Five Dense “Missing Middle” Neighbourhoods in Montreal
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- Опубликовано: 1 июл 2024
- Do you prefer living in a detached home or a condo/apartment tower? That's how most of us in North America think about housing options, but as it turns out, there are lots of intermediate options that could be built. It's called the "missing middle" and it can balance advantages of higher and lower density living.
Montreal, as an older city in North America with different architectural influences, is an excellent example of a city that retains this "missing middle" housing and in fact actively builds more of it. In this video we profile five different missing middle neighbourhoods in Montreal to see how to achieve density on a low-rise scale.
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Resources:
Les escaliers de Montréal vs towers of Toronto (urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014...)
A catalog of density, Québec/Canada version (urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2017/...)
Montreal: A Rich Tradition in Medium Density Housing (publications.gc.ca/collection...)
Data:
The density values in this video come from the 2016 census. The neighbourhood values come from visually analyzing the density of dissemination blocks (DBs) using censusmapper.ca, while other analysis was done on dissemination areas (DAs) using census data accessed through the 'cancensus' package in R.
#montreal #urbanism #missingmiddle
Good video! I think a lot of Americans don’t realize that density doesn’t mean highrise
@@urbanistgod ah yes we should build the whole city out of parking lots, nobody would every have to look for a spot!
@@urbanistgod I don't know You can build a big ass apartment complex and surround the rest of the space with a parking lot, that's still dense
Exactly.
To be fair that's the trend developers have been screwing towards for profitability. That's typically why you don't see the variety...that and the zoning laws.
@@FreyaEinde it’s not the profitability, look at neighbourhoods like this in toronto, they’re so in demands they’re outpacing the rest of the Toronto housing bubble, it’s all about the zoning laws
Density is underrated as an issue.
It does mean far less costs of maintaining infrastructure.
Higher affordability: You can get many different kinds of flats and houses.
Not to mention everything can be a little bit closer and driving less essential.
It's nicer as a human, _and_ better for the economy.
Not that Montreal is affordable though :(
And most people like to see some people around outside when they are outside of a car. It also makes walkable small local shops viable. Those are very nice to have around.
Also, on one hand you may think it is less safe with more people around, on the other hand there are always people around if somebody tries to break in etc. and you don't have to be paranoid every time a car you don't recognize drives past your home in suburbia
You guys should collab with RM Transit, About Here, NotJustBikes, or Paige Sanders to lift Canadian RUclipsrs up!
yes!
UP!!!
There is an impressive number of urbanist videos coming out of Canada right now. One of the key elements is the subtlety, and lack of hyperbole. The video producers are well aware of the complexity when it comes to these issues; there isn't one simple answer to these problems. This is yet another example.
Glad you covered Angus, I criticize it for being just a bit too car-centric but it's "of its time" and really not too bad. Constructing that whole suburb at a reasonable density out of aesthetically respectful clay brick was a win for Montreal. I really wish that city/developers would wake up and notice how much more palatable development is when you try to make it blend in. It is very noticeable how much less people complain about the aesthetics of Angus when compared to other modern developments.
You should continue to criticize it, it just look like shit just like any modern condos and housing modern design.
@@urbanistgod He didn't said to NOT ride a car. He said the place is car-centric... Go buy milk and cigarettes with your car you simpleton.
@@urbanistgod No, but you said "keep riding the bus, loser"... So, dude, you're the one starting bullshit like if he attacked your LOVE for cars. Seek beyond man wow.
The difference is the same that I've noticed in the out of island suburbs, it is more residential and so "outsiders" don't come hang out there as much. Personally that is not what I'd want to see on the rise in urban centers, but in reasonable doses its good for people who desire more peace.
I do think angus to does serve many needs. The amount of parking spaces and the demand for new buildings in a new dense neighborhood
I don't hear enough people talk about the fact that high rises have large maintenance costs compared to any other kind of home. Condo fees often end up above $500 a month, while a well made house, will never cost close to that $6000 a year to maintain. If I'm investing in a property, I don't want to have to put another 20% down payment every 8 years on it.
