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Montreal is what North America could be
- reiichiroh 4y agoMotorists of Montreal would disagree with your admiration.
- boringg 4y agoCorrupt and slowly dying city without any strong industry to keep it grounded including some pretty intense language laws. I think Montreal was amazing in the 60s and has been slowly dying since. Great to visit in the summer though!
- make3 4y agoIt's not slowly dying in any way and has a really strong technology sector. The corruption stuff... I've lived in Montreal all my life and have never seen or heard of anyone confronted to that in any way; I think there were some issues in the construction industry, but like it's a million times overblown
- joshl32532 4y agoMontreal used to have really good tech scene. But nowadays, Toronto/Waterloo/Vancouver are way ahead. Even Ottawa and Calgary is catching up.
- atdrummond 4y agoI wasn’t too impressed during my visits for conventions there. Love Quebec City though, even if they were burning American flags there the two times I visited on Jean Baptiste day.
- hclalpha 4y agoSame people,under order of British gov, also went down south and burned the white house in 1812. True story. Not the point at all. Montréal is unique. It's the only American city with both french and english cultures living hand in hand. It's also great for novel cuisine, micro. It has 4 full seasons do you can practice almost any sports and neat mountain ranges with amazing wildlife just an hour away to the north.
- Apocryphon 4y agoBurning of Washington was done in retaliation of the Americans burning and looting York, the capital of Upper Canada. French Canadians, the Canadiens, lived in Lower Canada, whose capital was Quebec City. Probably not the same people.
- atdrummond 4y agoBrits ultimately lost that one due to a hurricane anyway. I’ve enjoyed many months in Quebec (I went to Med School in Vermont and went up there many times) but I never got Montreal. Totally acknowledge I might have just not have spent enough time in the right areas.
- caiob 4y ago
- diego_moita 4y agoFor Americans: the description above summarizes most of the prejudices Canadians feel about Montreal. Like most prejudices they might start from a grain of truth but take it too far. Montreal has lots of corruption[1]. Most of it is related to public construction and activities of traditional organized crime (Mafia and Camorra). But these are "lots" by the civilized Canadian standards, Montreal is still better than the overwhelming majority of the world. Besides, when it comes to Mafia/Camorra activities, Toronto is not much better. Also, when it comes to government relations with party donors, I think Alberta just does a better work of hiding corruption, it is rotten all the same. "Without strong industry" means that Montreal lost its manufacturing sector to China and Mexico, like so many North American cities. However I'd argue that the city has managed to develop a good technology sector (particularly in software) and an active cultural industry. "Including some pretty intense language laws" is probably the most correct sentence above. The language laws in Quebec are, IMO, very stupid. But, because Montreal is the place with most Anglophones in Quebec, the city is were the anachronism of these laws becomes more obvious. [1] https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-most-corrupt-province/ https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-most-corrupt-provinc...
- mechatrocity 4y agoAerospace and Video Games seem like 2 massive industries for the city?
- martin_drapeau 4y agoI live in Montreal. One thing that is remarkable here is that even with 2M people, there are no ghettoes. Rich neighborhoods are generally mixed in with poorer ones. It's a great city to live in and to raise a family.
- johnatwork 4y agoI would not raise a family in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoHM is steadily gentrifying though. Montreal North has a pretty shit reputation. I remember there were riots there a few years ago and one of the journalists who was sent to cover it was relieved of his camera by some local residents. He wasn't even an outsider, its the neighbourhood they grew up in.
- caiob 4y ago
- gdsdfe 4y agocrime is on the rise, there's shootings and stabbing every week ... some neighbourhood are not save during night time. I'm not sure we're talking about the same Montreal here
- betaby 4y agoCompared with the same-sized US cities Montreal is OK. However safety wise it's not the same Montreal it used to be 10 years ago.
- gdsdfe 4y agoI don't think the US is the example to follow here ... you want mass shootings every week? this is like saying well you can put your hand in boiling water after all it's not as hot as the sun lol
- pessimizer 4y agoAs a Chicagoan, I don't understand this critique of North America. This seems to be a critique of the suburbs. > They are dominated by detached homes, often set back from the road by lawns. Multi-family housing is generally confined to the downtown, and mainly comes in the form of high-rise towers. This certainly doesn't describe Chicago at all, or even nearby suburbs. It seems like a third of the makeup of Chicago neighborhoods are three-floor walkups and courtyard buildings, right next to single-family housing. The high-rises are where upper-middle class people from out of town move to (and overpay for) because they've been filled with mythical tales of superpredators.
