Rechercher dans la communauté

Pas certain que retirer la gestion de stationnement des arrondissements est souhaitable. Je comprends le vouloir de simplifier les règles du jeu stationnement mais les fuis de trafique, le nombre et genre de commerces (bar, restaurent, boutique), rue résidentielle etc. sont très différents d'un arrondissement a l'autre voir a l’intérieure même d'un arrondissement. This will no doubt tickle Luc Fernandez. http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/montreal/201512/16/01-4931755-revision-en-profondeur-du-stationnement-a-montreal.php

San Francisco Millennium Tower is tilting and sinking - Archpaper.com La plus haute tour de condos de luxe à San Francisco s'est enfoncé de 16 pouces depuis son inauguration en 2008.

http://www.thestranger.com/news/2016/05/04/24039262/more-growth-please More Growth Please The "Yes in My Backyard" Movement Builds in Seattle by Heidi Groover "Meditate on this," San Francisco activist Sonja Trauss tells a crowd in a conference room overlooking Lake Union. "What's the difference between being able to afford something that's not available... and not being able to afford something that is available?" The room sits in polite quiet. "Nothing," Trauss says emphatically. "There's no difference. These are both ways that [housing] shortage manifests." Trauss is preaching to the choir: a room of mostly white, mostly male Seattle developers working on plates of steak and green beans. You don't have to tell this group twice about the rules of supply and demand. But in another way, Trauss is screaming into the void. All across Seattle, small fights are playing out over whether new buildings—new housing—should be built. These are fights about the scale and height of new buildings, neighborhood character, and whether Seattle is losing its "soul." They are tedious and they are hurting housing affordability in this city. But for the most part, the only people paying attention to these fights are the people who want to stop the growth. People like the developers in this room, who believe Seattle needs more growth to meet its massive influx of new residents, rarely show up to advocate for new housing unless it's their own project in question. The rest of the city's residents—who, if recent city council election results are any indication, favor new density over parochial NIMBYism—don't often show up, either. Trauss, 34, is trying to change that in San Francisco and encouraging urbanists in Seattle to do the same. Trauss founded the San Francisco Bay Area Renters Federation, a blunt, tech-funded, grassroots organization that advocates for more housing in and around San Francisco and was recently profiled in the New York Times as an indication of that city's "cries to build, baby, build." The group is one of many across the country organizing under the banner of YIMBY ("yes in my backyard"). Next month, YIMBYs will convene in Boulder, Colorado, for a conference with discussion topics like "forging healthy alliances between housing advocates and housing developers" and "responding to anti-housing ballot measures." "You guys actually have some non-industry pro-growth people," Trauss tells the Seattle developers. "Seattle has a lot of urbanists. It's just a matter of Laura actually starting a mailing list, and pretty soon you'll have your own pro-development citizen group." In the crowd sits Laura Bernstein, a 40-year-old renter in the University District who recently quit grad school to spend this year studying urbanism on her own and figuring out how to expand the YIMBY movement in Seattle. Before becoming a middle-school teacher, Bernstein studied opera and plant biology. Now she spends her days having coffee with other urbanists, going to community meetings, and running the Twitter account @YIMBYsea. At this time last year, Bernstein wouldn't be showing up in a story about YIMBYs. Then, she was working for a city council candidate who embodies the "not in my backyard" movement—Tony Provine. (By the end of his campaign, Provine was sending out mailers depicting bulldozers threatening to tear down single-family zones across the city. He lost in the primary with just 14 percent of the vote in his district.) Bernstein says when she started working for Provine, she thought he could serve as a bridge between pro-density urbanists and neighborhood advocates afraid of change. With enough reasoning, she thought, anybody could be convinced to welcome growth in their neighborhood. "All of that idealism went right out the window the minute I started knocking on doors and talking to voters," Bernstein tells me over Skype while she's in Vancouver to see an interactive art exhibit about growth there. Knocking on doors is when Bernstein says she began "hearing how cynical of downtown, cynical of politicians, and so put upon [homeowners were], like 'They're doing this to us.'" By "this," the neighbors mean growth. It's a common refrain in Seattle's density debate that developers or city officials are inflicting growth onto neighborhoods. In fact, of course, new people will move to