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Montreal is what North America could be

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Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#61

Post by make3 »

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!

It'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

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#62

Post by pessimizer »

ska wrote: post #42
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…

It does describe an awful lot of US cities though. I don't think the article was claiming that Montreal is the only place in north america that looks like this, was it?

> It does describe an awful lot of US cities though.

I think it describes the suburbs that a lot of these people are from. I don't think it characterizes North American cities, which this article definitely thinks it does. I was struggling to find anything distinct between Montreal and Chicago from all of these pictures. And I've lived in a lot of different large, small, and medium-sized US cities in my twisty journey from Chicago to Chicago, although my only coastal cities are Portland, OR and Baltimore.

I think the Toronto distribution (which I'm willing to assume is accurately described) is probably characteristic of a particular very rapid growth pattern with a particular income distribution, rather than some North American collective mistake.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#63

Post by RC_ITR »

mercy_dude wrote: post #58

I 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…

>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.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#64

Post by joshl32532 »

make3 wrote: post #61
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!

It'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

Montreal used to have really good tech scene.

But nowadays, Toronto/Waterloo/Vancouver are way ahead. Even Ottawa and Calgary is catching up.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#65

Post by hclalpha »

jagger27 wrote: post #25
Apocryphon wrote: post #9

I 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.

I 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.

A 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.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#66

Post by gdsdfe »

manux wrote: post #43
gdsdfe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not really no, there's been a bump which studies seem to agree is an aftereffect of COVID, but the media is also paying more attention to it. There's always been some amount of shootings and stabbings in Montreal, and 99% of Montreal is safe during night time. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2021001/article... https://spvm.qc.ca/upload/02/2021_Activity_Report_SPVM_EN_VF...

euh thanks for proving my point lol have you read the report ?

"À Montréal, en 2021, ceux-ci ont augmenté de 17,3 % par rapport à la moyenne de 2016 à 2020. Les homicides et les tentatives de meurtre ont augmenté de façon importante et la problématique de la violence armée contribue très certainement à ce portrait. En effet, la moitié des homicides et des tentatives de meurtre commis sur le territoire du SPVM en 2021 impliquait la présence ou l’utilisation d’une arme à feu (voir tableau Armes à feu). La problématique de la violence armée demeure au centre des préoccupations du SPVM. "

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#67

Post by Scoundreller »

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…

> I have a strong conviction that the reason Montreal housing is cheaper is in no small part because of the language barrier.

You can totally get by in Montreal speaking English only.

Here’s the CEO of Air Canada, Michael Rousseau, on how he’s managed to thrive in Montreal without knowing French working for a legislatively bilingual organization: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/air-canada-ceo-1.6393063

> Even if you could work remotely, why would you move somewhere you don't speak the primary language

Immigrating to Quebec from outside of Canada is difficult since they have a system to keep non-French speakers from moving there.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#68

Post by newaccount2021 »

joshl32532 wrote: post #55
zzbzq wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can argue against someone's opinion, but you shouldn't degrade their intellect to make your point. There's a growing demand for mid-density mixed-use land because younger generations cannot afford SFHs, more incline to take public transportation, more things to do, pub/bars/live music than SFH with backyards that caters more to families with kids. Urban sprawl happened for many decades because of cheap and abunda…

My issue with the StrongTowns set is they only want homes built for the use-case thirty-one year-old single office workers. They can't imagine anything else and they are quick to denigrate people who want a yard and a driveway as knuckle-dragging apes being duped by oil companies and SUV manufacturers.

Closely related are the people who ask over and over again why everyone in the US can't ride bikes like they do in Belgium. I'll tell you why - my backyard is bigger than Belgium. But don't worry, once the typical HN reader hits 65 you will see a sharp decline in the suggestions that everyone ride bikes everywhere.

Some of us want: a yard. A garage. Space between us and a neighbor. Enough room for a family of four.

I absolutely don't see the StrongTowns model as an unassailable good - I have no desire to share a wall with my neighbors.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#69

Post by RC_ITR »

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…

>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.

Single Family Homerism is very popular among boomers who have never been to Europe or Asia.

Re: Montreal is what North America could be

#70

Post by gdsdfe »

betaby wrote: post #54
gdsdfe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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

But that's typical narrative in Canada in general - 'look at least it's not bad compared to USA'.

it's our only neighbour but we'll always look good if we compare ourself with the worst
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