- atdrummond 4y agoAs a former Chicagoan, 100% agree. I do wish the city and state were better governed, as someone who grew up in West Central Illinois and served as a politician there, it’s not called Forgottonia for no reason. There are other parts of the state with some reasonable density and living spaces and could be so much more with even a bit of additional investment.
- pessimizer 4y agoIn Illinois, we choose to exclusively elect corrupt self-dealing politicians. We think that a politician without an obvious ulterior financial motive is mysterious and therefore dangerous.
- manacit 4y agoChicago and NYC are probably the two places this critique does not apply to. Take Houston, LA, etc. that are all around the same size, and you'll find a significantly different makeup of housing stock. Take where I live - Seattle - and the criticism makes a lot more sense. I live in a neighborhood about two blocks from a light rail stop and still walk by single family homes on relatively large plots on my walk from door to door. In nearly any direction, you are within a block or two of what one would say looks like a suburban single family home. There is the concept of "urban villages" which are small pockets of multi-family housing surrounded by low density housing. I have a strong conviction that the reason Montreal housing is cheaper is in no small part because of the language barrier. Even if you could work remotely, why would you move somewhere you don't speak the primary language, surrounded by people that are somewhat hostile? It's a much smaller market.
- dr_dshiv 4y agoI was encountered by a lot of pan handlers there who looked young and healthy. It seemed strange to ask for money before getting strung out.
- chasd00 4y agoI've encountered this too. I always figured the panhandlers were grad students doing a sociology experiment. ...or just grad students.
- Apocryphon 4y agoI wonder what historical forces led to this different type of development. Already by the time of the American Revolution, the Quebecois were ambivalent at best towards their erstwhile mother country, so I don't think it's a matter of continued French influence over the centuries.
- jagger27 4y agoI think much of it has to do with how old the city is. It’s about as old as New York City but didn’t have the same level of explosive growth, which I suspect gave it time to settle in and grow more like a European city. The somewhat limited island space would have also contributed to denser growth.
- hclalpha 4y agoA lot of it is actually, I think, a consequence of heating during winter. A lot of the denser parts of Montréal have been built at a time where Hydro-electricity wasn't developed. Houses were heated by coal and oil mainly, which was delivered in small streets build behind the building as the stuff was nasty. Getting greather density meant easier delivery. This is only speculation.
- Z_Z 4y agosomething the author doesn't point out is new development in Montreal. you can see the patch of green to the east of the Montreal housing map where Griffontown and North Verdun (the more recently developed areas of the city) are moving towards condo style housing. rent prices have been trending higher too, but I suppose you could say that about the rest of the country too. not criticizing the post, and it's one of my favourite cities to live. but the problems are coming here too.
- betaby 4y agoSo the problem is the new development or what? Aren't more people people require more hosing? Or you have something different in mind by ' the problems are coming here too'?
- alephxyz 4y agoThe previous mayors allowed areas to be rezoned to dense residential without investing in public infrastructure so you end up with neighborhoods full of condo towers with no schools or hospitals and very little public transit.
- alephxyz 4y agoI think you mean little burgundy, north Verdun is full of older triplexes. You're right though, the previous two mayors really screwed up the new developments around Griffintown, Lachine's first avenue and the Children's Square. I'm also not very hopeful about the future RoyalMount project even though that's technically not part of the city of Montreal.
- johnatwork 4y agoRent is cheap because people are leaving the xenophobic environment. There's always some referendum talk on a 20 year cycle to keep the rates low, 70s, 90, 10s. So yeah there's a huge Brain Drain from Anglo/English speaking Immigrant populations, as well as people fed up with the corruption.
- manux 4y agoWow, what a take. I seriously doubt that people in Montreal/Quebec are more or less xenophobic than the average North American; if you have data supporting this I'd be happy to change my mind. Also please be more skeptical of thoughts of the form "X is Y because of hot take Z". Reality is complex and things have many causes. Montreal has a long history of doing city planning differently than other cities in Canada.
- gdsdfe 4y agoWhile I don't think rent and xenophobia are related, it really is palpable here specially when you're immigrant and specially now during election (Quebec election are happening next Monday)
- manux 4y agoI know, the CAQ is full of xenophobes, and it can suck not looking white in Quebec (although much less so in Montreal). I'm skeptical that it drives rent prices in any detectable way.
- totony 4y agoHaving lived in Montreal it's probably in the top end of the most inclusive place I have been. The only thing i feel like parent could be referring to is the language laws, but the reasoning here is that they are necessary when surrounded by english (and has nothing to do with race). Plus language laws are barely respected already.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- GnarfGnarf 4y agoAnd he didn't even mention Habitat 67! https://www.habitat67.com/en/ https://www.habitat67.com/en/
- 3qz 4y ago
- bombcar 4y agoPeople have said similar things about Paris.