Seattle whether we build for them or not. The only thing we have control over—unless we decide to build a wall—is whether we're prepared for those new residents. But Bernstein is holding on to some of her idealism. She doesn't like to use the term "NIMBY" and is deliberate about trying to meet with people she disagrees with. That sounds cheesy, but it makes her a rarity among the city's hardcore urbanists. On social media, Seattle urbanists can be a condescending, dick-swinging crowd, dismissing the lived experiences of displaced and struggling renters because they're busy shouting about the faultless wisdom of the free market. ("NIMBYs are literally the worst," one tweeted as I was writing this story. "Economic terrorists.") The city's well-meaning pro-tenants movement, meanwhile, peddles tired caricatures of greedy developers and focuses almost exclusively on rent control as the solution to Seattle's housing crisis. It's an exhausting split that accomplishes little, except alienating everyone in the middle. A group like SFBARF, led by renters and fighting for growth, could bridge some of that divide. Trauss is wholly pro-development—all types of it—but she also supports increased protections to keep renters from being "economically evicted" (when landlords dramatically raise rents to push out low-income tenants) and temporary rent control while supply catches up with demand. Some local density advocates are skeptical of the YIMBY movement. "Look at the math," Ben Schiendelman, a Seattle tech worker and outspoken pro-density provocateur, says of Trauss's efforts in San Francisco. "They don't win fights, and when they do, it's like for a handful of units in a building. In the time it takes to win those fights, you lose thousands of people out of the city." Schiendelman, 34, believes the only answer in Seattle and San Francisco alike is to get rid of zoning altogether. (Trauss's group is trying to sue the suburbs for restricting growth; Schiendelman supports that and says he's working on a similar lawsuit against Seattle.) Killing zoning would allow all sorts of building all over the city, he argues, creating a denser, more transit-rich city where poor and rich people live alongside each other. He has little patience for community organizing like Bernstein and others are doing. "People are becoming NIMBYs at a faster rate than you could talk them out of it," Schiendelman says. "The rate at which you could possibly organize [pro-growth] people is slower than the rate at which the city becomes less affordable." But a look at the public reaction to modest moves toward more density in Seattle shows what an unwinnable fight getting rid of zoning altogether could be. Last year, Mayor Ed Murray's housing affordability committee—known as HALA—recommended upzones to make certain parts of the city denser, reductions of expensive parking quotas, and new requirements that developers include affordable units in new apartment buildings or pay fees to help pay for new affordable housing. The neighborhood backlash was immediate, particularly against the recommendation to allow duplexes, triplexes, and backyard cottages in some of the city's single-family zones—which make up 65 percent of land (including parks) in Seattle. Meanwhile, others opposed HALA for different reasons. Developer lobbyist Roger Valdez argued the affordability requirements would make housing more expensive. Jon Grant, the former head of the Tenants Union of Washington State and a member of the HALA committee, criticized the recommendations for not including rent control and not charging enough fees on developers. In the middle, a coalition of developers and housing advocates have joined to form a group called "Seattle for Everyone," which encourages lawmakers and the public to support the HALA recommendations. In response to neighborhood backlash, Murray, joined by Council Members Tim Burgess and Mike O'Brien (who claims to be the council's environmental leader), backed away from the HALA recommendations. It will be up to activists like Bernstein to force that discussion back onto the table. With calls to abandon all zoning set as the extreme, allowing backyard cottages and duplexes becomes the moderate position in this debate. Bernstein says she's focused on what happens after HALA is done. The YIMBY movement "is here," she says. "I think we're a super YIMBY city." Back at the developer dinner, Trauss urges builders to show up at meetings and comment in favor of each other's projects and to do an industry survey of their salaries to try to make the point that they're not all getting rich. In San Francisco, she's looking ahead to May 10, when she's asking YIMBYs to all show up and vote in an election on the same day to show that they're a real constituency. "At the end of the day, some people just hate growth and there's nothing you can do," she tells the room. "You're never going to convince that person, so that's fine. Don't waste your energy. You just have to say, 'See you at the ballot box.'" recommended Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk

