Canada’s Densest Boroughs: Is the Plateau Really on Top?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- In talking up the density of low-rise walk-up apartments, many people claim that the Plateau in Montreal is the densest borough or neighbourhood in all of Canada. I’m not sure where this originally came from but the assertion even shows up on the Wikipedia page. At 13,000 people per square kilometre, the Plateau is pretty dense. But is it really the densest in the country?
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Density data came from the Canadian census, using 2021 numbers when possible/relevant.
I was going to say that 13,000 isn't that dense because that's barely above Roger's Park, Chicago... But apparently we're one of the 6 most dense wards in Chicago (out of 76). Odd, it feels so quiet and some people refer to us as a suburb.
I think density done right can really create a wonderfully liveable place for so many people.
It should also be noted that Vancouver's west end is a beautiful, clean, and quiet yet thriving neighborhood that was recently called the best in all of Canada, despite also being the densest. Nimbys will scaremonger about Kowloon Walled City when the urbanist goal is actually more like Bute Street.
Tell the Nimbys that Kowloon Walled City *did* have a height limit lol.
It is dull for its density, but it's as good as it gets for Blandcouver.
This didn't surprise me as I remember reading that Vancouver's West End district adjacent to downtown and Stanley park on the Peninsula was the densest neighborhood in Canada. The West End has always appeared to me as a bit of residential Manhattan and San Francisco mixed together and just as you described it Steve Bluescemi. Being a city person, it would be my preferred place to live if I were looking for a home in Vancouver.
this video was viewed by 4,000 people and not one thought to update wikipedia! i updated it now :)
I live in the West End, I love it. You'd think it would be super busy all the time, but there's lots of quiet places, small parks, and hidden secrets most people don't know about
Great neighbourhood. I had a friend who lived there right beside Stanley Park. I was quite jealous!
Why people in VAncouver are so pretentious ? you can keep your homless polluted city .
I live in Yaletown. It’s full of massive apartment towers. The West End has the potential for being the best neighboorhood in Canada, but for two main problems: lack of higher-order transit, and most of the old buildings are not earthquake proof
I could never be bothered waiting for a bus so I always walked when in the West End. Friends who lived there used to complain that no one ever came to visit because bus service was infrequent and confusing and you could never find a place to park. A few complained about the noise from the fireworks.
It needs an Expo Line extension from Burrard to English Bay
Soo DEMOLITION MAN.. is Everything Tim hortens
We really need street cars in downtown (Art gallery -> Denman & Robson -> Denman & Davie -> Yaletown)
and british columbians
We, in Toronto do have boroughs. East York, Old Toronto, North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough. They are pre metro boroughs, and still used in our mailing addresses.
east york was the only borough, the others were separate cities.
@@TheTroyc1982 okay, maybe Scarborough wasn't a borough... Maybe.
They were all originally boroughs, but then most "upgraded" themselves to cities.
Don't some mailing addresses use the older village names (Willowdale, Aginourt)?
@nicholasschneider6655 The name of Willowdale is still in used within North York, though normally found in the mail.
I'd guess to separate the same address found within multiple municipalities.
Not too sure about Agincourt though. But then again, both of the area names existed before North York and Scarborough went all in with suburban sprawl.
Toronto is built for cars , pollution and no sense of community . The subway is falling apart , old infrastructure in the city , and no identity , no soul . Mumbai in CAnada
Plateau is not the densest but where the density is the most livable I think, with a pretty close european way of like. You explains all of that really well !
Density shouldn’t be a contest, as by itself it has little meaning. The quality of living is, as you mentioned, the really important factor.
@@alaingadbois2276 yes it is. Doing density just for density has a sens around big transport hub like the towers around Sky trains stations in Vancouver, but we need to understand that everybody (especially people who lives in houses, those we need to make them change their way of life for ecological reasons) dont' want to like in there. We need to create options of density with townhouse, little plex and 3 to 6 story building like we have in Europe.
1:44 * Montreal doesn't do snow plowing, it does snow REMOVAL (as you showed in the video). They don't just shove the snow to the sides, into the bike-lanes, bike-paths, and sidewalks, they actually SUCK IT UP into a dump-truck and haul it away and dump it into a quarry that stays full of snow into April.
