When did it become apparent that Toronto would surpass Montreal...

[ScreamingViking]

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[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by lio45

One thing you may have failed to consider: if a CMA physically expands (say, it didn't include St-Jean-sur-Richelieu in 2011 but does in 2021; just a guess to give you an example), then that shouldn't count as part of the actual population growth rate -- it's not repeatable/sustainable.

Ah yes, that's a good point. I had forgotten that St-Jean-sur-Richelieu was added to the CMA in 2016. As far as I can tell, Toronto's CMA hasn't changed boundaries.

That means, apples to apples, Montreal saw a growth rate of 9.5% from 2011 to 2021, a little bit lower than Toronto.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Ah yes, that's a good point. I had forgotten that St-Jean-sur-Richelieu was added to the CMA in 2016. As far as I can tell, Toronto's CMA hasn't changed boundaries.

That means, apples to apples, Montreal saw a growth rate of 9.5% from 2011 to 2021, a little bit lower than Toronto.

They're both more or less equivalent in growth rates in the past decade. I think the biggest difference is that everything in the periphery of Toronto CMA (Kitchener, Barrie, Hamilton, even Oshawa) continues to grow at a very quick rate which simply contributes to the central CMA. I can't recall if those surrounding Montreal are growing as quickly but last I checked places like Trois-Rivieres or Sherbrooke weren't. Anyway. They're just populations at the end of the day.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Actually, one area where Vancouver seems to be taking up the mantle from Montreal is Canada's centre for globally-recognized fashion brands: Lululemon, Herschel Supply, Aritzia and Arcterryx are all Vancouver-based brands, and actually play up Vancouver a lot in marketing.

I know it's a very polarizing discussion with no definitive yes-or-no but put me into the Vancouver being more globally relevant than Montreal pool. Vancouver's clout in Asia and Oceania cannot be understated. It says a lot about how the past fifteen years have gone if both this thread and the one mentioned in City Discussion subforum revolves more around Montreal v Vancouver instead of Montreal v Toronto. The former is a more interesting discussion these days, IMO.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JHikka

They're both more or less equivalent in growth rates in the past decade. I think the biggest difference is that everything in the periphery of Toronto CMA (Kitchener, Barrie, Hamilton, even Oshawa) continues to grow at a very quick rate which simply contributes to the central CMA. I can't recall if those surrounding Montreal are growing as quickly but last I checked places like Trois-Rivieres or Sherbrooke weren't. Anyway. They're just populations at the end of the day.


I know it's a very polarizing discussion with no definitive yes-or-no but put me into the Vancouver being more globally relevant than Montreal pool. Vancouver's clout in Asia and Oceania cannot be understated. It says a lot about how the past fifteen years have gone if both this thread and the one mentioned in City Discussion subforum revolves more around Montreal v Vancouver instead of Montreal v Toronto. The former is a more interesting discussion these days, IMO.

Of course you would! :

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Martin Mtl

Also, Nordstrom never made it to Montreal, contrary to Vancouver. But it doesn't matter anymore...

Nordstrom And Nordstrom Rack To Exit Canada And Shut All Stores

Shit. That's going to be a huge blow for the Rideau Centre in Ottawa.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Shit. That's going to be a huge blow for the Rideau Centre in Ottawa.

It's not so relevant to me and many others, I was in The Bay the other day, and didn't even think about Nordstroms. Some American companies still haven't figured out the Canadian market all that well.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Vancouver's clout in Asia and Oceania cannot be understated.

As Vancouver is to Asia and Oceania, Montreal is to Europe and Africa. In this respect they're fairly similar, just facing opposite parts of the globe. This is a bit different from "worldliness" though, IMO, not to say that Vancouver "isn't worldly".

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Shit. That's going to be a huge blow for the Rideau Centre in Ottawa.

Without Nordstrom and the famous McDonald's the Rideau Centre may end up in our dead shopping malls thread.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Architype

It's not so relevant to me and many others, I was in The Bay the other day, and didn't even think about Nordstroms. Some American companies still haven't figured out the Canadian market all that well.

For the Rideau Centre and other malls, it's a huge space that is hard to fill because there a so few department stores and large footprint retailers these days.

I guess maybe they can break up the space into smaller units.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Loco101

Without Nordstrom and the famous McDonald's the Rideau Centre may end up in our dead shopping malls thread.

