Thread: Second cities
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Old Posted Jun 17, 2019, 8:03 PM
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Acajack Acajack is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Province 2, Canadian Empire
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
yes, montreal was perceived as canada's alpha city even long after it was in fact so.

one of the things that probably aided that perception lag was montreal's much more exotic french allure.

to many americans, toronto was like any other great lakes city, just without the obligatory big black ghetto full of violence and despair, whereas montreal was seen as a truly foreign city right on our nation's doorstep.
While it's definitely fading Montreal still has a decent amount of "legacy prestige" that leads a lot of people to believe that it's still of comparable size to Toronto. When in fact Toronto (metro) has two million more people. Basically, the population advantage that Toronto has is half of Montreal's total population.

But as you say Montreal benefits from its obvious outlier status that makes it stand out in this part of the world. It also has had (Olympics, Expo) or has (Formula 1 Grand Prix, the national "Open" tennis* tourney, etc.) things that contribute to a city's global renown.

*Shared with Toronto, with the men and women alternating cities every year.
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