http://www.archdaily.com/631845/4-techniques-cold-climate-cities-can-use-to-make-the-most-of-their-waterfronts/ 4 Ways Cold-Climate Cities Can Make The Most Of Their Waterfronts Chaudière Island project in Ottawa. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will Urban waterfronts have historically been the center of activity for many cities. They began as economic, transportation and manufacturing hubs, but as most industries changed their shipping patterns and consolidated port facilities, many industrial waterfronts became obsolete. In Europe, smaller historic ports were easily converted to be reused for leisure activities. However, in North America, where the ports were larger, it was more difficult to convert the waterfronts due to logistical and contamination issues. Over the past 40 years or so, architects and urban planners have started to recognize the redevelopment potential for waterfronts across the United States and Canada, and the impact they can have on the financial and social success of cities. Though cold-climate cities pose a unique challenge for waterfront development, with effective planning waterfront cities with freezing winter months can still take advantage of the spaces year-round. Treasure Island project in San Francisco. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will Many cities in the northeastern United States and Canada are applying “California design principles” – design tactics that allow individuals to spend time outside 365 days a year – to redevelop their waterfronts and make them accessible to the public all year long. At Perkins+Will we have been active in this change, applying lessons learned in San Francisco and the Bay Area to colder cities such as Toronto, Ottawa and Buffalo. Here are four design principles that can help cold-weather cities make the most of their waterfronts: Treasure Island project in San Francisco. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will 1. Planning for winter sun Areas with sun are easily the most well-loved places in any city, but in dark, winter months, they can be especially hard to find. City spaces should find ways to plan for winter sun from the beginning of new development because individuals need, and are drawn to, the warmth that sunlight provides. Maximizing available sun in the winter is key to creating spaces where people love to be. Solar study for Lower Yonge project in Toronto. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will San Francisco is a good example of this. In 1984, San Francisco voters passed Proposition K, a historic “Sunlight Ordinance,” specifically to protect the city’s parks from the shadows of new buildings. When Perkins+Will worked on the Treasure Island project—an urban design project to transform the island into a vibrant new San Francisco neighborhood—we implemented that same design principle. We wanted to ensure on chilly days visitors to the small island, opposite the city on the San Francisco Bay, would have access to the sun. However, many cold-climate cities do not have these same regulations, so when we work on projects outside the Bay Area, like the Lower Yonge project in Toronto, we have to bring with us the sentiment that buildings should be designed to protect access to winter sun in public spaces. Lower Yonge project in Toronto. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will Our Lower Yonge project was the last piece of undeveloped waterfront near Toronto’s downtown area. Before beginning the project, we analyzed not only the existing buildings and transit systems, but also the site’s winter sun patterns. This helped us identify a patch of winter sun in the middle of the site from 10 am to 2 pm on December 21, the shortest day of the year, when the least amount of sun is available. To protect this important asset, we located a public park there—a major open space the site was lacking before—to encourage pickup football or soccer games and winter activity. We then used 3D digital design tools to shape the urban form of this new development ensuring that we would always have that same patch of winter sun. Lower Yonge project in Toronto. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will 2. Creating plazas that block wind In winter months, wind can make cold climates feel 10 to 20 degrees colder than they really are. For people to feel comfortable outside during winter months they have to be protected from cold winter winds. Cities can provide that protection with street patterns and structures that break up and block the wind. Chaudière Island project in Ottawa. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will Over one hundred years ago the U.S. Army implemented this design principle at San Francisco’s Presidio. The Army strategically planted more than 300 acres of large trees that helped block the harsh prevailing winds to protect the officers who resided there. When we recognized the brilliance behind this design principle, we carried it over to Treasure Island, where we planted trees and methodically placed buildings to help block the wind. Similarly, we took this California design principle and applied it to Chaudière Island in Ottawa. Solar diagram for Chaudière Island project in Ottawa. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will Like the work we did in Toronto, we surveyed Chaudière Island before we designed anything. In addition to identifying several plazas that receive winter sun, we analyzed the prevailing wind patterns that were acting on the island. To protect those plazas from the harsh winter winds, we designed the streets that led to the plazas so they were oriented away from the prevailing wind. We designed streets that were not straight, but instead meandered to prevent the wind from channeling down the streets. This helped create calm, sunny plazas on the island, even in the harsh months of winter. 3. Breaking up outdoor spaces with comfort stations In freezing winter conditions, people typically only feel comfortable walking outside for about 60 seconds. Providing a small destination for them every minute helps break up the cold and encourages individuals to use the waterfront space in the winter. Crissy Field in San Francisco is a large stretch of public park and beach on the northern side of the city. When the fog rolls in and prevailing winds pick up, the beach can be quite chilly. As a result, the city has created small destinations along the beach to break up the stretch. Wind-protected benches are located every few hundred feet and “warming huts” along the beach provide relief from the elements for visitors while offering a chance to learn more about the area, purchase a cup of coffee and warm themselves. We found this same technique to be successful when planning Treasure Island and implemented it again in our Outer Harbor project with the City of Buffalo. Outer Harbor project in Buffalo. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will The Outer Harbor project area spans a total of 200 acres, which can take people 30 minutes or longer to cross. To break up the space and make it more bearable during the freezing months, we provided some sort of visual or physical destination every minute, like benches, public art and other landscape elements. Every five minutes we designed comfort stations with heaters and restrooms. We used these small destinations as a way to incorporate unique artwork and make the area more exciting. 4. Designing for active winter programming Many cities have outdoor spaces that are perfect for summer recreation, but when it comes to the winter months, those spaces go largely unused. Cities looking to make the most of their waterfronts year-round should plan for winter activities from the beginning. San Francisco has large stretches of beach and paved outdoor areas along its waterfront, which makes it an optimal location for walking, cycling and running. On Treasure Island, we planned for similar open spaces with large recreational fields, shoreline promenades and artificial wetlands. While snow is not a factor in the Bay Area, other cities that have harsh winters can still use their spaces all year if they plan accordingly. Through our work with the Outer Harbor project in Buffalo, we created a space along the city’s waterfront we wanted residents to enjoy year-round. The space has an abundant network of walking and running trails, which were designed with wind protection, comfort stations and winter sun in mind. We looked at the site with an eye for specific hills that could be transformed into sledding hills in the winter, or bike paths that could be used for snowshoeing or dog sledding. Now, the space can be used for skating, ice sculptures and winter festivals and is a popular place in both summer and winter months. "Human Comfort Diagram" for the Outer Harbor project in Buffalo. Image Courtesy of Perkins+Will The most valuable asset that a waterfront city has is the waterfront itself. Waterfronts provide locations of growth and commerce within urban areas. For cities where there was previously no activity around their waterfronts, waterfront redevelopment is a great way to breathe life into areas that were once bustling hubs of activity. Activating cold weather waterfronts for year-round use presents serious challenges; however, urban design and planning offers solutions to these challenges and an opportunity for those cities to establish unique destinations that draw people to their waterfronts all year long. Noah Friedman is Senior Urban Designer in Perkins+Will’s San Francisco office. Cite: Noah Friedman. "4 Ways Cold-Climate Cities Can Make The Most Of Their Waterfronts" 15 May 2015. ArchDaily. Accessed 15 May 2015. <http://www.archdaily.com/?p=631845> sent via Tapatalk