Not quite but if The Bay closes down (not in Rideau Centre but right across the street) there will be lots of empty retail space in that area.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Not sure that Canada would actually be better off within the US. We've had a slightly higher HDI for years, while a big part of the success of many of our cities seems to be due in part to Canada's immigration laws and the fact that most of our major cities are near the lowest latitude one can get in the country. I've heard some people suggest that if there were no national border, places like Toronto would have trouble competing with the sunbelt. The closest major US cities to Toronto - Buffalo, Rochester, Detroit, and Cleveland - have all been laggards in terms population and economy.

The obvious thing to remember is that wealth and general development are not experienced evenly across the US. There's not just inequality between people within regions, but also between regions. That's true of many countries but the US takes it to the extreme. So the fact that the US overall is extremely wealthy doesn't mean that being a region within it will guarantee access to wealth and general success. Could go either way.

Regarding Quebec, I have no idea if it would have been more, less or equally successful as a separate country. Poland may not be especially successful but the republic of Ireland has been very successful on its own, at least in recent decades, with greater percapita wealth and a higher HDI than the UK. There doesn't seem to be any universal principle that guarantees greater or lesser success as part of a union vs independent. I suspect the results would vary for each situation.

As you say yourself, it's hard to tell how well or badly much of Canada would do if part of the US. Those rust belt areas in the US declined not primarily due to their locations in rhe north but moreso their inability to adapt and their reliance on outdated economic models.

Plenty of cities and regions in the northern tier of the US are prosperous and wealthier per capita than most anywhere in Canada. Some of the richest places in the US are in the north.

Most of southern Canada is well located in the context of the North American economy and already benefits from proximity to the US. Now imagine if there was no border. But sure some sectors like agriculture would go through a huge shock.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ Exactly. There's other factors that make an equal or greater difference so there's no point in assuming it would go one direction or the other just to fit a desired narrative.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

^ Exactly. There's other factors that make an equal or greater difference so there's no point in assuming it would go one direction or the other just to fit a desired narrative.

I mean we can still speculate. My sense is that even under a worst-case scenario Toronto for example would probably be more like Minneapolis than Detroit.

Note that the St Lawrence and Great Lakes waterway would be all through US territory with no border concerns and of course it leads directly into the heart of the continent. It would probably be an even more important commercial route than it is today.

[LightingGuy]

EDIT: I moved my post to the other Quebec thread since my response went a bit off-topic. If you intend on replying you can do so there:
https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...postcount=4319

-------

This is a really interesting thread - working my way through it.

My take is that it is pretty obvious that Bill 101 hurt MTL. It's not the only factor, but it had some effect. That said, even though I personally disagree with the bill, I understand why they did it.

Not MTL, but my brother lives in QC and I've visited. My wife and I also stayed in Gatineau a few weeks ago. It really is a different world. I wonder if it felt that "different" before, or if it's as a result of the bill. As soon as you cross over from Ottawa and walk around, everyone speaks French.

A really interesting thing I noticed is how many immigrants there are from other French speaking countries - Haiti, a few African countries. I can't recall the exact stats, but I looked it up and the percentage of French speaking immigrants in Gatineau (and I'm sure the rest of Quebec) has exploded over the last 20 years. I think it's awesome that Canada is able to offer that to other French speaking countries - a French speaking developed region that will welcome you, so you can improve your life without the language barrier.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I mean we can still speculate. My sense is that even under a worst-case scenario Toronto for example would probably be more like Minneapolis than Detroit.

Note that the St Lawrence and Great Lakes waterway would be all through US territory with no border concerns and of course it leads directly into the heart of the continent. It would probably be an even more important commercial route than it is today.

If I were to guess, the percapita GDP would be higher by maybe 10% but the total population would be slightly lower and the HDI and general quality of life would be worse. Most of the cities would be donuts with lots of parking and comparatively little vibrancy surrounded by larger expanses of lower density suburbs. That's basically what we see in places like Ohio and Michigan. French would be little more prevalent than in Louisiana, and we'd be mostly viewed as rugged, nature-filled and empty like Alaska rather than those things but also a quirky "other" like now.

So not a northern Mississippi, but an overall step down.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Hali87

As Vancouver is to Asia and Oceania, Montreal is to Europe and Africa.