Yep, the snow mounds last till late summer!
The Plateau may or may not be the densest neighbourhood in Canada but its the coolest one.
Plateau resident here, you could not be more right!
Seconded by another Plateau resident!
Amazing borough to live at, expensive one only because nobody else wants to do the work the plateau did.
I live in the Village right next to the Plateau so I feel like I get a good deal. Lower prices and proximity to the plateau. It works for me anyways!
As a proud East Yorker I feel I should point out that the official name of that part of Toronto is the "Borough of East York"
Toronto has very "spikey" density. Case in point, Toronto Centre has lots of high-rise apartments and condos in St James Town and elsewhere, and also Cabbagetown, which is mostly century-old detached homes, semis and rowhouses. Also, Cabbagetown seems to be a breeding ground for NIMBYs; they once opposed a badly-needed daycare centre because of potential noise from children.
The "definition of borough" issue reminds me of something else strange that I recently discovered. That's how Chongqing China is the most populous city in the world 32,000,000) as well as the largest in area (82,000 square km, or the size of the country of Austria). This is a stunt with the definition of ""city" in China. By their definition, the 11 largest area cities in the world are in China.
Last I checked Garneau in Edmonton is around 12,000 people per square km? Oliver isn't too far behind that either. With luck our cities get more comfortably dense walkable places to live as time goes by. :)
Edmonton has a few quite dense neighbourhoods, but they are typically small clusters of high rises surrounded by lower density suburbs that bring down the average density in the area. Living in Oliver is great, but I still need a car because the commercial areas immediately outside my neighbourhood are big box plazas designed for cars. Density alone doesn’t make good urbanism, unfortunately. Edmonton seems to be heading in the right direction, though.
I feel like I fell on a weird forum post where they are having this argument.
I was surprised to see that the density in the Plateau was lower than my census tract, which has the same kind of built form, but I think it's because while here most of the three-storey walkups have two apartments per floor, it's common to see buildings with 1 unit per floor in the Plateau. A great video, thanks for making it!
@5:26 That "other cluster of downtown apartments surrounding Concordia" is called the "Shaughnessy Village".
nobody call it like that anymore
@@pouetpouetdaddy5
Everyone calls it that.
The census track is obviously going to be made up of areas of high rises. I think people like to quote the Plateau because it is very dense while being more human scale - not needing high rises to be dense.
Great video... great mind... thanks for you search !
From a Montrealer - merci beaucoup.
The Vancouver Centre riding probably falls lower on density because it includes Stanley Park, diluting the density. If you excluded it it would probably be on top.
Olympic village is the same density as the Westend. Joyce Collingwood is denser.
Montreal parks are 5 times the size of Stanley park . the island is covered with trees .The plateau has a massive park . Vancuver is not a green city and not a sustainable city , VAncouver welcome 329 cruiships ( 2024 ) highest C)2 emiisions and wate water , fossil fuels with costal gas ling from Alberta and coal . You are so pretentious .
@@Swiss2025 mama Mont Royale is not included in said ridings
What's good about the Plateau is that achieves high density while looking good and offering decent space for its residents. The large downtown condo towers you see in Toronto don't look good and have way too small units. It is pointless to build high density if you're gonna build it with 350 square feet of space per unit.
The boundaries of federal ridings are adjusted to keep the populations nearly equal if possible, with extra ridings being added as required.
I think the average is about 70,000 electors per riding. But still the populations of federal ridings vary significantly. Prince Edward Island is apparently guaranteed four seats by the Constitution, so they each have a population of ~35,000 people and ~30k electors (over-represented), compared to the riding of Burlington, Ontario, which has a population of 120,000 and 94,000 electors (under-represented).
I’d be interested in some other stats. Like density based on 3D volume, unique owner density, density of yards, density of entrance doors.
Very hard to get those stats.
I'm wondering if the Vancouver ridings are shown as less dense because they include a lot of water and uninhabited places like Stanley Park?