Middle housing allows us to have our cake and eat it too. No condo fees, and high density.
often, renting a high-rise unit is worth it over owning a condo (or a SFH), though. the only problem is that NA laws tend to heavily favor landlords, and leases are almost never longer than 1.5-2 years, making renting inherently unstable. IMO it would be ideal if most high-rises were rented, but offered longer lease terms (5-20+ yrs) and better renter protections like in some European countries such as Switzerland. (you can still leave before then by breaking the lease, which comes with a modest fee). this becomes a great option for families or seniors wanting more stability, but no condo HOA or huge lawn.
And the potential for very high maintenance costs as we saw with the condo collapse in Florida. Their structural issues were noted in 2018 but despite the warning that the damage would expand exponentially. It took them till now before they could raise enough money from the condo association to even plan some multi-million dollar remediation. The higher the structure. The higher the potential maintenance costs can be.
@@aabb55777 typically those plexes are managed as a co-ownership between the owners of the units, and there are condo fees to cover at the least building insurance and sometimes to go towards a contingency fund as well for when work needs to be done, all to be agreed between the co-owners.
High rise buildings are indeed pretty expensive ans have to be build very well and maintained very good this makes then pretty expensive.
@@urbanistgod The North American suburban sprawl which were build between WW2 and now make a lot of cities go broke on road maintenance alone, broke cities have to cut spending on city necessities which in the end creates impoverishing of the society.
What you need is some more mid density.
Look at how freaking nice these neighborhoods are! Beautifully green environment with lots of trees, comfortable sidewalks, nice bike lanes and even cute little corner shops! First north American neighborhoods where I think: yeah I could see myself living there :)
I found many bigger urban centers of Japan to offer similar housing. There are MANY 2 floor units with 4-8 dwellings. Having places packed like this with mixed zoning means everything is always close by. Grocery stores, restaurants, cafes, convenience stores, pharmacies, clinics, dentists, parks, home centers, train stations, bus stations, schools… always seem to be within a 5 min. walk.
That penultimate section was key. Detached homes are okay, but it can’t be the only development option if we want to make cities and towns everywhere sustainable
Detached homes are okay for multimillionaires that actually pay a decent aount of taxes (pretty few do).
For everyone else, especially nature, they are just too expensive. (And I don't mean that you cannot afford the money to buy them, I talk about all costs, hidden costs are huge)
Not only is the middle missing, but I believe it is the best pace of life for most people at the least cost.
I think the only North American city that has city-wide re-legalized duplexes to fourplexes on ALL lots without crazy setback, minimum lot size or FAR requirements is Portland, Oregon. It goes into effect on August 1st. I’m excited to see how the city will transform.
Nice!
@@aabb55777 Not sure I follow what you're saying. I forgot to mention that in addition to Portland, the entire state of Oregon has legalized missing middle housing as well, altho with slightly more restrictions (for example it requires parking, altho far less than current regulations), so this "missing middle" will expand into the suburbs as well so it won't only be Portland itself. Oregon is the only state like this in the entire country, and combined with the groundbreaking missing middle residential infill project in its core city (Portland) it will be exciting to follow what goes on there.
Ah, well perhaps agree to disagree. Housing will continue to be a need and indeed housing demand is far far outpacing supply in both Portland and its suburbs. Businesses are reopening and Portland has gone through social change before and has come back strong. If anything I see the residential infill project starting in August as hopefully a big part of Portland’s reinvention and coming affordability (vs other cities on the west coast). The economics of middle housing will still remain and will still be superior over the current and previous era of single family zoning.
I’m excited by people having the right to densify their own property if they so choose to and likewise not densifying their property if they also choose to, yes.
This puts Portland so much in demand. It really is placed is a sweetspot between the west coast and the mountains
Great drone shots in this video! And fantastic content :)
I didn't realize how much trees there are in Montreal. The drone shots really help to see that.
Just wanted to pop in and say thank you! Front yards are useless, I've had many a fight with my parents because of this issue. They want a front yard, but not enough to care for it, and I wanted to pave it over so I won't have to paralell park in front of my house.
