Vieux Quebec City

In this evaluation I consider Vieux Quebec to be the entire old town within the original walled City and Basse Ville, which includes the Old Port area the oldest part of the City. Upper Town is considered the majority of Vieux Quebec elevated from the port and developed a bit later. This holds the majority of sites and landmarks. Lower Town is the Basse Ville along the waterways. Major landmarks in Vieux Quebec include Place Royal (the original Quebec civic bldg constructed in 1608), La Citadelle de Quebec, Le Chateau Frontenac, Notre-Dame de Quebec Cathedral, Gare du Palais, Chapelle des Ursulines, Théâtre Capitole, and Édifice Price.

Vieux Quebec is Quebec’s most walkable and urban district filled with shops, restaurants & bars, and lots of cultural amenities and entertainment. It can also feel overrun by tourism, especially in the summer season, but seems increasingly to be adding year round housing especially in the lofts in the Vieux Port helping it to establish more neighborhood amenities. Other great amenities in Vieux Quebec include its extensive parks, plazas, promenades, well connected bike lanes in Lower Town and many pedestrian only or car light streets. My hope is that Vieux Quebec continues to add more neighborhood amenities and also keep more streets off limits to cars where they don’t really belong given the narrow streets and thick pedestrian activity.”

Click here to view my Vieux Quebec Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Gorgeous architecture spanning the 17th century to the early 20th century. This includes the original ramparts of Vieux Quebec that were preserved and restored in the late 19th century.
* Many wonderful landmarks.
* Tons of shops, boutiques and clothing stores, and gift stores. Also a couple drug stores
* Great array of restaurants, bars, and cafes. Also tons or art galleries especially in Basse Ville, a couple historic theaters, plenty of museums, lots of live music in bars & pubs, and plenty of night clubs.
* Very pedestrian friendly, although I wish they would restrict cars more than they do. Several pedestrian streets including, Corridor du Littoral (waterfront promenade), Terrasse Dufferin (boardwalk over looking Lower Vieux Quebec) Rue du Petit Champlain/Rue Sous-le-Fort, and Rue Saint Jean is often a pedestrian street.
* Great parks and plazas including Place des Canotiers, Parc du Bastion-de-la-Reine, Parc des Gouverneur’s, Place d’Armes, Place D’Youville, Esplanade Park, Le parc du Vieux Port, Place Jean-Pelletier, Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Moulin Cavalier Park, etc.
* Good amount of for sale housing but generally pretty expensive but some cheaper smaller condos.
* Excellent dedicated bike paths along the waterfronts.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

No major supermarkets or department stores.
Very touristy. Not many locals who live here nor authenticity.
Some apartments in Vieux Quebec but generally very expensive.

Saint Roch- A great urban comeback story for Quebec City

Saint-Roch
was first settled in 1620 by the Recollects (a Franciscan order) who built a
small church dedicated to Saint Roch. The settlement remained mostly rural
until the first half of the 19th century when Saint-Roch became a major
shipbuilding site. From the mid-19th century to the 1960s, rue Saint-Joseph
was the main commercial street in Quebec City but during the second half of
the 20th century, the district fell into decline and was considered the most impoverished district of the City.
Much of the neighborhood was also destroyed with the construction of highway
440 overpass helping open up the City to new suburban development.

Fortunately the fortunates of Saint-Roach have turned around since the late
90s with major investments on rue Saint-Joseph, the creation of Quebec City’s
2nd Dwtn concentrated along Boulevard Charest, and major investment in parks
along the river and Victoria Park. Rue Saint Joseph has regained its status
as one of Quebec’s best commercial districts and is now an in-demand urban
neighborhood of Quebec an the edge of Vieux Quebec City.

