ssiguy Originally Posted by Djeffery................you are right about the date, I should have proofread better as it was a typo on my part as I meant to write 1920. I've corrected my error.



As far as London is concerned, it is what it is................a very pleasant, safe, clean, green city with a rich architectural heritage and very pleasant inner city neighbourhoods and parks. While certainly not exciting, London is a lovely city and has a good reputation as being such all across Canada.



One thing that London has which stands out is a VERY solid urban form. You would be very hard pressed to find more than one solid block of undevveloped land in any part of the city pre-1970 urban boundaries. This has led to London being a very walkable city and pedestrian friendly city much of it due to the facyt that London has very little manufactruing areas and post-industrial blight.



Of course this constant urban form has meant that London was never ripped up by urban freeways which can permanently scar the urban landscape and divide neighbourhoods. This constant urban form has however had a the negative consequence of making London traffic horrid and leaving no corridors for mass/rapid transit.



London is also quite unique in Canada in having a downtown park. Almost all Canadian cities have inner city parks but almost none have a beautiful big park one block from the main drag that everyone downtown can REALISTICALLY go to during their lunch hour. The cities that do have option are ussually river/lakeside greenways but not real parks.