Top 20 1. Monaco (29.21%) 2. Zurich (27.34%) 3. Geneva (17.92%) 4. New York (4.63%) 5. Frankfurt (3.88%) 6. London (3.39%) 7. Oslo (2.90%) 8. Singapore (2.80%) 9. Amsterdam (2.63%) 10. Florence (2.59%) 11. Hong Kong (2.58%) 12. Rome (2.54%) 13. Dublin (2.40%) 14. Doha (2.31%) 15. Toronto (2.29%) 16. Venice (2.25%) 17. Brussels (2.11%) 18. Houston (2.09%) 19. San Francisco (2.07%) 20. Paris (2.04%) Spear's

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/06/new-global-start-cities/5144/ RICHARD FLORIDA Author's note: Start-up companies are a driving force in high-tech innovation and economic growth. Venture capital-backed companies like Intel, Apple, Genentech, Facebook, Google, and Twitter have powered the rise of whole new industries and shaped the way we live and work. Silicon Valley has long been the world's center for high-tech start-ups. Over the next few weeks, I'll be looking at the new geography of venture capital and high-tech start-ups and the rise of new start-up cities in the United States. I'll be also track to what degree start-up communities are shifting from their traditional locations in the suburbs to urban centers. America's start-up geography, with its well-established high-tech clusters in Silicon Valley and along Boston's Route 128, as well as more recent concentrations in urban centers like San Francisco and lower Manhattan, has been much discussed. But what does the world's start-up geography look like? What are the major start-up cities across the globe? Up until now, good data on the geography of start-ups outside the United States has been very hard, if not impossible, to come by. That's why a relatively new ranking of start-up cities across the globe by SeedTable is so interesting. SeedTable is a discovery platform that's built on the open-source database of more than 100,000 technology companies, investors, and entrepreneurs available at CrunchBase (one of the TechCrunch publications). SeedTable has information on more than 42,500 companies founded since 2002, including whether the companies are angel- or venture capital-funded (angel funders invest their own money; venture capitalists raise money from others), and whether the funder has exited, either by IPO or acquisition. The data cover 150 cities worldwide. It is reported by separate city or municipality, so the Martin Prosperity Institute's Zara Matheson organized the data by metro area and then mapped it by three major categories: global start-ups, companies receiving angel funding, and companies receiving institutional venture capital. The first map tracks start-ups across the cities of the world. New York tops the list with 144, besting San Francisco's 135. London is next with 90, followed by San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (Silicon Valley) with 66, and Los Angeles with 64. Toronto and Boston-Cambridge tied for sixth with 34 each, Chicago is eighth with 31, Berlin ninth with 27, and Bangalore 10th with 26. Austin (23), Seattle (22), and São Paulo (21) each have more than 20 start-ups. Another 20 cities are home to 10 or more start-ups: Istanbul with 19; Vancouver and Moscow each with 17; New Delhi (15); Paris, and Atlanta with 14 each; Washington, D.C., Amsterdam, and Miami with 12 each; San Diego, Madrid, Singapore, and Sydney with 11 apiece; and Barcelona, Dublin, Tel Aviv, Dallas-Fort Worth, Mumbai, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, with 10 start-ups each. The second map charts the leading locations for companies receiving angel funding. Angel funding comes typically from wealthy individuals, often established entrepreneurs who invest their own personal funds in start-up companies. San Francisco now tops the list with 138 companies receiving angel funding, followed by New York with 117. London is again third with 62. San Jose is fourth with 60, Boston-Cambridge fifth with 50 and L.A. sixth with 48. Chicago and Philadelphia are tied for seventh with 19, and Seattle and Portland tied for 10th with 18 apiece. Nine more cities have 10 or more companies receiving angel funding: Toronto (17), D.C. (14), Berlin, and Paris (13 each), Atlanta, Barcelona and Boulder (12 each), Dublin (11), and Cincinnati (10). The third map above charts the locations of companies that attracted venture capital funding. Now the ranking changes considerably. San Francisco tops the list with 354, followed by Boston-Cambridge with 248, and San Jose with 216. New York is fourth with 160 and London fifth with 73. L.A. is sixth with 65, Seattle seventh with 57, San Diego eighth with 48, Austin ninth with 47, and Chicago 10th with 29. There are seven additional cities with 20 or more venture capital backed companies: Berlin (25), Toronto and Boulder (22 each), D.C., Paris, and Atlanta (21 each), and Denver with 20. The big takeaways? For one, these maps speak to the urban shift in the underlying model for high-technology start-ups. With its high-tech companies clustered in office parks along highway interchanges, Silicon Valley is the classic suburban nerdistan. But, at least according to these data, it appears to have been eclipsed by three more-urbanized areas. New York and London, admittedly much larger cities, both top it on start-up activity and the number of angel-funded companies, while the center of gravity for high-tech in the Bay Area has shifted somewhat from the valley to its more-urban neighbor San Francisco, which tops it in start-up activity, angel-funded, and venture capital-backed companies. The globalization of start-ups is the second big takeaway. American cities and metros — like Boston-Cambridge, L.A., Seattle, San Diego, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Austin, as well as New York and San Francisco — all do very well. But London now ranks in the very top tier of start-up cities, while Toronto and Vancouver in Canada; Berlin (so much for the argument that Berlin is a lagging bohemian center with hardly any tech or entrepreneurial future), Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin, Madrid, and Barcelona in Europe; Bangalore, New Delhi, and Mumbai in India; Singapore and Sydney in the Asia Pacific region; and Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro in South America each have significant clusters of start-up activity. The world, as I have written, is spiky, with its most intensive economic activity concentrated in a relative handful of places. Global tech is no exception — and it is taking a decidedly urban turn. All maps by the Martin Prosperity Institute's Zara Matheson; Map data via Seedtable Keywords: London, New York, San Francisco, Maps, Start-Up, Venture Capital, Cities Richard Florida is Co-Founder and Editor at Large at The Atlantic Cities. He's also a Senior Editor at The Atlantic, Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, and Global Research Professor at New York University. He is a frequent speaker to communities, business and professional organizations, and founder of the Creative Class Group, whose current client list can be found here.