Click here to view my Saint Roch album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Lots of mid sized office buildings along Boulevard Charest E. This is probably Quebec City’s secondary Dwtn after the dwtn cluster along Boulevard Honoré-Mercier.
* Wonderful promenade blvd street inside of Bd Langelier.
* Excellent neighborhood biz district along Rue Saint-Joseph
* For sale pricing is reasonable with a good # of 1-bed condos selling btwn 100K-300K, 2-beds 200K-500 and 3 & 4 beds btwn 300K-500 but not much product.
* Access to parks thanks to the riverside parks, Victoria Park, and several smaller parks throughout the neighborhood.
* Great concentration of food and beverage bizs, a couple breweries. Decent cultural amenities including a couple performing arts theaters, several art galleries, and a couple night clubs and music venues. Very convenient access to all the cultural amenities in Vieux Quebec.
* Great retail amenities including lots of local and unique shops along Saint Joseph.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Architecture is so . The modern office towners along Blvd Charest E. are pretty bland and most of the historic rowhouses are without much ornamentation. Some good historic commercial architecture along Boulevard Charest E.
* Tree canopy is so so.
* Modern ADA curb cuts are largely non-existent.
* Rentals are a bit pricy.

Saint-Jean-Baptiste- Quebec City’s best Urban Neighborhood

When the old city wall existed, Saint-Jean was located just west of the Port Saint Louis. Until the early 19th century Saint-Jean-Baptiste was sparsely populated in a semi-rural setting. The neighborhood was also caught up in the Second major Quebec Fire in 1845, which is why buildings before the mid 19th century are pretty limited.

This is arguable Quebec’s City best urban district outside of Vieux Quebec. There is an excellent urban business district that runs along several blocks of Rue Saint-Jean and the iconic restaurant district along Grande Allee with its gorgeous late 19th century rowhouses. Mixture of great 19th century architecture and some quality urban infill. Grande Allee is another great street with stunning rowhouses and Quebec’s iconic restaurant row. Boulevard Honoré-Mercier hosts most Quebec City’s downtown buildings along Saint-Jean-Baptiste’s eastern edge. The neighborhood also hosts great park amenities, a wonderful array of retail and cultural amenities, good amount of moderately priced housing options and sits on the western border of Vieux Quebec City. Some minor areas for improvements that would allow Saint-Jean-Baptiste to become a top notch urban district including more vibrancy along the wide and often cold Bd rene-Levesque, modern ADA curb cuts, and more bike lanes.

Click here to view my album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:“

Grande Allee is another great street with stunning rowhouses and Quebec’s iconic restaurant row.
Excellent urban business district that runs along several blocks of Rue Saint-Jean. Mixture of great 19th century architecture and some quality urban infill.
Boulevard Honoré-Mercier hosts most of Quebec City’s downtown buildings.
Great array of historic architecture from all decades of the 19th century.
Decent tree canopy.
Good park access including lots of small and medium parks and the expansive Plains of Abraham.
For-sale housing is very reasonably priced with 1-bed selling btwn 100K-350K. 2-beds btwn 200K-750K. 3 & 4 beds 300K-900K.
Great array of restaurants, cafes, & bars. Other cultural amenities include a couple community theaters, the Grand Theatre de Quebe where the Symphony plays, and several night clubs & live music venues.
Great retail amenities too including several book stores, plenty of gift stores, boutiques/clothing stores, lots of grocerias, a couple drug stores, tons of banks and lots of other interest stores.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Bd René-Lévesque is very wide although architecture while urban contains some uglier mid-century bldgs. Lots of gov’t buildings here with large grassy set backs that hurts vibrancy on the street.
* Curbs are generally not up to modern ADA standards.
* Rent is a bit pricy.
* Only a handful of bike lanes.

Saint-Sauveur- Quebec City’s Historic Working Class District

Saint-Sauveur gets its namesake from Jean le Sueur who in 1653 was the first secular priest to come to New France. The neighborhood, while initially being considered for the founding of Quebec, remained rural and sparsely populated until the 1840s. The success of the shipyards, timber trade and port activity led to the rapid development of Saint-Sauveur in the mid 19th century. Since then the neighborhood become a hub for poor workers and sadly given the neighborhood’s location outside of Quebec City no building regulations were ever mandated and Saint-Sauveur experienced two devastating fires in 1866 and 1889. The neighborhood also didn’t have access to Quebec’s water distribution network. Thankfully in 1889 Saint-Sauveur was annexed into Quebec and the City authorities greatly improved the neighborhood building sewers, pavements, lighting streets, and of course adding water service. While always being gritty Saint Sauveur never experienced wholesale disinvestment but has seen increased interest and investment in recent decades.

