Mayor Plante is happy about the recent growth in the city’s population, saying that her administration’s attention to quality of life here has attracted people to the city.
Updates from January, 2024 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Business guys say that a “feeling of insecurity” is keeping people away from downtown. Or rather, from downtown offices. Funny how these “representatives of Montreal’s business community” will latch onto anything rather than admit that a lot of people hated office life and don’t want to go back to it.
In addition, people are facing rising living expenses so they don’t take the same pleasure in casual shopping and eating out as in the past, and a lot of purchases are made online.
We’re not afraid. It’s just that the whole purpose of downtown’s existence has shifted, while business guys think it’s unfair that we don’t want to return to 20th‑century habits. What they need to ask is how downtown can meet 21st‑century needs – and what to do if it can’t.
Ephraim
I find it interesting that in many European cities you have these suburban satellite business neighbourhoods, where people work in their neighbourhoods rather than have to go all the way downtown. But the reality is that jobs are no longer tied to buildings and the sooner we realize that, the better.
You wonder how much Quebec politicians have invested in this… If your central office is in Toronto and you are working in Montreal, do you have a right to work in French? And if you decide that they do have that right, how that will affect salaries and the ability to be hired. Sure, you can do a job in Paris, but there are more French speakers in Africa that can compete. There are almost as many French speakers in Kinshasa as there are in Paris and Abidjan isn’t that far behind.
Kate
In Kinshasa and Abidjan, though, as I understand it, French is something of an official language, but most people aren’t speaking it at home. Of course, that also applies to some extent to Montreal as well.
Kevin
There is a lot of money invested in commercial real estate estate in Canada and it’s going up in smoke.
It’s like in movies where people ask where the money went, and someone tries to explain that the money only existed in account balances and assets, it was never really real.
The head of RBC has been saying for more than a year that this is affecting nationwide productivity—but he’s not talking about the work produced by labour, he means the value of assets is crashing.
Robert H
Relative to the health of downtown, I take your point, Kate that there was always a general dissatisfaction with office and commuting life that predated the pandemic. The coronavirus didn’t cause the current struggles, but simply accelerated already established trends, technology and the economy did the rest. The business community is still leaning too heavily on the idea of an office revival. I think centre-ville is in an awkward transitional phase, no longer what it was but not yet settled into a new purpose or environment.
But central Montreal still has fundamental strengths not found in most North American city centres. The area will have thousands of new residents as people fill the rising condominium towers and apartment buildings. The foundational institutions such in arts and education are still there (demagoguery from Équipe Legault notwithstanding). The public transport system converges there and it is far from the semi-abandoned zone found in cities around the continent.
I’ll expand upon Ephraim’s comment about suburban satellite business neighbourhoods in European cities by noting that the gleaming towers of La Défense outside Paris’ Périphérique or Canary Wharf in London’s east end haven’t sapped the vitality of either city’s historic centre. I think central Montreal has good bones, and I’m hopeful that each threat to it would be met by innovation leading to a positive evolution.
Dominic
Having lived downtown, and since Covid moved back to the suburbs, what’s on Ste Catherine’s street that I cant get at Fairview, or DIX30, or Carrefour Laval? Apple store, Starbucks, Sports Experts, Cineplex, Indigo, and the Bay? I can get to those places anywhere.
What’s the draw to go downtown unless its for an event, or museum, or a “special” dinner?
DeWolf
There’s a ton of interesting independent businesses all over downtown. Plus, unlike the suburbs, you can actually walk places without needing a car.
I’m currently in Chicago and while there is a lot of spectacular architecture here, downtown is generally much less interesting than Montreal. The mix of businesses is especially bad – there’s a few interesting independents here and there, but it’s overwhelmingly chain stores and restaurants. And not as bustling as I would have expected given Chicago’s size.
The universities and colleges, plus all the cultural venues, go a long way in making downtown Montreal a pretty dynamic place even if it definitely needs some love and attention in terms of urban design and management.
Kevin
I think Legault and Roberge have this idea that by crushing McGill, Concordia, and Dawson that 30,000 anglos will vanish and rushing into the vaccuum will be 30,000 francophones flocking to the internationally renowned bastions of education, UQAM and Cegep du Vieux.
qatzelok
@Dominic: “what’s on Ste Catherine’s street that I cant get at Fairview, or DIX30, or Carrefour Laval?”
A streetlife full of spontaneity that goes beyond shopping. Public life and community are not the same as shopping at malls.
Ian
I used to work with a guy from Laval who said much the same – why should I leave Laval? We have at least one of everything Montreal does. My response was that sure, there is one of everything – but where you have maybe one of two good Indian places, we have entire neighbourhoods. You can get ramen at the mall, we get Kazu. His response was “well I don’t like any of that weird stuff anyway”.
Good riddance.
If all you want is chain stores, yeah, go live in Laval or Missisauga or wherever. You won’t be missed. Going to a McKibbin’s at a mall is not the same as going to the St Patrick’s parade. I could go on.
Of course downtown there are also museums, libraries, cafés, art galleries, bookstores, etc. each of which are unique – and exist in much higher concentration downtown than in the sticks.
EmilyG
I currently live in the suburbs.
I don’t go downtown much because it takes a while to get there, and a bit of planning. And I often don’t have time in my day. It isn’t because I’m afraid. I don’t tend to feel insecure downtown.