Thankfully I've since moved (to a lower density area) and thanks to the bus service here, I don't drive. I still look at front yards with pretensiousness.
Man, Montreal just needs rooftop gardens, rooftop terrace with chairs pointing at the Mt-Royal. Beautiful city! Great people !
I grew up in an apartment, like most people in my country I think, and our building is 5 or 6 stories tall. It never felt soulless like those gigantic towers do, it was easy, it was definitely large enough with 3 bedrooms and a big living area, but also really pleasant, with large balconies. I now live in Australia, which is extremely similar to North America in terms of urban planning, and it's extremely unpleasant here. They also adhere to the 2-extremes philosophy.
It's always surprising as a European that there is so little middle density homes in the USA/Canada. Here in the netherlands it's the default what they build with usually like supermarket close by.
The Netherlands is way more densely populated
Dutch cities are by default one of the best in the world
That's the fascinating part-in Montreal and most European cities (and a few other older North American cities too), these are just normal neighbourhoods where normal people live. But in so much of North America, this type of housing doesn't even occur to people as being a possibility.
@@OhTheUrbanity because most towns bulldozed most of it
@@shaunmckenzie5509 Sure but I also went to some other countries in europe and they have the same style in building just more nature in between.
This is something that we need more of in Auckland, New Zealand, the “missing middle” housing types
My hometown Washington, D.C. has a lot of dense neighborhoods with row homes and duplexes.
Yep, I was thinking some of those neighborhoods in Montreal look like DC or Baltimore.
D.C. is a beautiful example of what many American cities used to be like. Many cities tore down their medium density neighborhoods to make way for highways and we're paying the cost for that now and will be for decades to come.
I live in a similar style apartment in Quebec City and it's great. I agree that it's nonsense for zoning bylaws to restrict development to single use detached housing across so much area, especially when so many people would love to live in a higher density neighbourhood. It's really neat to see how they're developing the Angus neighbourhood in Montreal. Hopefully there will be more of that to come in other cities across Canada.
Angus look like shit. The epitome of housing alienation and lame design just like any type of condos. But whatever, humanity ends in like 20 years so whatever.
@@urbanistgod If people want to make single family homes then that's fine, but high density shouldn't be forced out of the picture to make room for single family. You can have both at the same time.
I live in one of the little Montreal shoebox houses. My front yard is about 15' deep. perfect for a pollinator garden. My backyard is about 50' deep. perfect for a large vegetable garden and a couple of fruit trees, and I still have room for the dog to run around. And I'm 5 minutes away from a metro platform. It's the best of all worlds.
Yes to all of this.
- No front lawn I'll never use
- No side yards I'll never use with a useless strip of glass and pointless side windows 2' from the neighbours wall or window
- Big back yards where we have personal choice whether to park 1 or 2 or 3 cars, add a studio, or leave it wide open as a patio
- A flat roof that makes every floor fully useable and where I can build a rooftop deck
- Choice to turn my single family home into a duplex to reduce my living expenses later in life
All illegal in my city.
I couldn't say it better myself!
A flat roof that you must clear of snow. This is Montreal.
That's exactly what I've been saying for years. Those tall condo high rises are an eyesore and a nightmare to manage. Montréal needs more housing? Then the city should exploit some of its other less dense neighborhoods and build smaller 3-6 story housing projects.
if they do those 3-6 story houses, they could even make the first floor or ground floor depending on your local term, a shop which limits the need of having to own a car for residents slightly.
@@DarkDutch007 Very true.
Wow you guys read my mind !
This exact model is what the Casa Chorizo is in Argentina & Uruguay and what the very attractive and comfortable living scenarios that Brooklyn offers vs Manhattan. I now live in a similar style and feel it’s def the best overall.
