The Lives and Deaths of Cities

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

The Mirabel debacle was very hard on Montreal aviation. This was the equivalent of the Champlain bridge not working out. Very big L for Montreal, whose greatest feats are usually infrastructural.

Along with the Big O, two gigantic white elephants that still weigh on Montreal.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by Acajack

They are experiencing the same western malaise but seem to be having a less intense existential crisis than we are.

Not saying it was even the right thing to do but no way Canadians would have had the balls to vote down the Voice.

By accident of geography, every state in Australia can easily bring their resources to tide water, and they don't have to deal with the mess that is inter-provincial politics. As a result they're still reaping the economic dividends that comes from maximising the extraction and harvest of their full bounty of resources, which buoys their economy in a way that Canada can't fully leverage.

Also, they're the alpha dog in their neck of the woods, with an island mentality, one dominant language and one colonial narrative, so it's to be expected that they'd experience less of an existential crisis than Canada.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

On that front Montreal does surprisingly well relative to Toronto. Aside from the highly coddled Big5 banks and insurance majors, and the lecherous telecoms, Toronto has very few homegrown champions to speak of that drives innovation and/or makes a global impact. Toronto still mainly functions as a branch plant for foreign Fortune 500 companies.

It reminds me of SACO, who I recently learned were the Montreal creatives behind the Vegas sphere. Even before they mentioned Montreal, I already ruled out in my mind that they would be from Toronto: https://globalnews.ca/video/10008910/las-vegas-sphere-canadians-behind-mind-blowing-attraction

The best example I can think of is Brookfield, but I think in practice they're a New York company now even if nominally Canadian.

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by jonny24

The best example I can think of is Brookfield, but I think in practice they're a New York company now even if nominally Canadian.

Yes Brookfield would be my top pick as well. My understanding is that their NYC - Toronto offices function more like dual HQs.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I find that a lot of ROCers tend to exaggerate the "political climate" in Quebec and its effects on everyday life. Sure there have been issues with language since... forever, and even laïcité has been a topic of discussion for about a dozen years. I don't really think anything has changed that much recently when it comes to this stuff. Just more of the same so if you could hack it in 2016 you can certainly hack it now.

Sometimes I think that when ROCers cite the "political climate" in Quebec it's just code for "I should be able to speak English everywhere I want there and everyone I encounter should respond to me in that language".

I should stress that my previous comment on Quebec had absolutely nothing to do with language or day to day life, which is fantastic, given how fantastic Montreal is. I mean the big existential things that affect the viability of the place as a potential long-term home: the inextinguishable sovereigntist sentiment, nativist laws and racist legislation, the occasional bomb-drop like Legault's ridiculous out-of-province tuition plan, which seems designed to intentionally backwater the city in a bid to preserve linguistic identity.

I know Quebeckers who lament these things too, so I don't think I'm being anti-Quebec. But they are reasons why Quebec is simply off my list of potential places to live in Canada, language notwithstanding.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

I mean, if we want to get into a discussion of international relevance and importance, there is a framework for that. According to the GaWC index, Montreal is an Alpha- city, equivalent to Boston, San Francisco, Stockholm, Shenzhen, Bangkok and Taipei, among others. I'd say that sounds about right.

Personally, I have it below Boston and San Francisco, but above Houston and Dallas. Somewhere along the lines of Miami or Atlanta. Bubble top 10 North American city, purely in terms of relevance and importance - economic, political and cultural. GAWC uses an index of 'global connectivity' as the basis for its rankings.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Mods feel free to re-thread this Quebec stuff, it's not what the OP intended for this thoughtful thread but it has come up now...

The Globe and Mail, in an article about Montreal's economic renaissance interestingly enough, said the city was once "left for dead."

I think this thread took an inevitable turn, because perhaps no major Canadian City embodies the concept of life and death quite as much as Montreal, in the minds of Canadians.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Zeej

The Globe and Mail, in an article about Montreal's economic renaissance interestingly enough, said the city was once "left for dead."
.

Twas just a slight exaggeration.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

The other, much more Quebec-bearish clarifier for Montreal is the one where Quebec gets loose but is picked to pieces, losing some of its Northern lands, native lands and the Montreal archipelago, with Montreal becoming some sort of city-province or even city-state. This would actually probably suit Montreal's shady island-port character, but it would be bad for Quebec and for the French language in North America (the city would drift English again due to the weight and pull of its surroundings, and minus the Quebec government).

Being a city-state works for places like Singapore and in the wet dreams of some Anglo-Montrealers I'm sure, but that's a bit of unique circumstance that seems very unlikely to work in the context of North America. Unless this continent gets extremely balkanized beyond even the wildest cataclysmic scenarios.

The best set-up for national success still seems to be "big city/cities + resource hinterland".

