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I live in Montreal. It’s like this. The key is the zoning doesn’t require a ton of setbacks, parking spaces, single use neighborhoods, etc My brother was visit
by graeme 6y ago
I live in Montreal. It’s like this. The key is the zoning doesn’t require a ton of setbacks, parking spaces, single use neighborhoods, etc
My brother was visiting, and I showed him a broken book. He mentioned it would be nice to repair. I said I’d check if there was a bookbinder in walking distance. He was skeptical. Google maps showed three within a 20 minute walk, in different directions.
Pick any service and it’s like that. The area is dense, quiet, leafy, unpolluted, full of parks, small yards, three stories high, but full of commercial arteries such that anything you want is a quick walk away. Whole swaths of the city are like that.
The areas are enormously popular and tourists love them. Yet such neighbourhoods are illegal to build in the whole rest of north america.
- udev 6y agoI love Montreal, but it seems you are describing the Plateau/Mile-End rather than Montreal as a whole. But I agree, from the North American cities I visited, Montreal has the nicest, livable higher-density housing areas.
- graeme 6y agoFair though it’s more than the plateau. Mile end, rosemont, little Italy, mcgill ghetto, outremont are all like this. And then while other areas don’t have quite as many criss crossing streets, they are still very walkable and mixed. (Cote des neiges, st henri, ndg, westmount etc) I’m sure I’m forgetting some neighbourhoods too. Mostly describing those I personally walked around a lot. The mountain gets a way a bit for those in the second list, whereas the areas around the plateau are a square grid of similar neighbourhoods in all directions.
- blaser-waffle 6y agoHigh taxes, but surprisingly low cost of living. "hard to be a consumer but easier to be a human" was what I've heard about the city.
- UncleOxidant 6y agoI'd take that tradeoff.
- refurb 6y agoNice platitude but I’m not sure what it means.
- simlevesque 6y agoI live in Montreal too and we'll have to work hard for it not to become just like everywhere else in North America. New construction projects are totally different from the places that were built a long time ago, like around Masson, Ontario, St-Laurent, etc... Griffintown makes me sad.
- nicbou 6y agoYes! I remember when they started building around the ÉTS (Griffintown?) There was no life there, just a sea of condos with no services. Verdun was a much more lively place.
- burlesona 6y agoYou described the key issue: "such neighborhoods are illegal to build in the whole rest of North America." I don't think it's productive to think of the suburbs as "bad" or "wrong," because that just turns into an angry debate about whose lifestyle is better. What I think is productive is to recognize that we shouldn't be legislating that there can only be one way to live, and we especially shouldn't be prohibiting that the traditional neighborhood development patterns that have worked for thousands of years. If we actually had a free market, there would be both a fair amount of auto-oriented suburban development, and massively more traditional, walkable neighborhood development.
- OxO4 6y agoWould your "free market" also mean that the people living in the suburbs pay the true cost of living in suburbs? Including higher taxes to offset the higher infrastructure costs and the higher impact on the environment?
- bilbo0s 6y agoOf course, if it didn't, it wouldn't be free market. The government would still have their finger on the scale.
- quantumwannabe 6y agoSure, as long as people living in dense areas pay the true cost of living there. No more free or subsidized fares that only pay a fraction of the operating costs and zero of the capital costs of transit. Be ready to pay carbon tax on the steel and concrete used to construct tall buildings that the wooden suburban house doesn't have to pay. Maybe move some jobs out of the city to the suburbs; it's not fair that suburban commuters subsidize city people's lifestyles with the goods they buy while there for work and the taxes their employers pay on the property they work in. You can't just make up "externalities" for something you dislike; I guarantee you, anything you like has lots of "externalities" as well that may cancel out whatever you're trying to charge someone else for things they like. Gas taxes, tolls, and other user fees pay far more of the total expenditure on roads than transit fares pay for their infrastructure and operating costs. Be careful what you wish for, you may not like what you get.
- antb123 6y agoParis ... even paris suburbs and French small towns are like this.
- moltar 6y agoThat’s the reason I truly adore and love Montreal. It’s the best city in Canada in my mind. If it wasn’t for the brutal winter, I think it’d be the best city in Canada by everyone’s view too.