Let's Hear It for Montreal: Two Articles Laud My Favourite City

Montrealers have been beating up the city for the last little while: crumbling infrastructure, too much road repairs/reconstruction, doubtful influences in contract awards etc.  So it is refeshing to come across two stories on successive days which laud the city.

The first is from a well-read blog on urbanism, Placeshakers and Newsmakers.  In it Hazel Borys calls Montreal a place where lessons in urbanism are delightfully on display. She winds up: "..our 7-year-old enjoyed the shows (about Star Wars and the Biodome,) however at the end of the day, preferred riding the Metro and bus system and walking the streets, along with the visit to Saint-Joseph du Mount Royal. Just as with the urbanism, the bells and whistles are rarely as valued as much as the permanence. Even if you’re seven."

The second is rather old news: a story in The New York Times from last November about "Hip Cities That think about How They Work."  The selection was eclectic to say the least: Aukland, Berlin, Barcelona, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Curitiba, Santiago, Shanghai, and Vilnius, Latvia, besides Montreal. 

So there you go: it's a city that we didn't set out to move to really. We came because Lee got  a three year contract Lee, because, well, why not?   But that was in 1968 and we've never seriously considered living any place else.

Photo: Mount Royal in June.