely baltimore is rather different from LA ?

Sydney would have to be more American than Melbourne, but one thing it certainly doesn't have is a grid street-pattern: due to the local geography, it's all over the place (quite charmingly).


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## maayan (Jul 4, 2006)

I'm pretty much sure that if Israel wasn't that dense we would have the most north-american cities, but according to what you define north american as low density cities, than they are not


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## Cristovão471 (May 9, 2006)

Sydney is much denser than Melbourne (more apartments). Melbourne contains more detached houses compared to Sydney, even with it's smaller population. like 970,000 vs 920,000 or something.


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## rick1016 (Jan 16, 2005)

Yardmaster said:


> What's a typical North American City anyway? Surely baltimore is rather different from LA ?
> 
> Sydney would have to be more American than Melbourne, but one thing it certainly doesn't have is a grid street-pattern: due to the local geography, it's all over the place (quite charmingly).


Dense with skyscrapers and freeways. Lots of people too.


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## Booyashako (Sep 11, 2002)

KIWIKAAS said:


> A ''car'' suburb in Perth W.A.


Looks right outta Florida...


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## samsonyuen (Sep 23, 2003)

The most Northern America outside of Northern America (Canada and US):
Frankfurt (looking)
Sydney (feeling)

Milton Keynes looks kinda American, but not Brum.


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## Jeff_of_Dayton (Dec 16, 2006)

That Perth suburb does look pretty American (except for the paver block driveways).

Another thing I saw from Australia was on one of those road geek boards, where some Australian guy posted pix of his road trip to Melbourne from maybe Syndey or Canberra.

Getting into Melbourne I was seeing pix of suburban areas that could be right out of a US city, including fast food places whos logos I recognized tho the names are different (Hungry Jack = Burger King). The difference was, of course, the driving was on the left.


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## Jeff_of_Dayton (Dec 16, 2006)

Having been to Frankfurt it isnt that American, though the skyline looks that way and there are "edge city" office parks. 

The older parts of town look pretty European still, and the suburbs do have a lot of high rise housing that one doesnt see too much in the US, outside of maybe NYC and other special cases.

Also, the skyscraper area isnt where it would be in a US city. In the US, the skyscrapers would be in the "altstadt", while in Frankfurt they are out in that "West End" area between the altstadt and the fairgrounds/railroad station.


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