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Twas just a slight exaggeration.

The economic renaissance part or the left for dead part?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I should stress that my previous comment on Quebec had absolutely nothing to do with language or day to day life, which is fantastic, given how fantastic Montreal is. I mean the big existential things that affect the viability of the place as a potential long-term home: the inextinguishable sovereigntist sentiment, nativist laws and racist legislation, the occasional bomb-drop like Legault's ridiculous out-of-province tuition plan, which seems designed to intentionally backwater the city in a bid to preserve linguistic identity.

I know Quebeckers who lament these things too, so I don't think I'm being anti-Quebec. But they are reasons why Quebec is simply off my list of potential places to live in Canada, language notwithstanding.

I actually think we're largely saying the same thing, and no I didn't think your comment was anti-Quebec.

These are of course in some way related to language (or at least demographics) even if people often discount this factor. All of these "reasons" to not move here exist primarily because French Canadians are the largest group in Quebec. If the ethnic mix in Quebec were more similar to the rest of Canada, then most of these irritants would disappear and Quebec would do things more similarly to the ROC.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by P'tit Renard

On that front Montreal does surprisingly well relative to Toronto. Aside from the highly coddled Big5 banks and insurance majors, and the lecherous telecoms, Toronto has very few homegrown champions to speak of that drives innovation and/or makes a global impact. Toronto still mainly functions as a branch plant for foreign Fortune 500 companies.

It reminds me of SACO, who I recently learned were the Montreal creatives behind the Vegas sphere. Even before they mentioned Montreal, I already ruled out in my mind that they would be from Toronto: https://globalnews.ca/video/10008910/las-vegas-sphere-canadians-behind-mind-blowing-attraction

Okay, I think you're dumping on Toronto a bit too much here.

A lot of this can be lobbed against Montreal companies too. CN, Air Canada, PSPP, etc. basically exist in Montreal due to Federal government interference/protection. In fact, I think almost all major multinationals exist to some extent because they're protected, subsidized, or get sweetheart contracts from their countries' governments (e.g. military procurement). One of the reasons why our companies tend to die is because our governments don't have as deep pockets as the US or EU - a very good example of this being BBD Aerospace (Montreal, again).

I also don't think Couche Tard is any different from Brookfield or Oxford Properties in terms of having major subsidiaries in other countries where all the major decisions are made there, rather than Montreal.

Finally, I don't know if multinational HQs trickle down to really make cities better places the way they used to. Back in the day, sure, Kodak put Rochester on the map, it employed locals to do high value work at good salaries, and the CEO and the C-suite lived in this midsized American city and contributed to the city's civic life and philanthropy. I don't think this can be said for many multinationals today, whose controlling stakeholders might be foreign VC firms, who register in Ireland or Delaware to avoid taxes, and where the CEO doesn't give a shit about the city other than that one of his houses is there. MonkeyRonin talked about how Vancouver doesn't have the corporate sponsors to put on a Santa Claus parade. But there are homegrown Vancouver corporations. Why doesn't Lululemon (USD 52B market cap) throw a few bucks its way? Why isn't there a Chip Wilson Centre for the Performing Arts?

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Being a city-state works for places like Singapore and in the wet dreams of some Anglo-Montrealers I'm sure, but that's a bit of unique circumstance that seems very unlikely to work in the context of North America. Unless this continent gets extremely balkanized beyond even the wildest cataclysmic scenarios.

The best set-up for national success still seems to be "big city/cities + resource hinterland".

I can't think of a place where being a city state would be less applicable than Montreal.

Contemporary city states are entrepots for much larger, neighbouring regions that are big potential markets but lack the institutional maturity or stability to conduct global trade.

Apart from the rest of Canada/Toronto and Quebec hors Montreal (pop. 4 million), Montreal's neighbour is the United States. Its closest big city is New York City.

I think the Jane Jacobs solution would work best for Montreal if it had less than 2 million people. Or if Quebec had 20 million people.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I can't think of a place where being a city state would be less applicable than Montreal.

Contemporary city states are entrepots for much larger, neighbouring regions that are big potential markets but lack the institutional maturity or stability to conduct global trade.

Apart from the rest of Canada/Toronto and Quebec hors Montreal (pop. 4 million), Montreal's neighbour is the United States. Its closest big city is New York City.

I think the Jane Jacobs solution would work best for Montreal if it had less than 2 million people. Or if Quebec had 20 million people.

The discussions over city state status for Montreal that surface from time to time are primarily rooted in the perception that this would somewhat extricate the city from the demographic and political power of French Canadians (stronger Quebec-wide than in the city itself), and are not really based on any economic and political analysis.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Enter Jane Jacobs, then.