- brnt 4y agoWhatever it is they are speaking, French it ain't. It's a _superthick_ accent. I have the same with many a Brit btw, they can produce some of the most ununderstandable English I've ever heard.
- rahen 4y agoThe Québecois, and French Canadians as a whole, speak perfect French. Of course they have an accent, but so do Texans and the Scottish, yet it's still English.
- Apocryphon 4y agoIn fact, they could even claim to speak a truer form of French than the Parisien variety. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/deplorable-quebecois-accent-has-royal-roots-linguist-asserts/article660839/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/deplorable-que... It's similar to how American English preserves what modern British English has since lost. https://www.languagehumanities.org/what-is-the-difference-between-theater-and-theatre.htm https://www.languagehumanities.org/what-is-the-difference-be... https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-p...
- pGuitar 4y agoMost people also speak English
- glitchc 4y agoMontreal housing remains affordable because the economy is crap but the social net (which the rest of the country pays for) is strong. A tourist’s view (spending one whole week) is not representative of living there and should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
- rory 4y agoThe author is using Toronto as a stand-in for a typical North American city, when in fact it's actually pretty bizarre and unique with respect to density-- I can't think of any American city structured similarly.
- perardi 4y agoHaving lived in both places: Chicago. Dense downtown core, though Toronto has more people living there versus just offices. (Though that's been changing for a while now in Chicago). Similar scope of mass transit, where the trains don’t reach big chunks of what used to be suburbs and surrounding communities. Similar population. Great big ol’ lake right there.
- angarg12 4y agoAlthough I agree with the spirit of the post, the critique of what 'feels' nice and livable is highly debatable, and I believe intensely culture-specific. I was born and grew up in a very dense, urban city in Europe, and I love big, dense cities. They feel fun and lively, while suburbs feel empty and eerie. On the other hand my wife grew up in the countryside, so for her suburbs are quite and peaceful while cities are dirty and noisy. Also one can cherry pick beautiful/horrible examples of any kind to make their point.
- pkaler 4y agoI've been to Montreal a few times and live in Vancouver. The missing middle of housing is what Vancouver could take from Montreal as the article states. The other thing it could take is the events (F1, ComedyFest, JazzFest, etc) Skytrain, buses, and YVR are much better compared to Montreal. It's a tossup as to which city is more corrupt with government-granted oligopolies and rent-seeking.
- frosted-flakes 4y agoThis paragraph stood out to me: > Don’t get me wrong, I think highrise condos and single family detached homes have their place. Lots of people want a large home with a lawn. But more than anything people want an affordable place to live, close to their work, their family, friends, etc. There's a reason the realtor's motto is location, location, location. It would be nice if detached homes and condo towers weren’t essentially the only two housing options in most of North America. It would be nice if more people could live where they want to live. I imagine that if people were given the option to live in the kinds of communities that I found in Montreal, many – not all, of course! – would. I have also been watching videos on YouTube by a channel called "Oh The Urbanity!" which is about urban design and how cities can be made more walkable, bikeable, and all around easier and safer to get around in. They often highlight Montreal in their videos, and it's made me want to visit for a week just to experience what it would be like living in such a city. [1] is a video that had some particularly strong arguments that I enjoyed. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xXZaLMlXvs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xXZaLMlXvs
- aprdm 4y agoA place with a crumbling health care system, sounds about right.
- 3pt14159 4y agoI like Montreal and Toronto. I live in Toronto because I like the diversity, but I'm sure I would happily live in Montreal too. That said, it isn't fair to compare housing costs between Quebec cities and Ontario ones. Land tax is much, much higher in Quebec to the point where even just across the river from Ottawa you'll see 2x housing differentials. Add in language laws of Quebec which, I'm actually in favour of, and you'll end up with parents preferring Ontario even when they have a choice of where to live for work. Lastly, the scale on those maps matter. Montreal is much smaller than Toronto. My home city has a bunch of condo buildings, yes, but they aren't all surrounded directly by suburban homes. There are a decent number of midrises and row houses, though not as much as I would hope for. But when looking at maps, it's important to keep in mind the absolute SCALE of Toronto. Toronto is HUGE. Only two American cities beat it out in size, New York and LA. Montreal has more midrises around its core in large part because its core is so small and that is the natural function of the mathematics of things. In Toronto we build our core up, up, up. Over twenty-five buildings are over 200 meters tall, compared to Montreal's measly two. We can learn from some of the things Montreal does right, and I agree their midrises are generally speaking better than ours, but it's more complicated than this article makes it out to be, even if there are real lessons to glean from its good faith take.
