Some of you may have noticed a set of links feeding into the sidebar of Spacing Votes. We shouldn’t be shy about it anymore and just spit it out. Spacing is expanding its coverage — say bonjour to our new daily blog, Spacing Montréal!
Back in the spring, a handful of Montréal writers and Spacing editors met in a downtown café near Concordia and decided that Montréal was ripe for a Spacing-style blog that covers urban issues. While Montréal has some great local blogs, we felt that we could offer a unique view of the city’s public realm. We are also pleased to have a handful of bilingual writers that will allow Spacing Montréal to publish posts in either French or English.
Montréal and Toronto are faced with a similar array of problems: traffic congestion, urban sprawl, under-funded public transit, and infrastructure neglect. Seeing how one of Canada’s other great cities deals with these issues may help us solve some of our own dilemmas here in Toronto. But Montréal has its own set of public space issues that are completely foreign to Torontonians such as language sign by-laws and no right-hand turns at a red light.
Spacing Montréal writers have been posting for about a month, building up their archives, and we’re happy to share this new blog with the world now. We look forward to learning more about the joys and obstacles of Montreal’s public spaces.
photo by Daniel Seguin, a Spacing Montréal contributor
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4 comments
Merci beaucoup Spacing – c’est super interessant de lire ce qui ce passe a Montreal! (Thanks very much Spacing – it’s super interesting to read about what’s happening in Montreal!) Love the bilingual element.
You have wonder whether Montreal is really a city in the first place.
Montreal may be more of pet Federal Government sponsored Theme Park than a real city.
At least Toronto, for all it’s pain and ugliness, pays it’s own way.
I don’t know about you, but I’m enjoying my weekly stipend from Stephen Harper. In fact, I have so much federal money to spend I think I’m going to wander down the street (paved with the blood and tears of Torontonians) to grab a drink. After that I might ride around a bit on our lavish, perfectly maintained metro. The trains come every 30 seconds — propelled by a constant stream of Alberta oil money, don’t you know.
Warmflash has an axe to grind, either at the feds or towards MTL.
S/he certainly doesn’t speak for Torontonians, but maybe loudmouths like him/her are why there is some make-believe annimosity between the cities.
Warmflash, I think the discussion that you really are trying to join, but are not doing so (embarrassingly, at that), is Quebec’s financial (and otherwise) relationship with the rest of Canada. Which has been going on for how many decades now? Of course, it’s easier to reduce it to some imaginary TO vs MTL thing.