Vancouver Centre is brought down by having Stanley Park, yeah
The Plateau has the Parc Lafontaine that is quite big too though
Never felt like the densest, but it has density in a large area that doesn't primarily come from high-density appartment towers and an easy thing to point to for people who don't understand the benefits of the missing middle housing. Despite it being close to downtown, a main attraction of the Plateau, especially in summer, is that all your needs are met inside the neighbourhood itself, while downtown is a PITA to get to. Better still, it is incredibly diverse and often the best places in all of Montreal will be in the Plateau, not downtown. It's generally photogenic, has a large population of cyclists and people who walk, and it's very European and eye-opening to people who have only known stroads in their lives! The mythical way people talk about the Plateau is kind of just a function of needing an easy place to point to, but reality is obviously different, there's quite a few annoying things about the Plateau, and those things are wildly different depending on where and who you are.
1:59 doug ford GERRYMANDERED*
FTFY
Shocking erasure of Winnipeg's Osborne Village, which comes in at 14,000 people per square kilometre. Winnipeg is so dense it even made a list in a CityNerd video this week 🤓
Griffintown, eh? I suppose half of it is called Eagletown and the other half Liontown.
Haha
@danrobrish3664 It was name after Mary Griffin !
Interesting story in 1792 Thomas McCord bought a place called at that time Fief Nazareth. it was a farm land. He had to go back to Ireland to take care of his business so he appoint his friend Frank Langan to take care of his propriety when he was away. While he was away ! Langan sold the land to the Griffin (Robert and Mary) without McCord permission which the Griffin make a plan to develop the sector.
When McCord came back from Ireland he was furious he sued both Langan and the Griffin and the judge give back the land to McCord. After that McCord try to remove everything Griffin from his land. But 200 years he failed and the old Fief Nazareth is now known as Griffintown.
@glaframb Thanks! I didn't know that even though I am from Montreal. Left before the area became gentrified.
I live in Parc extension, so I was surprised to hear that people think plateau is denser lol. I think the density here is good, and could even be more without much changes. The city needs to add more greenspace tho
The Plateau doesn't really *feel* that dense and it's full of mature trees.
Oliver and Garneau in Edmonton are both around 11,000-12,000. But quickly growing and will likely pass 14,000 in a few years.
I was really surprised to find out Edmonton's densest housing area is the Railtown/N Oliver area between 109 and 116 Streets between Jasper and 104 Avenue, but I get it... Lots of old condo towers, walk ups, and its in the middle of everything quite literally... The best downtown shopping/restaurant strips in the core other than 104th street is along 3/4ths of these routes with only 116 being almost exclusively residential... I honestly thought the tower district West of 116 would have more people but it's not even close... Ditto for Garneau with its skyscraper clusters just off the UofA campus...
Vancouver and Montreal geographically lend themselves to a denser population (Montreal being an island and downtown Vancouver being a peninsula) whereas Toronto kinda just spreads as far as the eye can see.
This would be true if Montreal filled the whole island in medium to high density, but it doesn’t. There is low density car oriented sprawl within the island already. Montreal historically had plenty of room to sprawl on the island.
Sprawl in Montréal simply occurs on both the North and South shores of the island, which is even worse as all trafic gets jammed on bridges
Vancouver isn’t that dense outside of Skytrain stations and downtown. Neighborhoods are denser single-multi family houses , but it’s density is skewed with the high rise developments.
I’ve always considered Vancouver’s West End as a mostly residential neighbourhood in downtown where residents have always been able to walk to work. I can’t remember the source, but remember hearing that in the 1960s parts of the West End were denser than Hong Kong. It has only grown denser since the single-family homes there were torn down in the 1970s and 1980s to build more high rise residential towers. Although dense, it is a walkable place to live with the beach and Stanley Park nearby.
@@PatG-xd8qn oh no doubt! Just thinking historically. There was a time when the only crossing was the Victoria bridge so development only occurred on the slopes and on the plateau. Until highways and more bridges ramped up sprawl.
I wonder if the insistence on its density has more to do with valuing the density it already has but actually not wanting to see it increase in density with new high rises. Personally thats the densest I'd want to live and I can imagine that a long term residents would feel very comfortable and settled in their present density
I would like to know densest suburbs
You'd have to have a reasonable definition of what a suburb is first, but also why? That's like asking "Which oompa loompa is the tallest?"
@@blorpblorpblorpCity nerd kinda content
@@blorpblorpblorp Everyone knows the tallest Oompa Loompa is Janice the Giant at 5'4" tall...she's adopted.