This is what makes Montreal a more liveable city. It encourages community. You can walk to get groceries and meet your neighbors. Sometimes your neighbors will be family like my co workers who own buildings in the plateau. The only thing is price. My parents started in St Leonard in the 60s but moved to Brossard because they couldn't afford a duplex. I find a lot of new immigrants today are in the same boat and move to the burbs like west Island, Laval or the South Shore. There was even a News story of a man getting priced out of NDG to Brossard. But at least suburbs outside of Montreal are working on density. There are plenty of town house like developments, low rise condos, as well as single lot homes. So at least we're different from other north american suburbs in that way.
Hey hope your move went well and was hoping this was some Ottawa content, but I guess that's coming later 😊
Hey my French is terrible so I’ve had a tough time finding information but are you aware of any big zoning changes in Montreal or it’s suburbs? I mean single family zones being upzoned to allow middle housing? Also how about TOD zoning around the new REM stations? I’m American but since I’ve found this channel I’ve fallen in love with your city.
As far as I know there has always been a mix of housing in the suburbs around Montreal. My family had a house in Brossard but the first buildings built in the 60s were like the duplexes seen in St Leonard. I live in a condo/ townhouse complex that's a TOD on the south shore.
The new REM has new condo urban lifestyle complexes being built next to the stations and some see those as being the primary reason for the construction of the REM and not a desire for a well designed transit system that serves everyone.
@@m.e.3862 Thank you so much for the information! Is there somewhere I can see those new condos near the station or any more info about it?
@@itoen9080 here's a virtual tour of the development currently under construction in Brossard. It looks impressive, but I know that the traffic surrounding that area is already congested and after this is finished will probably be worse. I hated driving in the area especially at 5pm Sat when the stores all closed and results in a traffic jam.
ruclips.net/video/cCysYAR1auc/видео.html
@@m.e.3862 Well hopefully most people will use the REM instead of a car, so hopefully there's not much parking! Thanks so much. So are most stations seeing some kind of development then? Or only a select few?
I grew up in St-leonard in a Plex just like the ones shown in this video. I have good memories of my childhood there. There's a lot of parks in St Leonard, that gives places to kids to play.
Same, but in Anjou!
I'm from st-Leo and I didn't expect Saint-Leo to be mentioned in this video. But I'm from a detached so that's probably why. I wish the entire borough was mid-density and built on a grid.
But good point about the parks, shame we also have really big front lawns when we don't need them.
@@urbanistgod I swear, I have never seen somebody use the first 10-15 feet of their front yard. The front yards for these detached homes are like 25-30 feet. If they were half as big, Saint-Leo could achieve higher density and there'd be fewer resources wasted to maintain useless lawn. It's not about minimalism, it's about not wasting resources for no reason.
@@urbanistgod most detached homes are along quiet streets, noise separation is not really a priority. For the homes along Lacordaire, maybe something can be worked out but an extra 15 feet of air doesn't help much. As for beauty, it's a subjective thing but people can make a 15 foot front yard or a 30 foot yard look equally as nice. The former won't require more resources and reduce walkability though.
@@urbanistgod wow, pathetic the way you debate. I'm not complaining about space in general, I'm just saying that if each block were 30 feet shorter, then we'd have a lot of extra space we could more effectively use to build parks or more housing. I like my house, I'm grateful for it, and I don't want to live in a box. My god, can you debate without resorting to exaggerations?
Great video. Here in Auckland, NZ we overhauled our zoning code about five years ago and now attached / terraced housing typology is the most commonly built new type of dwelling.
I like midrise…. I’d classify anything under 10 floors to be missing middle housing.
Density is counterintuitive for most North-Americans. Most of us grew up in detached houses with front and back yards in the suburbs. As a result, most of us get a knee-jerk reaction when we're told that denser neighbourhoods are better for the planet, even if it's patently obvious. I know a woman who touts herself as progressive on environmental issues but who also insists on living in the suburbs where she must drive just to go the convenience store.
very well done .... thanks for all the efforts and accuracy to educate people ....
Excellent video! Yet another example of what makes Montreal so special!
A very interesting video! Thank you!
Who else wants to visit Montreal now?
I do. I love Montreal.