Saint Sauveur is a solid urban district, at least between Verdun and Bd Langelier. West of Verdun the neighborhood gets either industrial or more suburban in character. One can easily feel the working class roots of Saint-Sauveur as most of the housing are rowhouses and modest. But thankfully working class rowhouse fabric lends itself to a compact and walkable district with a solid commercial district running down Rue Saint-Vallier. Housing prices are also very reasonable for both rental and for sale. For Saint-Sauveur to become a top notch urban district it needs to tame a couple wide and autocentric roads (Rue Marie-dl’Incarnation & Bd Charest O). The tree canopy is also very limited , there are no up-to-date ADA curbs, and only a handful of dedicated bike lanes exist.

Click here to view my Saint-Sauveur Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Nice commercial district along Rue Saint-Vallier especially along the eastern edge.
* Pretty good park amenities including the extensive Victoria Park and lots of small parkettes and plazas spread throughout.
* Good cultural amenities including a great array of restaurants, bars, & cafes, a couple art galleries, and several performing arts venues.
* Good retail amenities as well including several super markets, a couple pharmacies, lots of unique and locally owned stores but not high end and some other typically neighborhood stores.
* For sale housing is very reasonable for such a quality urban district close to the center of town. Top of the market is about 500K for a 3 & 4 bedroom.
* Rentals prices are also very reasonable.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Rue Marie-de-incarnation is a very wide road and the northern parts of it get pretty autocentric. Bd Charest O gets very autocentric on its western half.
* West of Verdun St. the urban fabric generally breakdown and there is a lot of more suburban residential areas and industrials sections.
* Tree canopy is limited
* Dense urban architecture but architecture is very striped down working close rowhouses from the turn of the 20th century.
* Very few of the curb cuts are up to modern ADA standards.
* Several dedicated bike stations but only a handfull of bike lanes.

Montcalm, Quebec City- a solid urban district named after the much revered General Montcalm

The district is named after General Montcalm who led the French troops during the famous Battle of the Plains of Abraham (located on the southern edge of the neighborhood) in 1759 defending the French territory against the British army. While the French lost the battle and Montcalm also lost his life, he remains a much revered figure in French Quebec and has several statues of his likeness across the City. Montcalm is a pretty ideal neighborhood for me with its good mix of housing typologies, great commercial district along Cartier Avenue, and consistent medium density. Housing is also pretty affordable here especially for 1 & 2 bedrooms (both rental & for sale) and the district has great access to several great parks and is only a 10 minute bus ride to Vieux Quebec. The only area I see for improvement from an urban perspective would be more commercial and mixed-uses in the western half of the neighborhood which is almost exclusively residential.

Click here to view my Montcalm album on my Flickr page

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Av. Cartier is an excellent commercial district with gorgeous artistic street lights. The street is often a pedestrian zone in the summer. Also several mixed use blocks along Ch Ste-Foy, Rue Crémazie, Boulevard René-Lévesque
* Boulevard René-Lévesque is a grand boulevard with grand apartment buildings and large trees lining the boulevard.
* Good mix of housing typologies including single family homes, duplexes/triplexes, rowhouses, and apartment buildings ranging from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century. Decent amount of infill esp. along the western edge.
* Great tree canopy throughout.
* Good array of cultural amenities concentrated mostly along Cartier Av (restaurants, bars, cafes, a boutique theater, and a some performing arts theater. The neighborhood also hosts a couple art galleries and the Musee National des beaux-arts du Quebec.
* Solid retails amenities including a couple supermarkets, several drug stores, tons of boutiques, gift shops, and clothing stores concentrated on Cartier, plenty of banks, and lots of bakeries, dessert shops, and several bookstores.
* 1 & 2 bedroom apartments are very reasonable here leasing in the low 1Ks. 3 & 4 get pretty pricey however.
* For sale prices are very reasonable lots of smaller condos. 1-beds sell btwn 100K-400K, 2-beds sell mostly btwn 200K-500K. 3 & 4 beds start to get expensive starting at 500K.
* Great park access including the expansive Plains of Abraham, Braves Park, and several parks along the ridge adjacent to Saint-Sauveur.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

Not much commercial activity in the western half of the district.
No rail access in Quebec City but still decent bus service.
Lots of intersections don’t have modern ADA curbs.

