Poplars are indeed annoying, but they're also one of the few trees that's naturally resilient in our climate, and also fast growing in our climate. The shallow rooting, easily break-offable limbs have been survival features in a high wind, shallow topsoil landscape.
Their weed-like resiliency to climate and pests is why they've even thrived where planted and see some care. Some massive poplars in some old neighborhoods, bigger and much longer-lived than a typical poplar.
The tower poplar has been an extremely popular tree to be planted in newer neighborhoods, particularly with the smaller suburban lots. Small footprint and quick growth to a lot with not much surface area for trees helps areas get a bit of foliage as the other trees catch up.
Poplars have some very annoying habits, but are an important part of maintaining strong canopy coverage in a landscape trees don't like to be. Maple trees don't have much for redeemable qualities after you have to deal with all those samaras, but it's still nice to have some of them. Age and species diversity are vital to avoiding being devastated by a single pest (like the emerald ash borer laying waste to so many trees in the Great Lakes region).
Worth a dive into the city's tree map to see how planting habits have evolved over the years. Suburban communities with all the boulevards have definitely seen a huge push of elm and ash plantings, but does leave them susceptible to some bleakness in the future. Other areas you can see much more erratic seeming plantings along streets (same reliance on elm and ash, but with a bit more diversity beyond the typical schubert cherry and crabapple tree buffers.
https://maps.calgary.ca/TreeSchedule/
When the bugs and disease and climate change wipes out everything else, you'll all be glad for the poplars that remain!