Been visiting montreal since 1996 love it there
Its alright, to each their own I guess
i lived there for a year. i've lived in toronto, vancouver, paris, berlin, quebec city, and some other places. it's my favourite city in the world; i'm moving back soon. i'm not saying it's the best city, but i love it - it's important to live in a place you've fallen in love with, even if it's not perfect (nothing and nowhere is)
@@oceanbearmountain I'm curious as to what makes it your fav compared to all the others?
Thank you so much! This is very informative and so well researched.
This was a fantastic video. As a Montreal native (and a huge geeky Montrealphile lol) you guys really took a deep and well informed dive into this. I grew up in the city’s more suburban/typically North American style West Island but have family and friends who live in the neighbourhoods mentioned where I spend a lot of time. Well done 👏🏼
Merci pour cette vidéo très informative!
Great Video and content thanks for making it
This is a really informative video. From a city planning perspective within Canada, especially in smaller communities, much of the discussion around “medium density” housing tends to effectively refer to duplexes that are functionally built as single-family houses and then split in half, with a massive front lawn to boot. They end up suffering from being the worst of both worlds, but examples like these ones in Montreal would be great to explore in other places. Montreal had been one of my favourite places to live out of everywhere I’ve been, and this video is a good way of summing up why the housing situation in the city is easily the most accessible out of any major city I’ve lived in.
One thing that would’ve been nice to have mentioned was the role in housing cooperatives in this particular form of housing. Montreal has pursued housing co-ops far more aggressively than most of the rest of Canada, and I know a lot of those properties are this medium-density properties. Exploring the connection between these two elements would’ve been really helpful for explaining why we maybe don’t see this as much elsewhere and why it’s been so successful in Montreal. Overall excellent video!
SUPER VIDÉO COMME TOUJOURS!!
Important and great work! Thanks!
I live on the border of little Italy and petite patrie and love the vibe .
This is a great video! Definitely didn’t expect to see a photo of my street at 6:28 though haha!
Glad the youtube algorithm brought me here.
Have always have loved the architecture of Montreal and am always baffled how duplexes and triplexes (missing middle) are about as common as an honest politician in the rest of the country.
As someone who lives in Montreal, medium density housing is a great option and tends to create a more distinctive neighbourhood feel. The one real problem is that medium density buildings are almost always walk ups since it isn’t cost effective to build elevators. As a result, Montreal is an extremely inaccessible city for people with disabilities- even much older cities like Barcelona and Dubrovnik are better. I hope that new medium density projects like Angus address this.
@@urbanistgod I suppose it's great if I would want myself & my children paying higher mortgages & the local council to be broke (Not Just Bikes explained why this is so).
But even if someone does want that, why not let them have it? Why does town planning have to force everyone to only live in either high rise or low density urban sprawl? In the Netherlands, they have all of them and it works very well.
Great video! As recent migrant to Quebec one thing I was really taken aback (in a good way) when visiting smaller towns was how they also had such a great representation middle density. If you look at downtown Shawinigan, especially on 1-5 rue de la pointe, it's largely quadplexes through to sixplexes. Much better than the double whammy of strip mall hellscape and suburban hellscape that dominates most small towns.
I really don't like you condemn strip malls and suburbia as hellscapes, I'm sure there are a lot of people that would call row houses hell holes, quoting No space, too close to neighbours, lower quality housing, looking like a ghetto, though I am jealous of middle density
Bienvenue!
@@urbanistgod being spread out would never work because at some point u can’t spread out anymore and then housing prices start to spike that is the reason why in the US cities like New York and san Francisco have housing crisis cuz they can’t sprawl anymore so since they can’t build up housing prices spike and it becomes unaffordable to live there.
I've lost count of how many times i've come back to this video
Such a great video!
Very interesting about my own city.. I lived there for 20 years before going off the island of Montreal (those who didn't know Montreal is actually an island that floats in the St-Lawrence river) to the suburbs of the south shore..
I live in one of the place your described on this subject, I don't own a car (don't need it) and have access to many local shops at 5mn walking from my home, bus, bike, bike sharing (Bixi), subway, everything is here. It's a pretty good place to live!
YA! Same! The ability to walk to groceries, beer, transit, and your friend's place, is hard to overstate.