One thing that I noticed in couple of videos on this chanel about density is the (implicit) assumption that "more is better", completely ignoring the fact that usually what you actually need is "enough". You do not need the densest possible neighbourhoods, you need neighbourhoods dense enough to support local business and public transit (and enough of those neighbourhoods to house everyone living there). Same for the cities, the bigger doesn't necessary mean better, all you need is big enough to provide variety of jobs (and millions of people living in the same place isn't the only option to achieve that).
I understand that in Canada there are many restrictions (both law and what is already build and must be worked with) and this channel is just trying to take a practical approach but videos like this, that just look for the bigger cities/denser neighbourhoods kind of end up giving the impression that more is better, period - and it's just not true.
We live in one of these neighbourhoods of walk-up apartments in Montreal and have made many videos about liking it a lot. We've also talked about appreciating medium-density housing in places like Chicago in other videos. This level of density isn't inherently bad. The problem is this level of density in a particular context where it doesn't meet housing demand.
The subtext to all of this is that I've heard many people respond to higher density housing developments with "they should instead build low-rise, like the Plateau; after all, the Plateau is the densest neighbourhood in Canada". In almost all cases that would mean building less housing than is needed.
I live in the West End, and it's quiet, leafy, has great access to parks, beaches and a variety of shops and services, and walkable and bikable. That's the densest neighbourhood in the country according to the video. So every neighbourhood in Canada has a long way to go before they reach densities that would be "too much." In a country that is millions of housing units short of demand, more is better. Cute 3 story walk ups built everywhere would have been great if they started in 1970 but after 50 years of underbuilding we need a monumental build out to catch up to the rate we were building post war to the 70s.
Vancouver’s West End is dense and a fantastic place to live because of the ocean and the park. The old buildings there have setbacks full of greenery.
I often think of that when I walk through the built up part of Griffintown, all concrete to the sidewalk. What were they thinking when they planned this? It’s really an unpleasant place to walk. I know they all have nice rooftops, but some of us prefer gathering in public places.
@@polishthedaysince when have building setbacks been gathering places? Wouldn't public parks be that?
@@MsMarmimaThey’re not. They’re green spaces. The trees and grassy spaces smell good in the rain and make the neighbourhood feel less like a concrete jungle.
That’s not to say there aren’t any public gathering places. Besides the beach and Stanley Park, there are parks and a multitude of cafes and restaurants. You can go to a concert next to the beach, or just listen to it from your balcony. Watching the fireworks from an apartment overlooking the water is almost as amazing as doing so in a boat as close to the barge as you’re allowed.
Densest hoods in Canada is Yonge and Eglinton followed by St. Jamestown.
I wonder where Osborne Village would fit in if neighbourhoods were rated for density.
I had the same thought - growing up it was always said that it was "one of the densest neighbourhoods in Canada". According to Wikipedia, it's 14,000 people per square km, thereby proving that Osborne is better than the Plateau and by extension that Winnipeg is better than Montreal 😅
Very informative. Thank you.
Trying to find what neighbourhood is the densest in Calgary, finding no good pre-calculated resource for it! It's not included in our official community profiles, and has to be calculated from community boundary shapefiles.
I thought the borough with the largest per capita density was Outremont in Montreal
this video seems to hint that being denser = being better. I think the row house type neighborhoods in montreal and elsewhere world wide can lead to beautiful, sustainable, and transit rich communities! Not everything needs to be or should be skyscrapers.
What dencity is requires for a 100% walkable experience?
Walkability has more factors than just residential density, ie density of street-level businesses. Central Miami is full of huge apartment towers but it’s not particularly walkable.
@@johnlennon2864 let me add the caveat, if the city was designed from bottom up to be walkable, what population dencity is required?
@@scientificapproach6578let’s say 3,000 as a rough minimum estimate. That’s the density of many walkable small towns
@@scientificapproach6578 I think there's no real thing as a minimum required density. If you want to build one of every essential amenity for a 1-person population, then a population density of 1 person per 3.14 sqkm would be around the minimum.