"City lights broadcast our existence into the night of space. Imagine how the Earth will look to astronauts in a century's time or longer? These images are incredibly difficult to take from a spacecraft traveling along at almost 28,000 kilometers per hour. The images are held at NASA's Johnson Space Center in a special archive for astronaut photography. Watch for the great cities of Beijing, Istanbul, Melbourne, Montreal, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Buenos Aires, Brasilia (one of our favorites), and more." [video=youtube;-RGNhZ292Zg]

Every morning since a few days ago I go out of my apartment relatively happy, I get on the bus, I see all the litter inside it, I get angry, I consider posting this poll to inquire about people's habits, then I decide to post it later when I'm not feeling angry, so I don't write things I will later regret. But during the day I always walk around a lot, so there is no way that I'm going to be calm enough on a normal day. Luckily today I have not gone out yet, so I'm still happy Please answer the poll!! I am not necessarily looking to understand why this happens, as I know it has been discussed many times before. I find most other cities I've been to a lot cleaner than Montreal. I know some of them are dirtier in some aspects (Toronto, for example, appears to be home to a crazy amount of careless litterbugs), but I have not had to walk on piles of newspapers inside a bus shelter (see, for example, Plamondon and surroundings) anywhere else in the world, even when I don't remain within city centers. Sometimes I feel I'm too obsessive about litter, but then I hear friends complain about how "people from here are so dirty" (I do not share these generalizations!) while looking at the ground or at newspapers flying around, and then praising other cities like Vancouver, Columbus, San Francisco or Houston while on conferences. Most of the friends who complain are professionals from South America, some of them visiting Montreal under my recommendation. Educated Latin Americans tend to be very vocal about these things, so I guess other friends have similar thoughts but do not say anything.