Westmount Quebec- Montreal’s most Famous Anglophone Community

Traditionally, the community of Westmount has been a wealthy and predominantly anglophone enclave, having been at one point the richest community in Canada. It is now the most affluent neighborhood in Canada outside of Toronto and Vancouver. The Village of Côte St-Antoine was first incorporated in 1874, which was later renamed Westmount in 1895, reflecting its location on the southwest slope of Mount Royal and the presence of a large English-speaking population. In the twentieth century, Westmount was home to some of Montreal’s wealthiest families including the Bronfmans and the Molsons. This made the City a target of the Front de libération du Québec terrorist bombings in the 1960s. Westmount was fully incorporated into the City of Montreal for a time in the mid-2000s but was able to regain most of its autonomy shortly after. Its strong anglophone roots exist to this day as English is spoken in about 70% of homes.

This urban inner ring suburb reminds me a lot of Brookline MA. Westmount contains a Downtown area between Dorchester and Sherbrooke and Ave Greene to the southern border of Montreal, which functions in many ways as an extension of Dwtn Montreal. The southern eastern edge of Westmount between Route 136 and Sherbrooke is very dense with a mix of apartments and rowhouse fabric and including the Dwtn area mentioned above, lots of mixed-use fabric along Saint-Catherine and a great neighborhood commercial district along several blocks of Sherbrook. Between Sherbrooke and The Boulevard is a quality medium density residential area mixing mostly rowhouse, single family bldgs, and a few apartment bldgs. Btwn the Boulevard and Mount Royal is almost all single family homes including many mansions built between the 1910s-1960s. Westmount’s biggest urban challenge is a lack of affordable for-sale housing. A good number of moderate rentals exist however exist here. Public transit access and bike infrastructure also not as good as most other central Montreal neighborhoods.

Click here to view my Westmount album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Great tree canopy.
* Three excellent commercial districts (dwtn, and along Sherbrooke and Saint-Catherine.
* Lots of excellent historic architecture throughout Westmount.
* Rental housing is more reasonably priced than for-sale options.
* Good retail options including several supermarkets, great array of boutiques and clothing stores, lots of higher end and specialty stores, a decent shopping mall in Dwtn Westmount, plenty of banks, great array of restaurants and cafes.
* Decent cultural amenities (esp. Dwtn) including several art galleries, a cineplex, and a couple museums. The Westmount public library is gorgeous too and looks like a conservatory.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* Good public transit service but not as good as most of central Montreal. One subway stop on the edge of Dwtn Westmont and several others on their southeastern edge. Public transit access not that great in the lower density northwestern edge.
* Some dedicated bike lanes but not ask good as the rest of central Montreal. Dedicated bike stations good Dwtn and decent in Westmount’s most dense areas but pretty limited elsewhere.
* For sale housing is rather expensive. 1 & 2 bed condos start at 600K and 3 at 900K.
* Limited retail and mixed-use fabric outside of the 3 biz districts.

La Petite-Patrie- Hosts Montreal’s Largest Hispanic and Quality Working Cloass Urban District

“Until the late 19th century, La Petite-Patrie was mainly agricultural, with the exception of limestone quarries, now the location of Père Marquette Park. The construction of a tramway in 1892 linking the neighborhood to downtown led to the urbanization of the area, which continued until about the 1950s. La Petite-Patrie area includes several ethnic communities, including an Italian community, a Vietnamese community and more recently a large Latin American community.