After living in Montreal for 6 years and selling my car, I don't want to leave because I love not having to depend on a car. Appartements are a bit more expensive, but not having a car ends up being less expensive which is fantastic
I've lived in Ville St-Laurent, Lasalle and NDG (which actually stands for No Damned Good - LOL). I lived in duplexes (they were actually four-plexes, but we called them duplexes) in each place. Glorious! Damn, I miss Montreal. . .
Lots of middle density housing in Baltimore. I live in one two-story house with basement built in 1900 on the border of the Charles Village and Oakenshawe neighborhoods next to Johns Hopkins University. There are many others including Fells Point, Canton and Highlandtown on the East side and Hampden, Remington, Medfield on the near Northside. Historic Mt. Vernon/Belvedere in the center and Federal Hill/South Baltimore are also important to the character and housing stock of the city. Hilltop in Northwest Baltimore is newer from the 50's and there are wide swaths of row homes in East and West Baltimore-so many. Like you mentioned in the Montreal video, many houses have larger backyards, small to non-existent fronts and rooftop decks. Most people with cars park on the street.
Spent most of my childhood in Point St. Charles. The backyards depicted here look great, but up until the 80s, big ugly wooden 'sheds' were attached to the rear of the buildings, extending right to the laneway in many cases. A dark and twisting inner stairwell connected the 2 or 3 'flats' and the whole thing was covered by massive sheets of aluminum siding. Due to accidents and/or arson, the tinder-dry, decades-old wooden sheds were always catching fire until the city wised up and replaced them all with iron fire escapes. (in neighboring Verdun in May, 1980, an arsonist torched one of these sheds, destroying about 50 units, including mine. Fortunately, no one was hurt).
This kind of development would be so cool to see in San Diego. There's SO much housing demand and the land we do have is squandered by super low density R1. It may have worked in the 50s but now we're out of space for everyone! So having a home here becomes more and more an exclusive luxury rather than achievable commodity.
You should probably mention how rent is now very very expensive and how most people in, for exemple, Mile-End live with multiple roommates in those duplex and triplex. I grew up and live in Mile-End and the quality of the neighbourhood has sadly been going downhill quite rapidly.
Note that these housing prices are still significantly less expensive (some good 30-60%) than similarly sized units in other major North American cities (Toronto, Vancouver, LA, Chicago, Miami, less than half of New York or SF, etc...)
An example of a great New Suburban development with a lot of middle is Brossard, moved there 2 years ago, love it,
Great video
Saw your channel name instantly subscribed.
Love that slide at 5:46 lol
Good catch! www.google.com/maps/@45.5190728,-73.5654513,3a,75y,303.89h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5okUWwws1AuyT1uQx3DKuw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Lived all my life in Montreal, including a good 15 years in Hochelaga which absolutely could have been considered as well for this clip. ( not criticizing here, it is a good sample )
I did travel in several places in Canada and USA, this never struck me.
Very interesting clip!
In St. Louis, most of our densest neighborhoods are like this while the downtown density is relatively low
Thank y’all so much for creating this videos and all the others. I’m from Texas and good Lord, we need some better density and urban policies. This is inspiring stuff. 👏🏽
This reminds me so much of San Francisco, which is why I love living here
Lack of density is a huge problem in Hobart, Australia too...
I would love to see more of this in the outer parts of Toronto.
Even moreso in the inner parts. It's insane to think that there are still single family zoned neighborhoods in the heart of Toronto
Excellent video
Thanks!
Much of the East Coast of the USA has a lot of middle-density housing with a high percentage of rowhouses (or rowhomes as they're called in Philadelphia). I live in a rowhome and haven't owned a car for over a decade. Anywhere I need to go that isn't in walking distance is accessible by transit or if I really need a car, I can use a car share. There's only a few garages on my street (at most one on my side), but a few blocks south of me is a block of rowhomes with garages built like some of the houses shown in St. Leonard.
My grandparents and cousins family lives in a duplex in Saint Charles. One of the most walkable and livable neighborhoods I've ever been and you don't miss the front yard at all.
