Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
These are both about 13km from Gare Centrale, a similar distance as Yonge/Sheppard from Union. While it isn't like that consistently for Montreal at that distance, I can't think of anywhere that far from Union where this is the scale of lowrise residential density despite Toronto being a much larger metro areas. This is what having an abundance of missing middle housing looks like. Yet there are people who think a few blocks of that scale right in or near downtown dispels the idea that Toronto is lacking in that regard.
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This is not me, a Torontonian, knocking on Montreal, but Montreal is sort of like a US city in that it relies on what it built 60+ years ago for its extant urban fabric, and hasn't built any net new transit and walking-friendly options since then. It hasn't really intensified within its existing urban fabric, other than in its immediate downtown core, either, so you have some of the most transit-friendly intersections like Jean-Talon and St. Hubert (the interchange for the Blue and Orange metro lines) having the exact same building stock they've had for decades whereas in Toronto this area would be a highrise TOD node.
Affordability-wise, Montreal has been able to get away with it up until very recently because the city was famously cheap and had suffered from slower economic and population growth for decades. However, those days have passed and Montreal could really stand to build denser forms of housing even in its coveted triplex neighbourhoods. Yes, Montreal's housing stock is frozen in amber at a "higher" density state than Toronto's, but it's frozen in amber nevertheless. If you have consistent growth over decades, then even a missing middle city can't absorb it all and starts to have serious affordability problems.
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