La Petite-Patririe is a solid urban neighborhood with a thriving commercial district along Rue St-Hubert, plenty of mixed-use streets, excellent access to two subway lines and 5 subways stops, and great bike infrastructure. All around this is a very walkable and multi-model community. La Petite-Patrie manages to be a solid urban district even with a high poverty rate of just over 1/3 of its residents. Unfortunately the price of for sale homes, while more moderate than surrounding gentrifying districts, is way out of reach of most residents in the neighborhood. For La Petite-Patrie to became an even better urban district I’d also like to see improved urban form and quality infill along some if its auto centric edges (i.e. Av. Papineau and Bd Rosemont), more park amenities, and more affordable for-sale options.

Click here to view my Petite-Patrie Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

Also decent biz districts along Rue Bélanger, and Saint Denis and Christophe-Colombo are nice residential Blvd.
Excellent commercial district along Rue St-Hubert with comfortable new streetscaping, covering pathways and tons of stores.
Good tree canopy throughout most of the district.
Urban form is generally good with consistent rowhouse fabric ranging from 1900s-1960s architecture.
Pere-Marquette Park is a decent size and multi-faceted. Some other smaller parkettes and plazas spread throughout.
For sale housing has more moderately priced 1 & 2 bed options than neighboring Little Italy but still plenty of higher priced hsg. Similar trend with rentals.
Great local retail options especially along Rue St-Hubert. Lots of more affordable retail as well. Also several supermarkets and drug stores.
Good cultural amenities including plenty of restaurants & bars, several night clubs & local theaters.
Great subway access with 5 metro stops. Also wonderful bike infrastructure including several dedicated bike lanes and plenty of bike rental stations.

URBAN WEAKNESSES

While urban form is good the detailing of the architecture is pretty plain.
Rosemont is a mixed-use street but rather gritty and has a lot of autocentric uses, pretty uncharacteristic for this part of Montreal. Av. Papineau on the Northeastern edge of the neighborhood has these issues too but not as severe.
Very working class neighborhood with a high poverty rate (36%). But much more intact and thriving than the equivalent American urban neighborhood.”

Montreal’s Little Italy Neighborhood

Montreal’s Little Italy developed in the early 20th century but the fabric of the neighborhood filled in through the 1960s. The largest wave of Italian immigrants arrived in Montreal at the end of WWII and continued through the 1970s, after which Italian immigration tailed off. Montreal has the second largest Italian population in Canada after Toronto.

The neighborhood still very much has its Italians roots with many small businesses operated by Italian immigrants. But it is much more than that thanks to the Jean-Talon market, and the neighborhood’s gentrification. Little Italy boast great mixed-use and vibrant urban fabric thanks to several business districts and mixed use streets running through it (i.e. St. Lauren Blvd, Rue Jean-Talon, rue Saint- Zoutique, Rue Beaubien, Rue Dante, and the Jean-Talon Market). Plenty of mixed-use blocks in other parts of the district. The neighborhood also boasts a decent # of small-medium parks, great retail and food and beverage amenities, and moderately priced rentals. For sale housing is however getting expensive here as 2-bed start at 500K and 3-beds at 800K. The tree canopy could also be better.

Click here to view my Montreal Little Italy Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

Other commercial districts include Rue Jean-Talon (a bit wide and autocentric at points), Rue Beaubien (comfortable and relaxed for pedestrians), Rue Saint-Zoutique (similar to Beaubien but more residential uses), Rue Dante (even more mixed-use), and the Jean Talon Market and all the business streets that surround it. Plenty of mixed use blocks as well throughout Little Italy.
Very active commercial district along St. Laurent Blvd especially between the Little Italy neighborhood branding signs (btwn Rue Jean-Talon & Rue Saint-Zoutique). Also good mixed-use infill here as well.
Saint Denis becomes mostly residential in Little Italy and has an regal feel with larger historic apt bldgs matching a pretty wide tree line road.
Le Marche Jean-Talon is excellent with good hours tons of vendors and many spin off businesses adjacent to it.
Decent number of parkettes, playgrounds, and plazas but not as good as Le Plateau or “”The Village””. The expansive Parc Jarry is only a couple blocks Northwester of Little Italy.
Great array of food & beverage businesses, a couple performing arts theaters and local cinemas, and a couple art galleries.
Great retail amenities as well including a couple supermarkets, tons of small grocerias thnaks to the Jean-Talon Marche, several drug stores, plenty of boutiques & gift shops, several book stores, lots of bakeries & dessert shops, and plenty of churches.
Rental product is pretty moderately priced.
Good subway access with 6 stations sitting on two edges of the district. Several dedicated bike lanes and lots of bike sharing stations.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

