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Montreal is what North America could be
71–80 of 119 posts
Re: Montreal is what North America could be
#72"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?
Re: Montreal is what North America could be
#73No post body was provided.
Re: Montreal is what North America could be
#74I 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…
> "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.
Re: Montreal is what North America could be
#75Earlier 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…
Also doesn't apply to Boston, Philly, and perhaps some smaller cities in New Jersey etc.. The author is Canadian and it seems like he's taking a lot of his perspective from Toronto, which is actually kind of bizarre in that it has clusters of high rises with single family homes in between, and leafy suburban neighborhoods right around downtown.
Toronto’s core urban density is lower than Montreal’s. Am referring to the densest neighbourhoods like Plateau. Often I go to Toronto and find I am the only one walking down many streets, which does not happen often in Montreal or NYC
Re: Montreal is what North America could be
#76Earlier 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 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…
Remember, kids, it's only racist if you're the majority /s
Re: Montreal is what North America could be
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
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)
I 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.
Having 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.
Re: Montreal is what North America could be
#78Earlier 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…
> 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.
These are only unmet demands limited to a few cities that young wealthy educated surburbanites flocked to as a group, thereby making them very expensive. Instead of detailing my unremarkable life, apartment, and neighborhood in Chicago. I'll just say that not everybody has to live in SF, Seattle, Austin, or whatever the next desirable place is. If you can't afford it, there are other places available. It isn't like there aren't tech jobs in Chicago, or remote.
Re: Montreal is what North America could be
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I 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.
Same 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.
Burning 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.
Re: Montreal is what North America could be
#80Can 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.
Montreal has probably the best public transit in north America. Can't think of anything else really.
Relatively cheap rents for a city of that size.