Why is Montreal #2 again? (houses, employment, purchasing)

[kkgg7]

It was my third trip to Montreal, and I need to admit that the more time I spend in the city, the more I love it.

However, why confuses me is, why is Montreal the number 2 city again? According to my observation, the city seems to win Toronto in all imaginable aspects: its downtown much better maintained and gives a way better "big city" vibe. Much classy archetecture. Great New York-like shopping scene. (Yonge St and Queen St West are almost funny looking compared with Ste Catherine and St Denis.) Mont Royal is superbly looking over looking downtown. Its metro system is 20 years ahead of the TTC although being cheaper. Nightlife is top notch. On the street leve, Montreal just looks like a much more wealthy, busier and cosmopolitan city than Toronto! From Rene Levesque to Sherbrooke, from Atwater to Berri, it all gives a "big city" feeling, with hardly any rundown patches as Toronto does (Dundas St, Spadina Ave, Sherbourne etc, Queen St etc). Even the "village" is bigger and busier than Toronto's. Chinatown is probably 10 times cleaner and neater than Dundas/Spadina. Food is excellent and more importanly, so affordable. I explored to areas even north of the Montain, and it still looks pretty good. with beautiful brownstone houses and shops and restaurants.

If someone with no prior knowledge about Canada's cities, he would undoubtedly believe Montreal is THE big Canadian city while Toronto is no match. However, from statistics, it seems Toronto is overwhelmingly the winner. Why is that? It looks to me that although Montreal lost its number 1 position 30 years ago, it still managed to maintains its dominance is many aspects which Toronto has a long way to go in order to catch up.

[Acajack]

The simple answer to the question is that the metropolitan area of Toronto has 2 million more people than Montreal does.

Toronto is also the preferred location for the head offices of Canadian corporations (banks, etc.) and for foreign corporations' Canadian bases. (This is mainly because of linguistic and political considerations, although there are other factors as well.)

Since Canada is a mainly English-speaking country, it also follows that the city with the largest number of English-speaking Canadians in it (Toronto) be the country's number 1 city.

All this being said, I do see a lot of the same things you do, and in some ways as you said Montreal seems to have a "big city" feel that Toronto lacks.

One of the reasons is that Montreal is the uncontested metropolis of French-speaking Canada. English-speaking Canada is bigger geographically which allows large regional cities that are smaller than Toronto to dominate their regions and lessens Toronto's national dominance.

This is not so much the case in French-speaking Canada, where Montreal is truly dominant in the media, cultural, economic, educational, etc. spheres.

While Toronto has to share the limelight with Vancouver, Calgary, etc. (and also, let's not forget, New York and Los Angeles), Montreal is more dominant over its smallish "nation", much the same way that cities like Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, etc. dominate their nations. (In spite of the fact that Montreal lacks national or provincial capital status.)

[kkgg7]

Thanks for the explanation.
But Montreal used to be the biggest city until the 70s, right? Language didn't seem to be a problem at that time. Now this separist risk seems to be over, supposedly for many years, how come Montreal finds it hard to regain its momentum, in terms of both population and economy? I have heard economy and employment in Quebec is generally not as good as Ontario, what has caused this? Honestly I think Montreal is too great a city to decline. Toronto, no matter how prosperous it is, will have no chance of representing Canada, simply because it is too heavily influenced by the US culture, and the existence of New York City will give it zero chance to stand out in North America. However, Montreal is a different story as it possess so much none of the American cities do.

French should not be a problem. It only adds charm to it. On the contrary, it will be a disaster for Canada if Montreal becomes English speaking. A city doesn't have to be English speaking in order to prosper, does it.

[ThroatGuzzler]

Originally Posted by kkgg7

Thanks for the explanation.
But Montreal used to be the biggest city until the 70s, right? Language didn't seem to be a problem at that time. Now this separist risk seems to be over, supposedly for many years, how come Montreal finds it hard to regain its momentum, in terms of both population and economy? I have heard economy and employment in Quebec is generally not as good as Ontario, what has caused this? Honestly I think Montreal is too great a city to decline. Toronto, no matter how prosperous it is, will have no chance of representing Canada, simply because it is too heavily influenced by the US culture, and the existence of New York City will give it zero chance to stand out in North America. However, Montreal is a different story as it possess so much none of the American cities do.

