Quote:
Originally Posted by SebC
Per km^2
Montreal: 3889
Calgary: 1501
Toronto: 4334
Boston: 5143
Pittsburgh: 2112
NYC:10,413
San Fran: 6,659
Chicago: 4,582
Vancouver: 5,492
Other stats:
Montreal area: 431.5 km^2
Calgary area: 825.3 km^2
Looks to me like Montreal is right about where you'd expect in density, lower than bigger cities, higher than smaller ones.
The one that surprises me is Vancouver, given that it's mostly SFH. I guess the downtown density and not having empty space within the city limits is really lifting it up!
You are, however, correct that most of Montreal could be characterized as medium density rather than high density.
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For these types of comparisons, it's better to look at urban density, which counts all of the built-up area in and around a city whether it's inside the city limits or not.
Calgary has historically annexed its smaller surrounding communities like Bowness, Forest Lawn, and Midnapore into the larger city. Many other large cities don't annex the surrounding communities, so they end up with a bunch of smaller cities making up the actual urban area.
The city of Vancouver's population is under 700,000, but the urban population is over 2.4 million. In Calgary, the city and urban populations are virtually identical at 1.3 million.
If you compare the urban density of the two cities, Vancouver is 2,661.3/kmē and Calgary is 2,099.9/kmē.