Urban kchoze also has a tremedously good comparison between zoning laws in North America and Japan.
Also high rise building aren't necessarily creating denser neighborhoods, because a lot of the space inside is used up for elevators and pipes and all that stuff, while at the same time cannot be build close together (well, at least nobody wants to because it's not fun having only another mile high block to look at in front of your window). Also they are dangerous e.g. in case of fire.
A thing that sometimes people get wrong is that higher building heights doesn't always mean higher density, in my own city of São Paulo, many parts of older, walkable neighbourhoods near downtown with attached houses, no setbacks to the sidewalks and low rise buildings (5 stories max), such as the Pinheiros, Perdizes and Jardim Paulista, were demolished for building high rise buildings with giant private gardens that no one uses, oversized underground parking space and apartments of over 150m^2, with only 1-3 of those per story and the towers proper only occupiying a small fraction of the land. Those 3 neighbourhoods i mentioned have been facing decreases in population since their peaks in the early 1980s, because of all the brand new 15-25 story apartment buildings.
now imagine them with green roofs
Most of Montreal has a similar architecture to the neighbourhoods portrayed here. It is one of the elements that make Montreal such a uniquely inviting place.
Today, the working class live off island in the Montreal area and density back in the day was 13 kids in one of those 2 room apartments 🙄🤷🏻♀️
A good missing middle suburb near where I live is Teneriffe, QLD. It's quite a wealthy area because it used to be where many really successful wool factories were based. Now the wool factories have all been converted into low rise housing
It's a great place to live....everything is withing distance. My backyard is an oasis.....Sion we will have a roof deck.
Oooo old Montreal is looking good, last time we were there it was completely ripped up and gutted, being redone.
This was perfect loved it...
Next can you add metrics like avg time to school, pharmacy, public transportation, downtown etc.
Keep up the good work:)
This is pretty hard to calculate
@@paxundpeace9970 best proxy is to choose a couple houses, just show one, draw 500m ring and lost the number of shops, and schools etc
Lived in the Mile-End for almost 4 years (3 different apartments) i've lived in different parts of Montreal, I can say, I totally fell in love with it. I wouldn't have left if it weren't for personal reasons. I miss it so much!
that and property speculation hitting hard. Rents have basically doubled in the past ten years.
You didn't get into it, but the issue of class is a major factor in Anglo-world housing policy. To the very present, it is the white elephant in the room in the acrimonious shouting matches (civil debates on the topic are often rare as hen's teeth) about allowing anything other than sing;e-family detached housing. If you're working class, you're not worthy. It's the unspoken truth, and the last few years have made it more apparent.
Montreal looks beautiful, and I'm sure its working class appreciates that they can afford to live in nice places. Even beautiful places are being appropriated by people with money these days. Thank you for the deep dive, especially pointing out how people's conceptualization of density is so constrained by the two extremes at opposite ends of the spectrum. You are so spot on with that. A dense city does not have to resemble Manhattan. Dense lower-rise neighborhoods nearly always get forgotten, and they are often the prettiest places in town.
Je trouve que Montréal est une ville très agréable en général.
I never knew pools were so popular in Montreal! Out in BC almost no one has a pool.
Its a Quebec thing I guess. If you fly over some suburb like Laval, some neighbourhood 75% of Bungalows have a pool. In Montreal sometime the smallest alley backyard will have an in ground pool (my neighbour)
That's really interesting! I know quebec gets very hot summers but you usually don't see such a density of personal pools outside of like California or the sun belt.
@@baronjutter We get hot and humid sumid summer. I heard in BC it's more a dry heat when there is, but I may be wrong
No other province comes close to Québec for the ubiquity of the backyard pool. The hottest areas of the southern United States offer the closest points of comparison, but even California doesn't match us on a per capita basis. There are 26 Québécois for every pool in the province, compared with 31 people-per-pool in California.
Even Québec City (pop. 800 000) has more pools installed every year than Toronto. Twenty-two of the 50 Canadians who competed in the pools at the last Olympics were from Québec, about double the province's percentage of the Canadian population.
