Shillers: history repeats itself
On Twitter, André Lavallée posts a La Presse story from 1984 in which the Shiller family is hiking rents on Masson Street and putting independent merchants out of business.
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dhomas 16:27 on 2021-03-05 Permalink
I’m no fan of the Shiller-Lavy empire, but Masson turned out pretty well for awhile after they started buying it up. I would still see sex workers walking that street as late as 2005. Since then, it has definitely become “classier”, and then gentrified. They might be really good at playing the long game in real estate. I lived in the area from 2010 to 2014 (my wife, who I started dating in 2003, grew up in the area) and it was great, but property value pretty much doubled in that time, to the point that when I was ready to buy a home myself in 2014, it was too expensive for me. Masson was a destination for awhile (nicknamed “Plateau Masson”), and rents got really expensive. They might have accelerated the process as this was likely one of their first real estate experiments during the “Au Bon Marché” era. The original “Marché du store” (Oui, Papa!) was not too far from Masson street on Saint-Joseph just east of St-Michel.
Blork 18:37 on 2021-03-05 Permalink
I’m not sure how getting priced out of your own neighborhood amounts to it “turned out pretty well.”
dhomas 19:20 on 2021-03-05 Permalink
Well, I did say “for awhile”. This being their first attempt at the real estate game (I think), they went about it a little slower. It allowed the neighbourhood to thrive a little more organically. They started buying it up in the mid-80s, and it only started fully gentrifying by 2011 or so. We had a good couple of decades of organic growth. I think they perfected and optimized their model after the Masson experiment. Or perhaps after they partnered with the Lavy clan, I don’t know.
Raymond Lutz 10:14 on 2021-03-06 Permalink
Capitalism “turned out pretty well” for a short period too. Murderous global and colonial wars, ecosystem collapses, alienating social inequities… Since a few decades we are starting to pay the price of our scupidity. Bernard Friot explains how we can abolish private lucrative propriety. In French, slow with plenty of hesitations (eeuuhhh), but informative.