Of course the Montreal Gazette disagrees.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/jane-jacobs-got-it-wrong

Jane Jacobs has been dead a while. Could you actually challenge the points made in the article? I don't see the fault in what they are saying. I think Montreal would have maintained a lot of its global and national relevance if the sovereignist (pushing actual separation not just cultural and linguistic protectionism) push had not happened. And Montreal's loss was very much Toronto's gain. I think this also explains why the cities are so different today. Montreal was always built and run to be bigger than it is. Toronto, accidentally ended up as Canada's pre-eminent city. As a result, Torontonians are only developing a cosmopolitan mindset now.

On the broader topic of global relevance, having read more of Kool's posts, I agree with him. These cities are slipping on global importance. But a good chunk of that is Canada losing economic dynamism as ever more capital is sunk into the real estate ponzi. And as the capital of the FIRE sectors in Canada, Toronto is arguably the most exposed to a real estate correction in Canada. Developers, financiers, insurers, realtors would all be dumping employees at the same time.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I can't think of a place where being a city state would be less applicable than Montreal.

Contemporary city states are entrepots for much larger, neighbouring regions that are big potential markets but lack the institutional maturity or stability to conduct global trade.

Apart from the rest of Canada/Toronto and Quebec hors Montreal (pop. 4 million), Montreal's neighbour is the United States. Its closest big city is New York City.

I think the Jane Jacobs solution would work best for Montreal if it had less than 2 million people. Or if Quebec had 20 million people.

Not wanting to nitpick, but both Boston and Toronto are closer to Montreal than NYC.

[kool maudit]

The scenario in which Montreal has this status is the one laid out by federalists in response to the threat of Quebec separation, which is basically a retaliatory move based on the "if Canada is divisible, so is Quebec" premise.

This is really speculative territory, almost a form of metropolitan political fiction, but if it were to happen, it would be very complex from a diplomatic and economic perspective. It would see Montreal become some sort of "special administrative division" on the edge of a somewhat hostile breakaway republic. There are all sorts of aesthetically interesting, noir-ish possibilities involved in that, but I guess it would be detrimental along any realistic timeframe. It would become a Belfast or a Sarajevo, not an Alexandria.

[kool maudit]

Back to lives and deaths, though... Montreal really is interesting insofar as any of this stuff is even conceivable. Not only is it conceivable, but analogous things have already happened there. It was captured during the American revolution, and it had a big shadow role during the civil war as well. John Wilkes Booth was apparently drinking along Notre-Dame Street a lot and telling everyone who would listen that he was about to kill the president. The Brits were funding the Confederates through Montreal. There was a plaque on the Bay building commemorating Jefferson Davis' stay in Montreal until it was removed in 2017. Guys would raid the banks of St. Albans, Vermont, and bring the loot to Montreal.

[kool maudit]

It really is one of the most interesting cities in the Americas. Nothing else in Canada compares. It has lived so many lives.

Edit: Maybe its current, vaguely desultory second-city status is a form of retirement or respite from everything it has gone through. Like Alexandria or Thessaloniki.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Jane Jacobs has been dead a while. Could you actually challenge the points made in the article? I don't see the fault in what they are saying. I think Montreal would have maintained a lot of its global and national relevance if the sovereignist (pushing actual separation not just cultural and linguistic protectionism) push had not happened. And Montreal's loss was very much Toronto's gain. I think this also explains why the cities are so different today. Montreal was always built and run to be bigger than it is. Toronto, accidentally ended up as Canada's pre-eminent city. As a result, Torontonians are only developing a cosmopolitan mindset now.

On the broader topic of global relevance, having read more of Kool's posts, I agree with him. These cities are slipping on global importance. But a good chunk of that is Canada losing economic dynamism as ever more capital is sunk into the real estate ponzi. And as the capital of the FIRE sectors in Canada, Toronto is arguably the most exposed to a real estate correction in Canada. Developers, financiers, insurers, realtors would all be dumping employees at the same time.

Since that book was written by Jane Jacobs a couple dozen new countries have become independent in the world. At least for the reasonably affluent ones, generally their largest city has become something of a showplace for the nation. If anything it's the rural parts of newly-independent countries that suffer whereas the metropolis gets back on its feet a lot quicker.

As for Henry Aubin's arguments, sure... they're the same arguments we always hear. All the remaining anglos will leave and your economy will die, no one will want to move here from abroad and without immigrants your population will vanish (and the economy will die a second time), no one will want to trade with you because the world will hate you for breaking up the globally beloved Canada...

And I think pretty much everyone agrees that even without the language politics and separation threat, Toronto still would have overtaken Montreal as Canada's largest and most powerful city. It was written in the stars that it would happen. Montreal might have held out longer and might be closer to Toronto in size today, but at least without Bill 101 it would arguably have lost its soul and probably just be a bigger, grittier Ottawa today.