The architecture being more mid-20th century is less ornate than neighboring Le Plateau or even Mile End but I still find it interesting.
A bit gritty in spots but not much vacancy fortunately.
Tree canopy is decent considering the limited amount of space in a dense rowhouse neighborhood.
For sale product is pretty expansive but also on the high side. But still some moderately priced condo product with some 1-beds selling in the 300K&400. 2-beds start at 500K and 3-beds at 800K.”

Mile End- Montreal’s Iconic Artists District hosting some of the City’s best Mixed-Use Fabric

The name Mile End was likely inspired by the East London suburb. The neighborhood remained a pretty bucolic village unit the transcontinental railway gave Mile End its first growth spurt and separate identity in the late 1870s. The second growth spurt of Mile End coincided with the introduction of electric tramway service in 1893. The village of Mile End eventually changed its name to Saint-Louis and was referred to again as Mile End until 1980s .

Mile End seemed to always historically be a very working class neighborhood with larger immigrant populations, especially Jewish , Greek and Italian but in the 1980s it became one Montreal’s premier artistic neighborhoods and began a long path to gentrification. Because of its more sparse brick rowhouse architecture the neighborhood has become very popular as a stand in for New York City set movies. Fascinatingly Montreal is also known for its bagels and some of the City’s most famous bagel shops (i.e. , Fairmount Bagel and St. Viateur Bagel) are located here.

From an urban perspective this is probably Montreal’s most mixed-use district outside of Downtown and Vieux Montreal. There are several major commercial districts including: Park Ave, St. Laurent Blvd, Avenue Laurier, Ave. Fairmount, Rue Saint-Viateur, Rue Bernard and a good amount of mixed-use bldgs in the more warehouse district in the Northwestern portion of the neighborhood along Gaspe and Casgrain Avenues. Mile End boast great cultural and retail amenities, excellent bike infrastructure, and good subway access. Rentals are also pretty modest here, while for sale homes are expensive similar to Le Plateau. While Mile End has good access to Mont Royal Parc on its Southeastern corner, parks and tree canopy are a bit limited. Modern ADA curb cuts are sparse and the neighborhood still is pretty gritty, a downside to some. But if one is looking for a high quality medium density district without the need for a car, this checks all the boxes.

Click here to view my Mile End album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

Architecture is an interesting mixed of styles from the first half of the 20th century. Tons of iconic Montreal exterior spiral stairs. Good urban in-fill especially in the warehouse part of Mile End along the Northwest edge. Several really iconic churches (i.e. Église catholique Saint-Enfant-Jésus, Church of St. Michael and St. Anthony, and St. Viator Catholic Church).
Probably the most mixed-use district in Montreal outside of Dwtn and Vieux Montreal.
Excellent bike infrastructure including any dedicated bike lanes and bike sharing stations.
Excellent cultural amenities esp. restaurants, bars, cafes, art galleries, theatres, and several local cinemas.
Great array of retail amenities as well esp. supermarkets, small grocerias, drug stores, lots of vintage/consignment stores, antiques, boutiques, bookstores, bakeries, and yes bagel shops.
Decent amount of rental product and pretty moderately priced. Even 2 & 3 beds lease in the low-mid $2,000s.
Good access to the entrance of Mont Royal Parc. Otherwise a handful of playgrounds, parklets & plazas throughout.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

Lots grit in the district. Architecture is more striped down and less ornate than the neighboring Plateau District.
Limited modern ADA curb cuts.
Several subway stations sit just north of Mile Ends boundaries. Still very good bus service.
Tree canopy is decent but not as good as neighboring districts like Le Plateau. Still impressed how many trees they can fit in dense rowhouse courtyards.
For sale product is really just as expensive as Le Plateu but within smaller, cheaper product.”