I’d love to move closer to the city centre.Blork
In pre-pandemic times, when more people worked downtown, downtown had the advantage of bringing people together from all over the city, every day. There are all sorts of good things that come with that, but the most obvious is the social one. Specifically, the ease of socializing (whether it’s a coffee break, lunch, or drinks/dinner after work) with people who don’t live in your neighbourhood and who you would otherwise probably never meet.
Personally, I miss this. My so-called “book club” (essentially a euphemism for four middle-aged guys drinking and eating pizza) used to meet every month, which was easy to set up because three out of four of us worked downtown, with the fourth working in NDG which was close enough. Now we have me in Longueuil, another guy in the West Island, one in NDG, and one downtown. The only one who works downtown now is the guy who also lives downtown. Arranging after-work drinks/etc. with this (now) geographically dispersed group is a lot more difficult than it used to be.
And that’s for a well-established group of friends. Meeting and socializing with new people who you work with when everyone works from home is even more difficult since every meet-up has to be deliberate and intentional instead of spontaneous and serendipitous.
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Kate
The STM is looking for a solution to make it easier for students and seniors to update their Opus cards remotely, instead of having to go downtown in person to do it.
Meezly
Is the card reader doohickey thing too complicated? Or they don’t want to shell out the $13 for the convenience of a piece of hardware? Maybe that’s now considered old tech?
Mark Côté
This is about renewing Opus cards, not adding tickets to them. Since seniors & students get a discount (and at least student ones require a photo), they’ve traditionally had to do it in person to prove their validity.
Joey
BTW, the Chrono app can use your phone’s NFC reader to check the balance of your Opus card. You can’t use it to purchase anything, but you can at least check to see if you’ve got any tickets left before getting on the bus/metro.
Blork
OMG, Joey, thanks for that! When I try to check my ticket balance at a machine there is a Byzantine series of unintuitive clicks to go through, and if you’re lucky enough to make it you’re presented with some enigmatic and impenetrable babblegook that tells somebody something but doesn’t tell me how many tickets I have.
I just got the Chrono app, and not only can I EASILY see how many tickets I have, it even tells me when my OPUS card is going to expire (soon, actually). Imagine being able to PLAN for that instead of getting stuck one day with a suddenly and unexpectedly-expired OPUS. Yay Chrono!
dhomas
For those who don’t need the Chrono app (I’m a fan of Transit App, myself), you can use a standalone app that reads your Opus and gives you the same relevant information:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=card.opusBlork
I don’t see the Opus app on the Apple app store. (There is an “Opus card” app, but it’s for some kind of Mastercard credit card.)
I too prefer Transit for bus planning, but the Chrono app is free and this is probably the only thing I’ll use it for.
dhomas
Ah, I have an Android, so I shared the Google Play store link. It’s great that iPhone users can still get the functionality in the Chrono app.
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Kate
The city has declared Chinatown a historic zone, which should extend it some protection – possibly too little too late.
Ian
Gee I hope this means they plan to preserve teh Guy-Favreau complext too /s
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Kate
A detailed study by two academics reveals that public transit is still not accessible enough. Bus stops, metro stations and trains around the city make it very difficult for people with any kind of disability to use regular transit. And this isn’t just about winter, although the accompanying photos suggest that.
More pieces on this study Thursday expand on the general difficulty for pedestrians and difficulties for specific disabilities.
EmilyG
Something that I hardly ever hear about (maybe because it’s not the same as a physical disability) is how hostile public transport can be for autistic people. And I say that as an autistic person and an avid public transit user.
Montreal in general is quite an autism-unfriendly city. It seems to be something a lot of non-autistic people realize, and so they don’t think a lot about it.Kate
EmilyG, how would you change buses and metro, and the city generally, to be less hostile to autistic people?
EmilyG
I’d have “please give me a seat” badges for transit like they do in Toronto. Maybe more things like the quiet cars in trains would be nice.
I think that banning eating on transit would be nice, and would cut down on bad smells. Many cities have done so. But that might be controversial in Montreal.For the city generally: Autism-friendly shopping hours is a big change I would make. Grocery stores are notorious among autistic people for being overwhelming, with all the noise and such. In many other cities, grocery stores have autism-friendly shopping hours, where the noise is toned down, lights are dimmer, and things are quieter and less overstimulating.
They did have supposedly disability-and-senior-friendly shopping hours at the start of the pandemic. But when I tried to get into a store for that, the guard didn’t want to let me in because, she said, “I could walk.” She didn’t’ believe I was disabled.
And yes, autism is a disability. It’s even officially considered so in Quebec.Special housing for autistic people would be nice. We often have trouble finding suitable housing. But with a housing crisis in general going on, that seems like a bit of a pipe dream.
A big change that would be good for Montreal/Quebec would be to ban abusive autism therapy that is still not only done to kids, but actually recommended. But changing whole systems is hard. And not having children myself, people might not take me seriously when I speak up about this issue.
Those are a few of the things I can think of at the moment.
PatrickC 22:21 on 2024-01-17 Permalink
Recent studies are underscoring the link between substantial population growth and rising housing prices. Obvious, one might think, but the connection is creating increasing political tension nationwide. This report was cited in The Globe:
https://www.nbc.ca/content/dam/bnc/taux-analyses/analyse-eco/etude-speciale/special-report_240115.pdf
qatzelok 13:12 on 2024-01-18 Permalink
Another article that explores what happens when a nation-state increases its population much faster than it builds housing for people:
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/chroniques/2024-01-17/le-piege-demographique-montrealais-et-canadien.php