Montreal: Canada's most American city?

[adma]

spacing is way too concerned with weird issues like the height limit and "community feedback" to give much of a shit about architecture. they probably think it's decadent, bougie...

Actually, what's at issue here is Spacing Montreal, versus its Toronto big sibling--or at least the network of discussion behind either.

And as long as folks like Shawn Micallef are around, there'll be a side to Spacing Toronto that's not only sympathetic to architecture, but with a revisionist bent re 60s/70s commieblockitude. Whereas in Montreal, it still often feels like they're eternally battling Drapeau-era excesses to the point of myopic hysteria...

 

[junctionist]

I was a bit surprised by the posting and comments at Spacing Montreal about the building, which seemed to focus only on its bulk and height. I think a fine hotel tower in that location, like Four Seasons or Shangri-La, could complement and add to the appreciation of the surrounding bulk of concrete highrises. Instead, the post mentions painting the grey buildings bright colours, and no one commented on the wretchedness of too-late-po-mo of the proposed design at all. It's only one posting and a set of comments, but it made me think, "What up with our sister city down the river?"

It turned into some sort of discussion about the merits of out-of-towners supporting the city. One person seemed to touch upon what you were thinking of:

Of course, large developments of this nature should no doubt be monitored, but only to ensure build and design quality, along with architectural integration with it’s surroundings in terms of *style* – rather than being discouraged for simple matters of ’scale’ or ‘height’ …

 

[kool maudit]

Actually, what's at issue here is Spacing Montreal, versus its Toronto big sibling--or at least the network of discussion behind either.

And as long as folks like Shawn Micallef are around, there'll be a side to Spacing Toronto that's not only sympathetic to architecture, but with a revisionist bent re 60s/70s commieblockitude. Whereas in Montreal, it still often feels like they're eternally battling Drapeau-era excesses to the point of myopic hysteria...

yeah, i meant spacing montreal. i didn't know there was a toronto edition.

 

[taal]

Hamilton actually is quite dense, no doubt a result of its unique geography and the era in which the city was built.

Population density of continuous urban area as defined by Statistics Canada (pop/square km) (2001 census data)
Toronto 2718.29
Montreal 1978.16
Hamilton 1763.13
Vancouver 1720.00
Ottawa 1680.55

These numbers seem really odd to me - if you go by wiki (which is not very accurate at all ) you'd get something like:
Vancouver
Montreal
Toronto

What exactly is being measured in the above stats - is it for the entire city?

 

[flar]

These numbers seem really odd to me - if you go by wiki (which is not very accurate at all ) you'd get something like:
Vancouver
Montreal
Toronto

What exactly is being measured in the above stats - is it for the entire city?

"Urban Area" represents the entire built up part of a city, excluding the rural fringes that are sometimes included in municipal boundaries or CMAs. Urban area is not limited by municipal boundaries but is limited by CMA boundary (this only applies in the case of Toronto/Hamilton, which technically form one urban area, but they are split at the Oakville/Burlington border). Statscan defines urban area as contiguous census tracts containing over 400 persons per square km.


The wiki is probably wrong, no census tract in Vancouver is as dense as some in Toronto or Montreal are.

 

[allabootmatt]

Not the West End? Additionally, I would imagine the distribution is dramatically different in TO vs. Montreal; with Toronto having lots of relatively low-density areas punctuated by pockets of extreme, Asian-style concentrations of people, and Mtl being much more evenly spread.

On a slightly different note, I would like to chime in on something I have mentioned before on UT: specifically, just how gracefully Montreal has evolved in, oh, the last eight years or so. I don't think there's any doubt that it has, at this point, given up on trying to compete with Toronto for the title of Canada's most important/wealthy/powerful/whatever city, and is much the better for it. It's like a weight has been lifted, allowing a pretty remarkable town to relax a bit and focus on its strengths (like design, the above notwithstanding, education, and tourism) rather than attempting to remain Canada's metropolis. There is certainly no shame in joining the Barcelonas and Munichs and Melbournes and Bostons of the world as 'second' cities that are nonetheless sure of themselves and have strong local identities and their own gravitational pull in some respects.

Indeed, so much of Toronto's status anxiety seems to stem from our desire to be all things to all people, as Canada's main international city--something we are just now growing into but were certainly not prepared for when the urge--or need--began.

 

[Archivist]

Re: Population densities. I think all measurements of population density are problematic, because CMAs are not the most useful measurement for density. If you look at the CMA map for Vancouver, for instance, it includes large mountainous sections to the north which are uninhabitable, as well as the wetlands of Delta. It makes sense to measure population by CMAs, but density ... I don't think there is real meaning there. Or at least, I think difficulties in doing so mean that the results are generally not as meaningful as one might hope for.

Re: allabootmatt's comment about Montreal. I have also had this sense, of Montreal getting over it, and moving on, in a quite graceful way. I have felt the same for some years, that they are moving on and quite confidently, in their own way. And good on them.

 

[flar]

Yep, most measures of population density are problematic. CMA is probably the worst because there is no consistency in land area. For population density, I use urban area most of the time because it captures the entirety of the central built-up area of a city but specifically excludes the large sparsely populated areas contained in CMAs. Population densities based on urban area allows better comparisons among cities, if you want to compare the city as a whole. High density doesn't always mean skyscrapers, pre WW2 residential areas as found in Toronto, Montreal and Hamilton can pack some serious density too.

