I tend to agree with this - that 1.5 million is a pretty good scale - but I think there is really strong opportunity to stretch that "ideal" size city much further. Essentially: how can we feel like a city of 1.5 million, but actually be 3 million? The more I think about it, the more I am convinced it's largely all about reducing the dependence on private vehicles.
To me, the ideal sized city is one where I have:
- 18 to 24 hour access for many/most things people need and want (groceries, coffee, restaurants, nightlife, parks)
- Ability to leave the city is reasonably easy (nearby major airport, regional holiday opportunities like mountains, lakes etc.)
- Enough diversity to support whatever lifestyle I choose (housing type, arts and amenity choice, demographics)
- Reasonably affordable
- Not dependent on car-ownership (and not dependent on the income required to support owning one, as well as not a victim of ever-increasing congestion issues)
The goal is to get all the benefits of scale while avoiding more of the downsides. The key is better, smarter development and smarter infrastructure capacity improvement. I grouped some ideas below.
Regional
A regionally significant example is that Banff /Bow Valley corridor, it's becoming such a mess that will only get worse - unless we scale up the infrastructure smartly. Often discussed, but never realized (yet) - an electric train that can do Calgary-Banff in 1 hour would be how you ramp up access, while mitigating the downsides of more people plus numerous resiliency, climate and environmental benefits. If we add more highway lanes instead, we will never outpace the downsides of more activity in the mountains - just more weekend traffic jams, highway closures and collisions snarling the corridor forever. K-country and Banff have only so many parking spots available too, unless we pave over half the park with more - it's not a scalable solution.
City
On a city level, big projects we can do are transit stuff - not just more Greenline(s) but capacity, speed and resiliency improvements for all LRT and bus projects. Make transit faster, better connected, easier to use, less prone to delays through a bunch of big (grade separations, new lines/technologies, dedicated right-of-ways, TOD) and small projects (fare cards, branding, safety, lighting, station connectivity).
Local
On a more local level, it's the small scale infrastructure - sidewalks and cycletracks, but smarter, scaled up to handle more people. Real infrastructure. A city of 3 million shouldn't be playing the same games we are with spot improvements and a block-at-a-time cycling infrastructure. Metaphorically speaking - I should be able to bicycle from Chinook Centre to U of C on main roads in protected lanes without relying on my memory of which turn to take, which side-street connects to and from a river pathway, where the pot-holes and icy stretches are, where do cars turn blindly, where it's too dangerous to be on the road, where the crossing buttons do or don't work etc. Scrap all that mickey mouse stuff and give me a consistent, 4 or 5m wide high-quality, protected cycletrack along Macleod to the Bow River.
Land Use
Finally, land uses need to keep changing too. Finding ways to better use space, put more people into neighbourhoods so they can be vibrant and economically sustainable while maintaining the diversity required (old, young, rich, poor). To do this it means being smarter with land (less useless open space by design, less underutilized right-of-ways, less parking) and smarter with design (more and different housing options, smaller but better designed units). It doesn't, shouldn't and can't always mean 30 storey towers (which have to start getting better designed as well). Keeping affordability is always a challenge - best way to do that is to allow people to buy smaller houses/units that still work for their needs. Smart design and amenity-rich locations is key to that.
Quality of Life
More people means more noise, garbage and interactions. Make these as pleasant as possible. 30 years of loud cars on 17th Avenue doesn't add to the ambiance of city life, especially now that there is 10,000 more people living within earshot. Restrict car access as needed, actually enforce noise bylaws, think about urban noise as a factor when buying vehicles (buses, garbage trucks, fire trucks). More garbages, benches and public washrooms everywhere too.
Back to my "ideal" size list - I didn't put a number on it because it's possible to have all those things at much smaller or much larger scales. Banff (pop. 8,000) fakes most of these characteristics fairly well, thanks largely to the tourist crowd giving a town better nightlife and services than many cities 10x as big. But it also describes huge amounts of European and Japanese cities as well from the many millions to towns under 100,000.
The key at any scale is having the right infrastructure and land uses so that more people doesn't mean a more oppressive place to be.
