For St. John's, I would've loved to live in the early 1900s. We were one of the largest cities on the east coast of North America at the time, the core was almost the size that it is today (and that's the only part of the city I've any affection for), our Prime Minister was great, there was an openly gay eccentric the whole city was in love with, we still had trams and trains.
We had zero suburbia. The edge of the city was rowhousing:
Memorial Archives
And a couple of the core from the era from our archives (these views, btw, are 99.9% the same today, just on the horizon there are modern midrises):
Just a QUICK example of similar views today:
Memorial Day by
R C, on Flickr
A couple of caveats, though... I'd want to be Catholic, professional class. I've no patience for the Anglican upper class of the time, and definitely don't want to be a Catholic servant or, even worse, a fisherman or sealer. I'd like to be an accountant's kid or something - just high enough to avoid 99.9% of the shit, but not upper class.
Failing that, fuck it, 1930s.
An exciting time - our country collapsed in 1932 and by 1933 we were being ruled directly by London again. One of the only countries in the history of humanity to have legislated itself out of existence. Constant protests, riots, the works. And I would've been one more vote against joining Canada in 1949 - and it was close enough for a few votes to make the difference.
Quote:
In politics, winter and spring are the only seasons we have in Newfoundland and Labrador, too. Summer has never come and we've never hit the beautiful decadence you need for autumn.
Sometimes, though, people get fed up. Like on April 5, 1932, when a downtown parade erupted into a riot that trashed the legislature and nearly killed prime minister Richard Squires.
...
As you can appreciate, 1932 was not a good year for the Dominion of Newfoundland (yes, rest of Canada, Newfoundland didn't actually join this country until 1949). Having barely survived a decade of political chaos and failed get-industrialized-quick schemes fueled by foreign debts in the 1920s, the island now found itself in the doldrums of the Great Depression. Most of the country was tied up in resource exports—fish, forestry, and mining—and as those industries collapsed, the ranks of the unemployed swelled dramatically. The government, buckling under nearly $100 million in debt (roughly $1.7 billion today), was all but powerless to handle the roughly one-third of the country on a six-cents-a-day dole.
The situation wasn't helped by the fact that the Squires government was hilariously corrupt. At the same time as it was trying to retain creditor confidence by slashing as much public spending as possible without actively killing the poor, Squires was pocketing the War Reparations the island was getting from Germany. Another one of his ministers was being paid a salary as 'Immigration Officer' despite the fact that Newfoundland literally had no immigration at the time. This, while growing numbers of unemployed and destitute people were beginning to march in the streets.
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(Bolded part is basically where we are again today - we could very soon be the first Canadian province, and probably modern, western jurisdiction, to default on debts and go bankrupt).
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/4...prime-minister