- fromwilliam 4y agoThe scale on the maps I showed is the same, which is the point. Toronto, as you point out, has a built up core, but Montreal spreads its density wider.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoCan anyone explain this article to me? Why would America want to be like Montreal at all? A fair amount of US was built with some considerations in mind. I am not sure what Montreal has to offer here.
- betaby 4y agoMontreal has probably the best public transit in north America. Can't think of anything else really.
- Apocryphon 4y agoRelatively cheap rents for a city of that size.
- betaby 4y agoMatches the income of the population I would say.
- johnatwork 4y agoRENT IS HALF THE PRICE! ...your pay is also half the amount.
- johnatwork 4y agoExcept for their Rail system, that one stops working if you look at it wrong. Metro/Buses are great (except in the West Island of course)
- mercy_dude 4y agoI don’t understand the attack on detached family home. We have a lot of land. And enough natural resources to fund enough renewable ventures such as EV adoption and renewable energy production. This seems to be a wider effort by a group of loud mouths to discourage families to single family homes while investors gobble up SFHs in North America at record speed. I mean who do you think are going to own the lions share of multi family housing they espouse? The authors best argument seems to be well connected public transport but that argument falls pretty quickly if you go outside the core. Suburbs like Laval land Brossard are just as bad and take over an hour to reach downtown. And there is enormous amount of corruption- most of past Montreal mayors have faced corruption charges , it is so ingrained.
- RC_ITR 4y ago>And enough natural resources to fund enough renewable ventures such as EV adoption and renewable energy production. It's not just cars to move people. It's getting water to each house. And electrical to each house (hope it survives that recent storm!) And groceries to each house. And fire department coverage of each house. And Ambulance coverage to each house. And kids to school from each house. It's just a million things that are all made less efficient by choice. And honestly, fine! Allow the people who want cars and SFH to have cars and SFH. But the problem that people ignore is that cars and SFH are the only affordable option in most of North America because of intentional policy choices and that is what articles like this are fighting.
- thebradbain 4y ago> "attack on detached family home" Single family homes in high-demand/land-constrained cities often make up >66% of the allowed zoning (see San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, etc); By definition this is not a good allotment of land and resources in high demand areas (you are fitting 1 family where you could fit 2-4 families with little immediate change in the neighborhood). No one is saying ban building of single family homes, but the amount of land exclusively zoned for single family homes in high demand areas needs to be rebalanced -- if you want the conveniences of a single family home in an urban city, you should be prepared to pay for it (think Upper East Side brownstones), or move further outside the city. But there is no reason that the vast majority of homes in a city MUST be single family homes. I say this as someone who owns a single family home in Los Angeles, and supported the conversion directly next door to me of a single family home into what is now a four-plex.
- drbeast 4y ago
- drewcoo 4y ago"Missing middle" construction seems inefficient for heating and Montreal gets cold. It probably helped for cooling in the summer before A/C existed, but compared with here in the midwest (not even anywhere south) Us, Montreal doesn't really get that hot. "Missing middle" is a style I'd expect more in Mediterranean climates, like southern California. It's also not as good is insulating for things like sound. Maybe that's a cultural difference. What part of France were a lot of the immigrants to Montreal originally from?
- drbeast 4y ago
- tb_technical 4y agoExcept that in North America (N. Dakota) I can own guns and kick people off my land myself. Get wrecked, leafs!
- loufe 4y agoYou can do a lot of reading on the subject. One thing you'll find repeated is the FLQ crisis' effect on housing. Around that time a large movement of anglophones resulted in a huge drop in housing demand in Montréal. The city continued building at a reasonable pace but all those old apartment buildings/low-rises/row houses are kept maintained and thus haven't dropped out of the housing stock. The unfilled housing ratio is higher in Montréal as a result. That is simple economics.
- Blackstrat 4y agoFortunately, it’s not what it is.
- fargle 4y agoWell sure it could be, if that's what we all wanted. Some people don't like urban super-metropolises at all. Even if they are really polite. Or nice like Montreal not like Toronto. In population, the US and Canada are dominated by mega-cities. But in number of communities, cities are dwarfed by towns and rural areas. You must remember there is enough open space here to live affordably in small distributed communities. Cities don't need to be better, they need to go away.
- xriddle 4y agoBorn and raised here 40+ years ... The language laws are ridiculous and getting worse, the roads are horrible and getting worse, traffic is horrible and getting worse, salaries are not on par with the rest of Canada and our winters would be considered apocalyptic to anyone not used to it. If you're listening North America, nothing to see here move along. I would move in a heartbeat if my family roots weren't here. https://montreal.citynews.ca/2022/05/08/quebec-language-law-businesses/ https://montreal.citynews.ca/2022/05/08/quebec-language-law-...