Forbes: Montreal among the cleaniest city on earth!

[Gregbx]

I don't know what happened to the journalists at Forbes, maybe they drank a bit too much, but they've ranked Montreal among the 10 cleaniest city on earth... what a joke. I guess they've never been there around April when the city turns into a giant dump.

http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/16/wor...6cleanest.html

Here's their list:

1. Calgary, Canada --> cleaniest city on earth according to Forbes!!!
2. Honolulu, US
3. Helsinki, Finland
4. Ottawa, Canada
5. Minneapolis, US
6.(tie) Oslo, Norway
6.(tie) Stockholm, Sweden
6.(tie) Zurich, Switzerland
9. Katsuyama, Japan
10.(tie) Bern, Switzerland
10.(tie) Montreal, Canada
10.(tie) Vancouver, Canada
10.(tie) Boston, US
10.(tie) Lexington, US
10.(tie) Pittsburg, US
10.(tie) Nürnberg, US
10.(tie) Geneva, Switzerland
18.(tie) Auckland, New Zealand
18.(tie) Wellington, New Zealand
20. Dublin, Ireland
21.(tie) Amsterdam, The Netherlands
21.(tie) Toronto, Canada
23. Lyon, France
24. Copenhagen, Denmark
25.(tie) Kobe, Japan
25.(tie) Omuta, Japan

They say the ranking is based on a survey by Mercer Human Ressources, but the outcome still sounds quite obscure to me. 5 cities out of 25 are in Canada, we must be pretty clean folks I guess. I'm quite surprised they haven't mentioned any city in Austria such as Vienna or Innsbruk... impressive how tidy things are out there, everything's so clean and neat!

[Acajack]

On ne peut pas faire grand-chose contre notre climat. Je présume que Helsinki et Minneapolis non plus ne sont pas très propres en avril après la fonte des neiges.

Aussi, les gens d’ici chialent au sujet de la propreté c’est vrai, mais comparé à la plupart des villes du monde (qui sont surtout dans le Tiers-Monde), nos villes comme Montréal sont effectivement très propres.

D’après moi, il ne devait pas y avoir une très grosse différence entre les 30 premières villes, toutes situées dans des pays riches, alors quelques fractions pourraient probablement séparer la 7e place de la 19e, ou peut-être même de la première à la 20e.

[arbeiter]

Where is Nurnburg, US?

[harls]

Lots of ties.. that's some meticulous garbage counting.

[Gregbx]

Originally Posted by arbeiter

Where is Nurnburg, US?

My mistake, it's Nürnberg, Germany or Siemens town.

However I'm not sure it is only a weather problem. Even during summer time I find the streets rather durty (amazing how rare the public thash cans are in our streets, including downtown...). I've never understood why the city doesn't provide a trash can to everybody like it is the case in Europe so that the bags are not being constantly opened by small animals, moreover it wouldn't spoil the look of our streets as much and may retain a lot of the bab smells as well.

[p_xavier]

Clean includes transit (which is quite good in MTL), air quality and other things, not just dirty streets.

[champdemars]

Originally Posted by arbeiter

Where is Nurnburg, US?

Where is Nurmburg, US... in a map??

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

Clean includes transit (which is quite good in MTL), air quality and other things, not just dirty streets.

right. cleanliness does not just mean litter.

besides, even in terms of garbage on the street, montreal fares pretty well compared to most cities around the world.

[Gregbx]

I do agree with you guys, Montreal is doing a pretty OK job especially compared to most north American cities but I still see a big difference between Mtl and let's say Vienna or Munich which seems a lot cleaner to me from any point of view (public transit, graffiti, trashes, air quality...).

If both Montreal and Ottawa are in the ranking, I'm then quite surprised Quebec city isn't as I've always found it a rather clean place, much better than Montreal anyway.

What I'm just saying is: where are Strasbourg, Hamburg, Munich, Linz...??