Prior to the undemocratically granting of the whole island to Geranium Premier (king Bourque) in 2002, Montréal had conventional city structure with wards and 1 councilor per ward. Some of the common services such as sewage, police and transit were part of the Communauté Urbaine de Montréal which was a layer above the cities and had voting memvers from every mayor on the island. With the undemocractic forced mergers, the mayor of Montréal not only got powers over the whole islamd, but also all of the CUMs powers.
But because this was too big a territory for a mayor, some powers were devolved to the former municipalities, though with the king of Montréal's oversigh on operations and especially budget. Hence the formation of bouroughs with some powers.
After partial democratisation to undo to undemocratic invasion by Montréal of other cites, Montréal retained its concept of a borough, and still calls demoerged cities "arrondissements" as if it still had control over them. Alas, the CUM was not recreated, so the mayor of Montréal has retained more powers than before, not just transit, sewers, police, but also water production, fire departments, and density planning (so it can tell other cities they need to densify). The republik of Montréal also retained control over certain roads outside its jurisdiction (and hence justifies taking ouyr money to spend it in its own territory and not fix the roads it has maintained jurisdiction over).
Funny part: montréal has the Pointe Claire water production plant and the "mains", but the cities have control over the water distribution to homes. However, the Republik decided that Ste Anne de Bellevue shoudl stop buying water from Pointe Claire plans and paid to build a pipeline to feed it from its downtown water plant.
At one point, The Republik of Montréal charged other cities on the iSland for works done on its water production planst at Atwater even though they don't buy water from it. This went to court and cities won.
If you were to go bakc to pre-2002 ward limits, Plateau might in fact have the highest density. When you change boundaries for political reasons, it is often for a reason. (such as rich Westmount having poor St-Henri (hostoruically) for federal riding so that avreage revenue is "average" and not one of the richest in the nation. The rigging of political geograhices may not be as bad as in USA, but it still exists in montréal.
Density is good but quality of life is better and includes green space , accessibility , walkable , bikable , safe environment and a sense of community . It is provin that high rise condos have no sense of community and have no connection with the city life.
Growing up in the GTA I always heard that it was St James Town. It was said with a very negative connotation though. Like canadas version of the American projects
If you mean neighbourhood then by far St. James Town in Toronto is by far the densest.
Cool bit of info
It would be cool to know the density of a census track that was totally made up of triplexes.
Did you guys happen to find one that didn't make it into the video?
So I have a question, why does density get a bad write up?
I see people talking about denser neighbourhoods as being dark, dingy commie blocks (or their western equivalent) that end up as hot beds for graffiti, unwed pregnancy, drugs, mugging and some even throw in [2 Samuel 13:14] for good measure.
But the footage shown of The Plateau looks a lot nicer and even if its only Canada's 4th most dense neighbourhood its still looks like a nice place to live, at least by the standards of a city granted I live in a "small town" (Britain doesn't have the designation officially, it goes to "town" at 20000 and "large town" at 150000, but people round here see it as such and its even maintained its village culture in a lot of ways even after the market town had the surrounding villages placed into it) so cities are more places I like to visit but not particularly wish to stay.
Still, hope you have a happy urbanity time.
It’s not rational. I don’t think they’d be able to tell you. Notice how often antidensity people use the phrase “on top of” in reference to people, but they never explain what’s bad about that. They just assume that you agree.
@@abcdeshole Thanks, this makes sense. I also noticed the phrase "Soviet Sardine Tins" being used to describe the houses where people are "on top of" one another. Which might also explain the tone they take with me, when talking to them they seem to think the only reason I'm not already an ardent anti-density supporter that I don't speak English well enough to understand the concepts involved and that all they need to do is simplify the language and I'll be right beside them.
I think it depends on the size of the borough or ward. Le Plateau seems smaller than the others you mentioned. Smaller area X # of people living in that area.
I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure plateau is bigger than the west end actually. The west end is very compact.
Osborne Village in Winnipeg?
I came here to write this. Looked it up, Wikipedia says 14,000 per square km. So more than the Plateau, although Osborne is smaller than the Plateau overall and parts of the Plateau are denser than Osborne. Still, probably the densest neighbourhood in the Prairies
It’s not even dense. They regulate against building mezzanines a lot (which are great as rentals for students), there are abandoned garages, parking lots with little occupancy, and a bunch of other misused spaces. Montreal is just not dense, nor is the Plateau.
