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Journal Sepper's Journal: Living In Montreal 14

Journal by Sepper
It's tourist season. I see licence plate from as far as Texas and Florida. I always wonder: what do these people seek here? It's a great place to live (except maybe for the cold) but I would not know what to visit here...

Can anyone enlightment me?

Update: Just to make things clear, I'd like to point out that Montreal is known as 'The city with 1100 church but 1000 bars'. So I know about the night-life and stuff. And, of course, there's not a day without a festival in town.

My questioning is more like: Is it really BOOORING elsewhere?

Are we the only city to have Nightlife in North America? The only one with events almost everyday of the summer (A jazz festival, Formula 1 race, A 'just for laugh' festival, International Fireworks contest, etc...)

I know it's 'cool' around here, but I find hard to believe that there's none of this elsewhere.
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Living In Montreal More

Living In Montreal

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  • I live in Montreal too and I could give you thousands of good reasons for people to come over and visit Montreal : festivals, pretty women, drink age is 18 and even if you're not 18, who cares ?, etc. Or... I could be cynical and say that it's just people from here who've moved elsewhere and come over in the summer to visit their families ;-) (at least for Florida it must be the case)
    • Yeah, but do they come here because it's boring elsewhere?

      I like to live here very much, but i'd be hard-pressed to recommend something to visit except the Old Port, the ~300 bars in town, commercial centers and/or festivals...

  • Roadtrip back in 2000 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by motown ( 178312 ) on Tuesday July 13, 2004 @07:17PM (#9691904)
    Hi there!

    I'm from the Netherlands myself.

    In 2000, I hooked up with two cousins in the States to go on a road trip From Ohio to Toronto, then on to Ottowa, Montreal, New York City and back to Ohio.

    Although I liked Canada as a country, one thing I did notice about the city of Montreal in particular was the noticably high number of homeless teens roaming the streets. And I'm not talking "shady alleys" or anything, but broad streets in or near the center of the city.

    It was quite saddening. I also found it odd, since Canada is quite renowned for its decent social system (comparable to that of most Western European countries). I also don't remember seeing any stray youths in Toronto or Ottowa.

    Do you know the cause(s) of this, and has this situation changed significantly in the last four years??
    • Simply: Low cost living doesn't exist here anymore... If you live on minimum wage (8$/h) you still have to pay around 600$/month for your appartement...
      • A less direct reason might siimply be that living is too regulated. Usually, in sucha market, people would jump at the opportunity to build cheap appartments. The only problem is the paperwork, regulations, etc. which tend to not make the $$ worth the effort.

        Oh, and people still have the option of moving :\
        • It's more complecated than that.

          Some says the decline in low cost housing is industry-made because Montreal had the lowest housing cost of all majors North-American city

          The reality is more that promoters (who finance and build the houses) stoped building low cost because the Return on investment is really low compared to Condos and high cost appartments

          And you have to had to the fact that being French-speaking in North America is like living in a Ghetto: You can't really go anywhere else and Montr

    • Although I liked Canada as a country, one thing I did notice about the city of Montreal in particular was the noticeably high number of homeless teens roaming the streets.

      Are you sure they were really homeless?

      When I was in college, a guy I knew used to dress up on old ratty clothes and play the bongo drums downtown for hours every day. Why? Because you could make like 200-300 bucks in a few hours on a good day where tourist traffic is heavy. All you do is just keep clearing the cash out of your guitar

      • Are you sure they were really homeless?

        A lot are. Quebec (as a province) has:
        The highest suicide rate
        The highest unemployement rate after the atlantic provinces
        The highest rate of High school Dropout


        Combine that with:
        Local politic Nationalism/Anti-Nationalism
        Alcohol abuse
        Feeling of rejection By English-speaking North American Majority

        Homeless? A lot are.
    • I am very surprised to read that you didn't notice homeless youths in the Toronto area. I live in Toronto, and there are plenty of 'youths' begging on the streets. More now than there was 5-7 years ago. I understand that the economy in Quebec is not as strong as that of Ontario, so it's understandable that there would be a significant number of homeless there too.

      I love to visit Montreal; it makes me feel like I am visiting Europe (which I have never actually done). The place seems very urbane/cosmop
    • Montreal in particular was the noticably high number of homeless teens roaming the streets

      I live in Montreal. In fact, I was born and raised here. I know what Montreal is and I can tell you that it has nothing to do with homeless teens roaming the streets.

      You see, these homeless teens are, for the most part, NOT from Montreal. They're from all over Canada and the US. Usually, they have a home elsewhere (in another city). They come here to have fun, to drink themselves silly every night, to party all sum

    • A lot of it has to do with the fact that it's "cool" to roam the streets. Homelessness in Canada is a choice, because welfare guarantees enough money to live as long as you prove you're looking for a job.

      Although I live in Ottawa now, and like it because it's clean and quiet, I was born in Montreal and my heart will always long for it. It really is beautiful, what with the mountain and old port and all, and in response to the original poster: It is boring in comparison living elsewhere.
  • If you've ever been outside of Montreal, then you'll know Ottawa/Toronto suck for jobs unless you're a government sheepling or a top-dollar consultant/extortionist. At least in Montreal there is a healthy plethora of medium and large-scale businesses of all genres, and heck, just the entertainment sector is huge. I'd rather be making decent money out there, and having something to spend it on at night, rather than be stuck in Ottawa dealing road rage upon the 4pm traffic jam of Volvo-driving inbreds.
    • Wow. Amen. You said it better than I did above! Bravo - Ottawa is like Montreal's snotty little brother, who's snappiest come back is "no; YOU!" The so-called "Night-life" of Ottawa ends at 2AM sharp, and they card people religiously (not a prob for yours truly, but some of my friends... we've all been partying for YEARS, then all of a sudden it's like, "You aren't 19, sorry!" The funny part is Hull, Quebec is less than 5 minutes away and the age there is 18! But it kinda sucks too)
      • The funny part is that people from around here think the newly merged Hull/Gatineau is a "big city", tipping the scales at 500/600k residents. The irony is that Hull used to be an industrial/tech city, you came here to get a job, then you went back to Gatineau to buy a quiet house, or you went to Ottawa to fill up your nose and throw a street party. Now it's all snob-wannabes and the only 'industry' that thrives is whatever happens to be within 200 yards of a government building, no matter how awful your

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