Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1498

Earlier today I stumbled upon a documentary called “ The Human Scale .”  I haven’t watched it yet, but I’m planning to rent it from iTunes later this weekend. Here’s the trailer. Click here if you can’t see it below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CyLNS_ljHw]

One of the things that’s so fascinating about studying cities right now, is that it feels as if we’re at a major turning point with respect to how we think about them. We’re coming off a long period (decades) of infatuation with the car, where planners and engineers predominately cared about one thing and one thing only: efficiently moving cars in and around cities.

But having now fully built out cities around the car, we’ve come to realize two important things. First, that it’s virtually impossible to keep up with the demands of the car. No matter how many highways and roads you build, there always seems to be gridlock. And second, by focusing so closely on the car, we’ve built cities that aren’t great places for people.

If you take a look at this short clip from The Human Scale  (featuring Siena, Italy), I think you’ll immediately see how differently we used to build our cities and how disruptive the car has been to them. 

I just got home from the 34th annual BILD awards . It’s late and I’m tired, but I had a good time. TAS won a few awards , including green builder of the year, and I saw a lot of old friends and familiar faces.

For those of you not in the industry, BILD is the Building Industry and Land Development Association. And every year a gala is held where a bunch of awards are given out for things ranging from the best marketing brochure to the best suite design under 750 square feet. If you’d like to get a feel for the event, check out #BILDAWARDS .

It was held out in Woodbridge, which is a suburb of Toronto. So today, I did something that I don’t do all that often or even every week: I drove my car. That’s fine, but it reminded me that one of the perks of living in a dense and transit oriented area (like downtown Toronto), is that you never have to worry about drinking and driving.

I’m really disciplined about not doing that, but it’s nice not to have to worry about it. It can make driving feel like a liability. So there’s another reason to love cities. You can drink whenever you want.

Montreal is one of my favorite places on the planet. In fact, if I have one regret in life it’s that I didn’t do my undergrad at McGill University . Living in Montreal as a poor student would have been the best. Though I shouldn’t complain because I did spend quite a bit of time there when I was a poor student.

If you’ve ever been to Montreal, the image at the top of this post will look familiar. The urban landscape of Montreal–at least in the residential areas–is filled with exterior staircases. They’re all over the place. And this always strikes everybody as a bit odd given that it’s a pretty cold and snowy place a lot of the time. Nonetheless, those staircases are quintessentially Montreal .

Some people think it was done to minimize the amount of interior space that needed to be heated, but I’ve never really gotten a definitive answer. Either way, all those stairs are an interesting byproduct of Montreal's commitment to one predominant building type: the multiplex. A multiplex is essentially a small apartment building containing a handful of units. They’re usually only around 3 storeys high. And they’re all over the Ville de Montréal.

To be honest though, I don’t think I’ve ever really explicitly thought about this defining Montreal quality. But then last night I stumbled upon an interesting blog post called “ Les escaliers de Montréal vs towers of Toronto ." (escaliers = stairs) In it the author talks about how Montreal is essentially this city of multiplexes (with stairs everywhere) and Toronto is this, more modern, city of towers surrounded by single family homes.

And here’s the data to back it up:

When it comes to single-detached houses and apartment buildings taller than 5 storeys, Toronto dominates. But when it comes to apartment buildings less 5 storeys, it’s all Montreal. And if you add in apartment duplexes, you’ve accounted for almost 75% of Montreal’s housing stock. Note: These figures are for the city proper and don’t include any amalgamated suburbs.

The author’s explanation for this comes down to zoning and timing. Since Montreal is an older city, the belief is that Montreal was simply further along in its evolution when formal land-use planning came into effect and started to order the city. I generally agree with this hypothesis, but I think it’s also worth keeping in mind that, just because a Toronto house might be zoned as single family, doesn’t mean it’s actually begin used as such.

A lot of the older houses in Toronto have been subdivided into what are effectively illegal multiplexes. Since this is all happening under the radar, nobody really knows what the actual stock of multiplexes might be. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that there are some real differences between the urban fabric of Montreal and Toronto.