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Thunder Bay vs. Sudbury

  • Thunder Bay

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  • Sudbury

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Thunder Bay vs. Sudbury

32K views 147 replies 31 participants last post by  CanadianDemon 
#1 · (Edited)
I was originally going to post this in the City vs. City thread, but these two cities are kinda small and probably not too many people outside of Ontario have ever heard of these two cities, so that is why I have kept it in the Ontario forum here. But we have two cities very similar, except they are 1000 km away from each other. But they are both in Northern Ontario and have very similar populations. I remember there was a vs. thread between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, in which TBay won very heavily.

THE BATTLE OF NORTHERN ONTARIO!

Sudbury
Population: 155,000 (formerly 90,000, before it became GREATER SUDBURY)











Thunder Bay
Population: 120,000







 
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#4 ·
We need more pics!!! :)

I want to see cityscapes... are they similar to those of southern ontario?
 
#5 ·
what a crappy bunch of pics from Sudbury, how can anybody judge a city by this set?

Sudbury is way too sprawled and resembles a Texan city more than what a Northern city should be. The developments around Ramsey Lake are all right, the south of the city by Paris street has a couple of highrises, but nothing spectacular. I looks fine in summer with parks, lake and nice neighbourhoods. The north, called New Sudbury is a typical bland suburbia. Green, but boring. The down town core was in a rough shape when lived there in 2002. Quite a lot of boarded-up shops and cheap housing. Some decrepit, other in a need of repair. Not too many street life. Looked like most of the life was taking place in the suburbs.
 
#7 ·
Wow, the slogan was right, we are Superior by Nature!

I'll have a Thunder Bay photo thread sometime in November (when I get internet) I have never been to Sudbury, and only been to Sault a few times, if there is anybody that lives there, it would be nice to see them.
 
#9 ·
Jaybird said:
I really couldn't find any good pics of Sudbury, I was gonna go there this summer, but scheduling conflicts prevented me from doing that.
You have to really look. dig into websites, other than good. I looked up "Stop 2200 apartments" on google and found a few good pictures of sudbury apartment towers at http://gscrentals.com/Apartments/Sudbury/index.html. You have to really search. When compliling all of my Thunder Bay pictures (about 250 of them) I visited well over 200 websites.
 
#11 ·
Sudbury is more diversified, has much better downtown density and way more highrise apartment buildings scattered around the city, but the built environment of the city is quite unattractive and sprawled due to the unusual terrain that the city lies on.

Thunder Bay is much more isolated and lacks a strong centre, but the overall appearance of the city's built environment within its older neighbourhoods is much more attractive than in Sudbury where many of that city's older neighbourhoods look rather rundown and the houses and commercial buildings are often shack-like, boxy and utilitarian looking.

Both cities have beautiful natural surroundings with lakes, forests and hills and both cities have universities each with a joint location of the new Northern Medical school.

Sudbury has been in a growth phase for the last few years while Thunder Bay has only just recently started to see some new growth.

All in all, they seem pretty even to me, Sudbury seems to have a stronger economy right now, but Thunder Bay seems to have a more vibrant and interesting art and music scene, which is an important factor to me when I think about whether or not i'd like to live in a given city...

I can't decide.
 
#13 ·
One thing Thunder Bay has over Sudbury... you don't get much smog up there, much cooler during the summer, and cleaner air. Weather-related.

Sudbury has an advantage economically over Thunder Bay because it has a direct connection to Toronto on Highway 69/400 via Parry Sound and Ottawa on Highway 17/417 via North Bay.
 
#14 ·
I've been to Sudbury once but never been to Thunder Bay. Sudbury was ok, it didn't feel very urbanized partially because of the weird terrain as Softee mentioned. I remember it had a decent lakefront/beach area near downtown. Science North is worth the visit.
 
#18 ·
softee said:
Sudbury is more diversified, has much better downtown density and way more highrise apartment buildings scattered around the city, but the built environment of the city is quite unattractive and sprawled due to the unusual terrain that the city lies on.

All in all, they seem pretty even to me, Sudbury seems to have a stronger economy right now, but Thunder Bay seems to have a more vibrant and interesting art and music scene, which is an important factor to me when I think about whether or not i'd like to live in a given city...
TB has a be a shithole if its downtown has higher density than Sudbury which is all sprawl all the time. Sudbury is fine if you have a car, you can live there for years and never venture into the downtown core. Reminds me of some southern US cities in that regard minus the weather ;) Sprawl is mainly due to the INCO pollution and people trying to get as far away from it as possible, hence New Sudbury was build in the northern stretches of the down. City is as green now as other Canadian cities, but for many years it was a barren wasteland. Uneven geography and a lake right in the middle is no excuse for poor urban planning (ir lack thereof). Sudbury economy is in large part like Alberta's: resource based and nothing else. High nickel and copper prices have brought new jobs, but INCO has closed copper refinery (200 jobs) despite all of this. But yeah, economy is doing fine for now. Don't know anything about the arts or music scene, it looks more like a hard drinking, blue collar town ...
 
#20 ·
marek bielski said:
TB has a be a shithole if its downtown has higher density than Sudbury which is all sprawl all the time. Sudbury is fine if you have a car, you can live there for years and never venture into the downtown core. Reminds me of some southern US cities in that regard minus the weather ;) Sprawl is mainly due to the INCO pollution and people trying to get as far away from it as possible, hence New Sudbury was build in the northern stretches of the down. City is as green now as other Canadian cities, but for many years it was a barren wasteland. Uneven geography and a lake right in the middle is no excuse for poor urban planning (ir lack thereof). Sudbury economy is in large part like Alberta's: resource based and nothing else.
ima stop u right there,
sudburys economy used to be very bent on nickle production, (we are sitting on the worlds largest nickle deposite so no wonder) but now, many new sectors have emerged, mainly medical, we just constructed a new hospital and a new northern ontario medical school, transportation is big here, and so are sciences.
 
#21 ·
sudburyboy said:
ima stop u right there,
sudburys economy used to be very bent on nickle production, (we are sitting on the worlds largest nickle deposite so no wonder) but now, many new sectors have emerged, mainly medical, we just constructed a new hospital and a new northern ontario medical school, transportation is big here, and so are sciences.
Thunder Bay has the exact same thing (new hospital, the other half of the NO Med School, giant port and railyards, a much bigger and more important airport *spits at sudbury's "airport" while mocking it's patheticness HAHAHAHA* and several major science labs) but, all 3 Northern Ontario cities are heavily based on natural resources (Thunder Bay- lumber/grain Sault- Steel Suds- Nickel) but medical and educational jobs aren't good enough to be the foundation of an economy (except Rochester MN but they have a world class hospital, and are only an hour or two south of Minneapolis) but after all that, the Northern Ontario cities are heavily resource based.

Just be glad your city hasn't lost 1000 jobs in the last few months. :)

Oh, and you forgot the call centres. It probably accounts for 45-60% of job growth in the north. :D

Oh, but Sudbury has a gay bar! :D
 
#23 ·
Thunder Bay has only 5 buldings with more than 10 floors. I think Sudbury has about 8 or 9. Soo has 6 I think. Thunder Bay is too spread out, we barely even have a downtown. I think aside from the one tower in Downtown Sudbury all of them are apartments.
 
#25 ·
ThunderBay has a much nicer situation and is well known for LakeheadU.
Sudbury really is like living on the moon.
ThunderBay also has more historic buildings and more history going for it.
As far as I'm concerned it would be ThunderBay. Sudbury's only rtedeming feature is that it is much much much closer to Toronto.
 
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