Here's another way to look at density that better shows off Vancouver's density. You can see that Vancouver's suburbs taper off to a low density while Toronto has relatively dense suburbs (sprawl can actually have high-ish densities).

The first column lists the density of the top 10% of highest density census tracts for each city's CMA. The second column is the density of the first quartile (25%), then the second quartile (50%), third quartile (75%), and finally density of the entire urban area as defined by Statistics Canada. This data gives us a feel for the distribution of density in a city. All densities are population/km2

Using this data we can make a density profile for each city:

 

[taal]

wow great work!

I'm surprised though, I always figured Vancouver's 10% would beat out Toronto and Montreal.

 

[flar]

wow great work!

I'm surprised though, I always figured Vancouver's 10% would beat out Toronto and Montreal.

Looking just at individual census tracts:

Vancouver has about 9 with densities around 20,000. The highest density is 28,272.

Montreal's highest is 45,308. Then there are two more in the 30,000s and about 11 around 20,000.

Toronto's highest is 64,636, with one another at 44,448, another four in the 30,000s, and 17 more around 20,000.

Quebec City's highest is about 18,000 and Hamilton's highest is around 15,000. The highest density in the other cities (Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg) is around 11-12,000.

(sorry for going off topic!)

 

[WillC]

question

Thanks for posting that. As there is no source listed, if you've prepared these figures yourself from the census, that seems like a huge amount of work.

I'm wondering if the reason for T.O.'s more dense sprawl is because of the greenbelt virtually surrounding us bringing about more high rise in the suburbs.

Speaking as a non-architect, I think that Montreal's housing stock downtown is a much more pleasant way to achieve density, if that includes areas in the plateau, or just some downtown high rises that I don't know about.

 

[adma]

I'm wondering if the reason for T.O.'s more dense sprawl is because of the greenbelt virtually surrounding us bringing about more high rise in the suburbs.

Doubt if greenbelt's specifically the factor--probably simply that government planning policy encouraged suburban high-rise in the GTA, and it's more the lack of a "big pipe" than greenbelt issues that held things back north of Steeles for so long. And Toronto--sans the topographic/seismic/contextual issues that tied back Mont and Van--simply acclimatized itself to this model.

 

[Memph]

Austin Contrarian did a calculation of the density of all the major American urban areas weighted by population, which is similar to what flar did but gave a single density value for each urban area. I ran the numbers for Montreal and here's how it fared (in people per square miles):

New York: 33,029
Montreal: 14,121
Bay Area: 12,906
Los Angeles: 12,557
Honolulu: 11,989
Chicago: 10,270
Philadelphia: 8,457
Boston: 7,711
San Diego: 7,186
Baltimore: 6,952
Washington: 6,835
Miami: 6,810
Phoenix: 5,238
Detroit: 4,955
Seattle: 4,747
Dallas: 4,641
Riverside-San-Bernardino: 4,514
Houston: 4,514
Portland: 4,383
Atlanta: 2,362
http://www.austincontrarian.com/austincontrarian/2008/03/weighted-densit.html

Montreal's 2-3 storey apartment buildings which are so common throughout the inner city were a big part of why it ranked 2nd. I haven't done any other Canadian cities yet, but from Flar's stats, Toronto shouldn't be just a little behind Montreal. I should point out that I calculated the urban area using the US methodology, which is a little different from Canada's, and gave a 2006 population of 3,299,497 for Montreal's urban area. Also, the South Shore portion of Montreal's urban area had a weighted density of around 7,000ppsm, with Laval also having similar numbers.

 

[isaidso]

Do me a favor, post picks of every other Canadian city, and it'll look just like that ... maybe less Vancouver / Toronto. But I can show you many shots of Toronto that give the exact same impression.

Exactly. If you're going to call Montreal the most 'American' city its the same as calling Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, etc. quintessentially 'Canadian'. It's a pointless classification. All you're really saying is that all these cities are similarly north American which would make sense because they're all in north America.

We share a continent, culture, architecture, a great deal of history, and even similar demographics. Of course they're going to look similar. Just like Santiago, Lima, and Recife are going to all look south American. Labeling Lima 'Brazilian' because it looks like cities in Brazil is ridiculous. Likewise, labeling Montreal 'American' because it looks like cities in the US is equally ridiculous.

 

[RC8]

Exactly. If you're going to call Montreal the most 'American' city its the same as calling Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, etc. quintessentially 'Canadian'. It's a pointless classification. All you're really saying is that all these cities are similarly north American which would make sense because they're all in north America.

We share a continent, culture, architecture, a great deal of history, and even similar demographics. Of course they're going to look similar. Just like Santiago, Lima, and Recife are going to all look south American. Labeling Lima 'Brazilian' because it looks like cities in Brazil is ridiculous. Likewise, labeling Montreal 'American' because it looks like cities in the US is equally ridiculous.

I don't disagree with your point, but Lima and Santiago are not very good examples. Out of different South American cities, those two are particularly unlike one another.