Le Plateau- arguably Montreal’s best Urban District

Plateau is a larger neighborhood containing several sub districts I consider neighborhoods on their own right (i.e. Mile End, De Lormier, Laurier-Est, and Milton Parc). Plateau is arguably Montreal’s best urban district outside of the Center City thanks to its several great business districts (St. Laurent Blvd, Saint Denis St, Ave Mont-Royal, and Rue Rachael,) and a couple smaller scaler pedestrian streets mixed-use streets i.e. (Duluth, Rue and Prince-Arthur) and lots of mixed-use blocks often with commercial on the corner buildings.

The neighborhood takes its name from its location on a plateau, on the eastern side of Mont-Royal. Starting in 1745, the urbanized area of Montreal began to extend beyond its fortifications and the Plateau-Mont-Royal was born as Faubourg Saint-Laurent extended to the northwest. In the early twentieth century, The Plateau was mostly a working class neighborhood but gradually in 1900s it became more economically well off and cosmopolitan especially the sections closest to Mount Royal Parc where many Protestant traders and Jewish business owners operated shops on St. Lawrence Boulevard. Greek Canadians set up shop mostly along Park Avenue (Northwest of Mont Royal) and more recently, Vietnamese and Portuguese settled in the Plateau. Since the 1980s, the area’s bohemian aura and proximity to McGill University attracted young professionals, artists, musicians, students. and the neighborhood began to gentrify. While Le Plateau likely experienced grit and some crime in the 1970s & 1980s I don’t get the sense that it ever faced serious disinvestment. In the 21st century Le Plateau is known as having the highest concentration of youths in Montreal and has interestingly attracted a large number of French-born residents giving it the nomenclature “le Petit-Paris”.

There aren’t many areas of fault I can find with Le Plateau as it is basically my idealized urban district hosting high but not overwhelming density, great access to public transit and especially bike infrastructure, amazing mixed-use fabric with several pedestrian streets, great public parks along with a wonderful array of retail and restaurant amenities. The neighborhood would likely be on my top 10 list if I ranked it alongside my best American urban neighborhoods. Probably its biggest need is for more affordable housing especially affordable for sale options.

Click here to view my Le Plateau neighborhood on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS

Convenient access to 4 subway stops and incredible bike infrastructure
Excellent walkable neighborhood thanks to 6 business districts and lots of mixed-use blocks.
Great array of late 19th century French inspired rowhouse architecture mixed-in with quality urban in-fill. This probably has the best concentration of the iconic Quebec spiral staircase.
Convenient access to several outstanding parks (i.e. Mount Royal Park, Parc de la Fontaine, Saint-Louis Square. Also lots of well designed playgrounds and pocket parks generally interspersed every other block.
Decent tree canopy tucked into dense rowhouse blocks. Much more trees than one would expect for such a dense neighborhood.
Excellent cultural amenities including great food & bev bizs, several local theaters, a couple movie theaters, plenty of live music venues & night clubs, several art galleries, and a couple local museums.
Great retail amenities too esp. with all the supermarkets, drug stores, lots of bookstores, clothing stores, dessert stores/bakeries, gyms, churches, boutiques.
Lots of studios, 1-beds and 2-beds. 3 & 4 bed rentals are a bit limited. Prices are a bit expensive but not terrible considering the high level of urbanity in Plateau.
For sale product is pretty expansive but also on the high side. But still some moderately priced condo product with some 1-beds selling in the 300K&400 and 2-beds selling in the 400Ks & 500Ks.
Lots of interesting murals and public art spread throughout the Plateau.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

Some intersections don’t have up to set ADA curb cuts.
Alleyways aren’t very inviting and not well kept. Some grit in spots. Back yards are not the most attractive.
Rent and especially for sale housing gets pricey but much than its equivalent quality urban district in east coast American cities and certainly cheaper than its equivalent in San Francisco.”