French should not be a problem. It only adds charm to it. On the contrary, it will be a disaster for Canada if Montreal becomes English speaking. A city doesn't have to be English speaking in order to prosper, does it.

You can blame the separatist movement for Montreal's (and Quebec's as a whole) fall.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kkgg7

Thanks for the explanation.
But Montreal used to be the biggest city until the 70s, right? .

Yes, it was. Until the mid 70s or around 1980 when Toronto overtook Montreal.

Originally Posted by kkgg7

Language didn't seem to be a problem at that time. .

Well, before the 70s English speakers and their businesses had a lot more free reign to do whatever they wanted in Quebec. Which often meant doing everything in English only.

Originally Posted by kkgg7

Now this separist risk seems to be over, supposedly for many years, how come Montreal finds it hard to regain its momentum, in terms of both population and economy? I have heard economy and employment in Quebec is generally not as good as Ontario, what has caused this? .

The unemployment rates in both the province of Quebec and Montreal are currently slightly lower than those of Ontario and Toronto. However, wealth-wise (per capita income for example) Toronto and Ontario are richer than Montreal and Quebec. The reason Montreal doesn't look that much poorer is because the cost of living is less than in Toronto. On purchasing power parity, Montrealers even though they make less money are pretty much at the same level as Torontonians, and may even be slightly ahead in some respects.

Originally Posted by kkgg7

Honestly I think Montreal is too great a city to decline. Toronto, no matter how prosperous it is, will have no chance of representing Canada, simply because it is too heavily influenced by the US culture, and the existence of New York City will give it zero chance to stand out in North America. However, Montreal is a different story as it possess so much none of the American cities do. .

Montreal is not likely to decline. But it will never overtake Toronto again. Toronto is just too far ahead. But Montreal still has its own place, and to be honest, most people in the city don't really care whether Toronto is bigger any more than they care that New York is bigger or Paris is bigger or Tokyo is bigger. Most people's psychological space or "home" here is "Quebec". Montreal is the metropolis of Quebec, and that is all that matters. Point final.

Originally Posted by kkgg7

French should not be a problem. It only adds charm to it. On the contrary, it will be a disaster for Canada if Montreal becomes English speaking. A city doesn't have to be English speaking in order to prosper, does it.

I don't think so either, but apparently a lot of people disagree. It is also true that Montreal is in North America, and in North America "money speaks English" by an overwhelming margin.

Montreal and Quebec cannot ignore this continental reality, although that doesn't mean that the entire place has to be assimilated and switched over to English.

[architext]

I won't care about any of that, as long as they fix the roads here and do something about the turcot. As a car guy it pains me the state of vehicles in this province, it's simply sad.

[jambo101]

Could i vent on a topic like this!
But alas

[Badyouken]

As usual, Acajack said it best.

The main reason is language: Quebec's language laws, English as Canada's predominant language, etc.

As for "big city feel", that has a lot to do with age and geography. Montreal was developed over hundreds of years, using the denser urban pattern that was prevalent then. Toronto was developed very quickly mainly post-war and thus has more suburbs and space. Montreal is built on an island around a hill, Toronto has all the flat area it wants.

[RamseCA]

kkgg7:

The main reasons were that Ontario generally had a friendlier attitude towards big business. Many business's also were very afraid with the mess that Trudeau and FLQ made in Quebec. Trends are very hard to reverse. Also alot of Toronto's larger population is attributed to large scale immigration from 3rd world dives. Fortunately Montreal was not flooded with such a problem.

I don't quite understand the "prosperity" comments about Hog town. Toronto is not at all an above average city for overall wealth.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by RamseCA

The main reasons were that Ontario generally had a friendlier attitude towards big business. .

Good point. Although there was a huge language aspect to the move of businesses from Montreal to Toronto, the early Quebec independence movement had some ties to Cuba which scared a lot of business owners. The FLQ also had ties to the FLN movement in Algeria.

Originally Posted by RamseCA

Many business's also were very afraid with the mess that Trudeau and FLQ made in Quebec. Trends are very hard to reverse..

Trudeau?

Originally Posted by RamseCA

I don't quite understand the "prosperity" comments about Hog town. Toronto is not at all an above average city for overall wealth.

It may be true that Toronto is not excessively wealthy, but it is still wealthier than Montreal overall.