[bxlmtl]

la plus sale en Europe :bruxelles une misère mtl tu peux manger par terre comparé !!

[Gregbx]

Originally Posted by bxlmtl

la plus sale en Europe :bruxelles une misère mtl tu peux manger par terre comparé !!

Well, you haven't been to Bordeaux back in the early 1990's. World record for dog shits per square meter. But I've to admit Bruxelles does have some room for improvements.

[Acajack]

C’est aussi assez bizarre que Montréal se classe à égalité avec Genève…

[big T]

Originally Posted by bxlmtl

la plus sale en Europe :bruxelles une misère mtl tu peux manger par terre comparé !!

I'm having a hard time believing Brussels is dirtier than such southern cities as Barcelona or Marseille. Not that it bothers me in the least, but these two have some pretty gross areas.

[yarabundi]

Les touristes de partout en France ou aux États-Unies me disent souvent jusqu'à quel point Montréal est propre. J'en reviens jamais. Je suppose qu'on peut les croire.

[graupner]

I have part of the answer of this biased top list:

Mercer is an 'international' company but has almost 30% of its workforce here, in Canada. Its Toronto's office is the biggest worldwide and the Montreal one is among the biggest.

Obviously canadian cities are getting artificially boosted.

[AnnaintheUK]

One thing that I notice in Montreal and some of those European cities listed above is that much of the littering are done by immigrants (or decedents) rather than locals themselves. It's kind of disturbing. Even if you include clean air, transits and other things, I am pretty sure there are more cities that are better off than those top 25 listed.

[graupner]

Originally Posted by AnnaintheUK

One thing that I notice in Montreal and some of those European cities listed above is that much of the littering are done by immigrants (or decedents) rather than locals themselves. It's kind of disturbing. Even if you include clean air, transits and other things, I am pretty sure there are more cities that are better off than those top 25 listed.

So what about Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, one of the dirtiest neighborhood in Montreal, which consists of almost 95% locals (white french descendant)???

This is arguably one of the stupidest thing I've read in a long time.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by AnnaintheUK

One thing that I notice in Montreal and some of those European cities listed above is that much of the littering are done by immigrants (or decedents) rather than locals themselves. It's kind of disturbing.

Wow. You must be a great scientist to arrive at this astute conclusion based on the impressive method by which you gathered and analyzed the data.

[elsonic]

les belles grosses jobs municipales syndiquées comme la collecte des ordures, ou au privé comme la collecte sélective sous-traitante, sont majoritairement occupées par des gars blancs francophones. idem pour les «brigades» saisonnières de ramassage des nombreux déchets dans les quartiers touristiques ou à clientèle régionale.

[MaThQc]

Ayant véçu à Québec, Montréal, Calgary et Vancouver... je suis O_O de voir que Québec est même pas là, et je trouve que Québec devrait être là au top de la liste des villes canadiennes.

Calgary est vraiment dégeulasse là, et Vancouver c'est un peu mieux, un peu, mais suffit de visiter les allées et tu retrouves les toilettes à ciel ouvert des homeless qui chit partout.

Calgary, bin c'est venteux, qui dit vent, dit transporte ces cochonneries partout.

Mais Vancouver est beaucoup plus clean que Montréal et Calgary, parce que les gens à Vancouver sont responsables de leur trottoirs, et peuvent avoir des amendes si c'est trop malpropre. (excluant la majorité du centre-ville)
Alors, pleins de trottoirs ont des aménagements floraux, payé par le citoyen qui vit en face du trottoir, c'est vraiment cool.

Aussi, le smogue, ça existe pas à Vancouver, alors là aussi, on gagne des points sur Calgary, Montréal, Toronto, Ottawa et même Québec.

Aussi, la majorité des autobus sont électriques et on possède le réseau de métro le plus gros du pays.

Et là je bitch pas aucune ville... mais je suis juste un peu confu.

Alors Forbes, c'est de la crap!