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Montreal is what North America could be

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Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#31

Post by bombcar »

manacit wrote: post #12
pessimizer wrote: post #4

As 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 n…

Chicago 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 d…

It's entirely unreasonable to expect cities to look like some perfect gradient of density like something out of Cities Skylines; you'd expect the central desirable areas to be the most dense, and pockets of density here and there, but you'd still find single family homes even in dense areas for quite awhile. Paris didn't become as dense as it is overnight, and even there you can find relatively low-density housing quite close to the CBD.

The question I'd have is how close is a non single-family dwelling (exclude duplexes, too) - I'm in a relatively low density ruralish town, and there's an apartment building a block away on one side, and three on another.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#32

Post by pkaler »

I'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.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#33

Post by mechatrocity »

boringg wrote: post #2

Corrupt 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!

Aerospace and Video Games seem like 2 massive industries for the city?

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#34

Post by frosted-flakes »

This 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

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#36

Post by betaby »

gdsdfe wrote: post #23
martin_drapeau wrote: post #3

I 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.

crime 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

Compared 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.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#37

Post by pessimizer »

zozbot234 wrote: post #19
pessimizer wrote: post #4

As 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 n…

Sure, but even U.S. city centers are way lower density than the European or Asian equivalent, often looking more like what would be a suburb there. Truly walkable areas are basically non-existent.

> Truly walkable areas are basically non-existent.

It's weird that I've made it nearly a half-century without owning a car. Edit: Sarcasm aside, I think you're critiquing a abstraction conjured by political rhetoric. I've walked every street of Chicago. In Chicago, every four blocks in every direction is a commercial street.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#38

Post by bombcar »

pessimizer wrote: post #18
manacit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago 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 d…

> 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. I live in Chicago, in a three floor walkup three blocks from an El station, and walk by dozens of single family homes on the way there. Ther…

Even Houston and LA have density pockets, apartment buildings can be found and they often cluster together.

I think more and more single-family homes have to be the enemy, because there must always be an Other preventing your paradise from being reality.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#39

Post by gdsdfe »

manux wrote: post #24
johnatwork wrote: post #14

Rent 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.

Wow, 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.

While 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)

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#40

Post by ohples »

zzbzq wrote: post #13
pessimizer wrote: post #4

As 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 n…

City planning hipster-ism is great clickbait on the internet. Younger people without much experience or brains click on it and get all enthusiastic about the idea of some mythical perfect city. In this case, the "missing middle" is what cheaper living looks like outside of a big city center. In the big cities, high rises are used because the city is literally out of space. Outside of a big city, single family homes a…

The problem we have in the United States is we have a lot of growing cities, like in the sun belt were I am, it is illegal to build "missing middle" housing in a lot of places.
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