Absolutely, but for Montreal i'd argue it's only specific parts of Europe and Africa (the francophone ones), whereas for Vancouver it's most of Asia. If you have people with East or South Asian backgrounds they're almost certainly going to have more awareness of Vancouver than Montreal. The latter isn't really an option for them when they move or live within Canada and it's very rarely on their radar. This is difficult to gauge and is open to interpretation but that's my general feeling towards the situation.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

If I were to guess, the percapita GDP would be higher by maybe 10% but the total population would be slightly lower and the HDI and general quality of life would be worse. Most of the cities would be donuts with lots of parking and comparatively little vibrancy surrounded by larger expanses of lower density suburbs. That's basically what we see in places like Ohio and Michigan. French would be little more prevalent than in Louisiana, and we'd be mostly viewed as rugged, nature-filled and empty like Alaska rather than those things but also a quirky "other" like now.

So not a northern Mississippi, but an overall step down.

You're probably right about our population being a bit lower and about the GDP. Not sure about HDI and in any event the difference between Canada and the US is fairly minimal at the moment, and the US includes some really bad states and areas that can't see being replicated on that large a scale in Canada even if we were part of the US. We just don't have the societal and historical conditions to make that happen.

In terms of cities with no beating heart surrounded by sprawl, we already have tons of small and medium sized cities like that. Though sure, most of our larger ones aren't like that. Still, the US has many cities with attractive vibrant cores and our cities' peers in the US generally aren't the shitty ones.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Global city having a distinct culture: Montreal (and most global cities in fact)

Global city that is mostly just globally influenced: Toronto (not all that common but could conceivably the model more cities follow going forward)

I somehow missed this post before. I'd agree that if we were to make it a binary choice between Canada's two cities Montreal would fall into the former category and Toronto the latter. Montreal certainly does have a more distinct culture and Toronto is considerably more globally influenced.

However, I'm not sure I'd agree with the statement that Toronto is "mostly globally influenced". The city does have a distinct culture, even if it may stem from a more eclectic collection of sources - it's fair to say we aren't quite there yet but there still is very much a Toronto identity. This is something I've actually felt stronger about the more I travel both overseas and within the US.

Though I suppose defining what constitutes "global influence" is an interesting discussion in of itself. By some metrics you could say a place like London has shifted rapidly from a place with distinct culture to one that's increasingly globally influenced. While Toronto may be moving in the opposite direction, even if it's currently less culturally distinct.

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Ah yes, that's a good point. I had forgotten that St-Jean-sur-Richelieu was added to the CMA in 2016. As far as I can tell, Toronto's CMA hasn't changed boundaries.

That means, apples to apples, Montreal saw a growth rate of 9.5% from 2011 to 2021, a little bit lower than Toronto.

There are about 200k more people in nearby CAs that will merge with the CMA in the next decade.

Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Joliette, Lachute, even Saint-Hyacinthe are now part of the Metropolitan region unaficially. They will eventually be included officially.

They are part of the peri-urban renaissance. Montreal is the peri-urban king in Canada with more than a 100 cities to chose from that are less than 1h drive from downtown. The CMA is expanding fast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peri-urbanisation

[P'tit Renard]

Originally Posted by Hali87

As Vancouver is to Asia and Oceania, Montreal is to Europe and Africa. In this respect they're fairly similar, just facing opposite parts of the globe. This is a bit different from "worldliness" though, IMO, not to say that Vancouver "isn't worldly".

Exactly. Though Vancouver's acclaim and renown in East Asia isn't particularly flattering either. It's has the reputation of being a sleepy, cold and rainy resort town that happens to have jaw-dropping scenery and fresh seafood. It's not a business hub (the job market is crappy, especially from the view of the Hong Kong, Korean and Chinese diaspora), not a finance hub, neither is it a hub of arts or culture. Often times while in Asia I've heard it referred more as a comfortable retirement home, and their impression is that it's somewhat dull and boring.

Whereas the feeling I get while interacting with the francophonie outside of Quebec is that Montreal is a pre-eminent business hub, with outsized influence in arts and culture. It's seen as the alternative destination to Paris for them.

Throughout my travels in Western Europe, outside of the UK/Ireland (where it's tied), Montreal tends to be much better known of the two. Especially in Italy, Portugal and Spain, which makes sense to me since the former two have large diaspora communities based in Montreal, and there's a sizable Latin American community as well.