We just love swimming.
I live in a 3 story building in the UK and I like it, its just the right size.
Fantastic video. I wish we had more development in Ottawa similar to Angus. Those courtyard homes look fantastic, and livable!
1:20 one building even has a rooftop pool!
The reason Montreal is the way it is comes down to history and culture. Same as any other city.
I live in the Sud-Ouest and my main gripe with this style of neighbor hood is parking. There is enough on street parking, but it can be a pain in the ass at times since I get home late at night and I have no choice but to take my car to work. Buying a motorcycle next spring to solve that issue, at least from March to December. At least the winter doesn't have parking restrictions, only a couple days are a pain in the ass for snow removal.
Grew up in a small European town and never understood the concept of a front lawn.
Don't even build em in Sims 😅
Chicago has middle density all over the place even some suburban communities use this to allow for more affordable housing. A lot of the newer suburbs in Chicago however completely lack apartments or condos in general.
Mile End Rocks!
Montreal is so unique, these middle rise neighbourhoods are so quaint, they go on for kilometres on end, 2 million people live on a relatively small island, MTL's history goes back almost 400 yrs, most of the central island was designed for horse and buggy..very narrow streets, very dense neighbourhoods, with squares and plaza's everywhere, somewhat similar to European cities.
One thing I didn't hear mentioned - how Montreal's winters may have influenced the type of housing available. I have to say that using those outside metal staircases in the middle of winter can be an adventure!
ya, they're an odd solution, they are apparently intended to help with the winter, in that heating stairwells can suck most of your fuel/electricity, but they can be very sketchy!
Love my city!
It's worth noting that not only do people not put their sheds, bbqs, swings etc on front lawns, you are generally probibited from doing so in most municipalities. Front lawns are pretty well useless. I could see having like a 5-10' set back minimum, but beyond that you're just creating space nobody uses, or can use.
One did not mention the trees in Montréal! Why is that so?? You could seem them in the video everywhere! Trees are my view out of my balcony wich grow around the alley and yard as well as in the front street. Big trees! It‘s like being in a park. I can see the season changing, wind, rain, sun, birds, snow. From my home office! Fresh air in the middle of the part of Plateau Mont Royal. Even in the hottest days in summer. Imagine more green rooftop garden were build - the city climate would be even better. 🌳🌲🌳🌲🌳🌿
Another option that doesn't get considered enough is having lots of pocket parks in a neighborhood. If you put a 1/3 acre park in the middle of a medium density block, then people barely need a back yard, either.
those are definitely a thing here in NDG! I love all of the little parks you come across while out on a walk
Even skipping Ed's new single for this
Would still like to live in a highrise if I move there, though. I like having elevators when I move or have been biking, and I like having a view.
aren't elevators mendatory once a building passes X number of floors?
@@DarkDutch007 In new enough buildings, yes.
I live in an area where a lot of middle-ish apartments are larger old homes that were hastily turned into apartments. They tend to have tiny stairways, weird layouts, fridges in the living room, cramped kitchens, small windows, outdated everything, little to no parking (key in winter when cars MUST be off the road or you get fined) and poor ventilation. Parking around them is nuts because there will be several such buildings on a street and the streets are narrow, so the road is cramped with cars. We have very little alternative transportation here and biking is unsafe on most roads. And yet these apartments are all priced like a newly built apartments with modern features. The actual newly built stuff with parking and reasonable layouts is priced as luxury. It's insanity.
Yeah, it seems like a pretty nice place.
High rises=are extremely high in costs and low in safety and things like mental health (cause people to isolate). They also happen to not be a efficient use of the land it takes to build vertical.
love it
At 6:25, that Nissan drove quite a while to get there!
This channel needs to visit ville St. Laurent where new high-rise buildings are being built to meet the needs of all the immigrants living here. With a train station at Cote Vertu and Jules Poitras, the city had put up cameras at the intersections between Jules Poitras and O'Brian because the city is expecting masses to use the train and the streets will be so congested with pedestrians and vehicles.