338canada has plateau as third densest and third lowest avg income per household
Passionnant
Highest density means tower apartment.
Who cares? The point is that the plateau finds a nice way of housing people in density.
❤😮
I've studied and worked as urban designer for more than 15 yrs and never knew people look at the density as a ranking or competition! I mean ofc we know the problems of low density but high density can be as problematic! what we should care about is what optimal density gives you the best private space, neighborhood facilities for bike or walk and the best value for investment for public infrastructure costs. The great quality of Plateau comes from the fact that its in that optimal density range, and it'd be ruined if we had big condos popping there
The idea that there's an "optimal density" (regardless of local context or housing demand!) that needs to be achieved through legislation is the exact reason most places in the US and Canada are zoned for single -family residential only.
Would the Plateau be better if we demolished the towers that exist, pushing the residents out to live elsewhere?
@@OhTheUrbanity No one want to demolish existing few towers. People liver there and they must be protected. Meanwhile most of those towers are planning errors and they shouldn't be used as a green light to build more and more towers. There's a lot of 4-5 stories projects and they integrate well in the urban context but hight than that would be a mistake
Chewing two pieces of nicotine gum right now.
For me it's not important to know where is the "best of the better" in the country, I'm more concerned about noise and air pollution !
Shaughnessy Village is denser.
Montreal is built on an island 10 times the size of Manhattan with 19 boroughs deserved by a subway since 1967 and buses plus 1,000 km of bikig i infrastructures .
According to Tom Tom traffic index 2023 , Toronto ranked 3rd in the world for the worst traffic , Vancouver 32 nd and Montreal 103 rd.
WIth tropical summers , Montreal has a yearly budget of 1 billion $ to renew its infrastructures ( sexage, water pipes ) and create more sponge parks to hold water from the heavy rains . Montreal is unique in north america and building a green city with accessible nature in each noroughs . Toronto is sprawling 130 km away from downtown to get the title of the largest city in Canada , not the greenest and walkable with a old subway falling apart and all infratsrutures ( roads , sewage , pipes ) to be replaced .
FALSE : Parc-Extension is the densest area in the country.
I suggest we eliminate the debate by making Québec independant, am I right my fellow Canadians eh?
And Canada the US's 51st state.
Montreal is unique in North america , the most sutainable and the greenest . Montreal holds the UN sustainable agency and is now the world leader in sustainabiliy . Montreal builds with nature . The city has a budget of 1 billion $ for sponge parks , sewage eplacement rand engineering projects to collecte massive water from the tropical rain. Sorry ,Vancouver is not a sustainable and green city with oil pipelines, 329 cruiships ( C02 , waste water ) in the summer 2024 , oil ships . Toronto is the only city in north america to merge cities as far as 130 km away from downtown to get the title of the largest city in Canada. Toronto is not on any list of sustainable cities . BC loves to give themsleves titles . Recently , the city of Victoria declares itself the capital biking city in Canada . Montreal and Quebec are humbles cities . We get titles from worldwide repsected organizations and not from locals .
There are no boroughs in Montreal
They are called Arrondissements
And yet the City of Montreal's official website calls them boroughs. Thanks for your contribution though bud, it is very much appreciated
Canada is cooked without Quebec
Too dense for me.
What density would be low enough for you?
@@darthmaul216 I really don't know what the number would be. Some cities just feel too populated to me.
IF your bike lanes are full of commuters going 5 MPH, or people walking and not riding, I find it frustrating. Where I live there is a 10mph speed limit on designated bike paths. It's ridiculous! Freedom of movement suffers when populations are too high.
@@pinoygal6232 I don’t think you’d find yourself unfree to move about on the Plateau, unless you tried to do it by car.
imo, anyone saying this is too dense but is OK with suburbs is mentally retarded. You either want Plateau type density or countryside. Suburbs offer none of the advantage of those other too. The privacy is fake and your neighbors are still easily close enough to hear you, etc and it's not dense enough for walkability and proper access to services (makes the place boring and dead).
I completely understand people that want more space and privacy or nature, but suburbs are just not it. They are a dogshit economic compromise that sacrifices all of the actual advantages of the other 2 types. Anyone who says suburbs are actually superior as a living place is deeply mentally unwell. It's just a cope