Publié: 06 décembre 2011 16:36 Mis à jour: 06 décembre 2011 18:52 http://www.journalmetro.com/linfo/article/1043288--montreal-en-tete-des-destinations-canadiennes TORONTO - Le site de voyages Hotwire.com a annoncé que les grandes villes et les endroits aux températures clémentes seront les destinations de prédilection des Canadiens pour la période des Fêtes. Le site d'achat de forfaits de voyage à rabais précise que Montréal, New York et Toronto occupent respectivement les trois premières places du palmarès de 10 villes. Ces trois villes sont des destinations de choix pour les Canadiens habitant près de la frontière canado-américaine. Viennent ensuite Orlando et Fort Lauderdale, en Floride; Las Vegas, au Nevada; Vancouver, en Colombie-Britannique; Honolulu, à Hawaï; Seattle, dans l'État de Washington, et San Francisco, en Californie. En raison de la fluctuation des taux de change, Hotwire.com précise que les prix dans plusieurs villes frontalières sont demeurés concurrentiels, et que cela pouvait signifier des économies importantes lors d'un voyage. La plupart des autres villes sur la liste offrent plutôt l'occasion de ranger les manteaux et de se détendre au chaud. Le président du groupe Hotwire, Clem Bason, mentionne que les taux de change favorables et les rabais importants facilitent l'utilisation maximale du budget de vacances pour les Fêtes. Par voie de communiqué, M. Bason a indiqué mardi que les Canadiens étaient désormais plus réceptifs à l'idée de passer les Fêtes dans une destination vacances, qu'elle se trouve près de la maison ou dans un autre pays. 1. Montreal 2. New York City 3. Toronto 4. Orlando 5. Fort Lauderdale 6. Las Vegas 7. Vancouver 8. Honolulu 9. Seattle 10. San Francisco

The only area we did well in, was Transport and we came in 4th. Transport (Courtesy of Smart Planet) (Courtesy of EIU) Report

2010-06-22 WORLDHOTELS Adds 26 New Affiliate Hotels to Its Global Portfolio Since Jan. 1, 2010 For WORLDHOTELS-The Americas development team, new projects are in various stages of completion for new affiliate hotels in New York (2); Brazil (5), Argentina (2) and Mexico (2). Future regional development plans include hotels and resorts located in Memphis, Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco, Houston, Toronto and Montreal. Anybody knows anything about these folks? http: //www.worldhotels.com/hotels-and-resorts.html?&L=0 :)

APTA TRANSIT RIDERSHIP REPORT Take a look at this transit ridership report: http://www.apta.com/resources/statistics/Documents/Ridership/2010_q1_ridership_APTA.pdf (Montreal's stats are on the last page) I find comparing the 2010 average weekday ridership of major North American cities interesting. DR = Demand Response (like a STM owned taxi) HR = Heavy Rail (like a Metro) LR = Light Rail CR = Commuter Rail MB = Buses FB = Trolleybus (I think?) I'm not sure about some of the other abbreviations. Needless to say, Montreal's public transit network has the third highest average weekday ridership in North America, behind only NYC and Toronto. And our subway system is second only to NYC in terms of ridership. Quite interesting! The Metro is something we should be more proud of! Funny thing is, that despite the fact that our system receives more daily passengers than cities like Chicago, Washington, Boston and San Francisco, we have a smaller system. Food for thought anyways.

(Courtesy of CBC News)

Du site de Lemay Michaud architectes. Est-ce à Montréal ? Aucune idée, mais je présume que oui étant donné que c'est Parasuco. Entk ça serait tout un choc pour l'architecture montréalaise ! Je verrais plus cet hôtel à San Francisco ou Milan.

Regarder vers devant nous fait du bien. En voici un premier exemple. Trouvé sur le blog de Marc Gauthier http://www.marcgauthier.com/blog_en/category/architecture/ In January of 2008, the History Channel proposed a contest to architects based in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and San Francisco. The purpose: to imagine what their metropolis might look like in 100 years. They had a week to come up with a concept and three hours to build a scale model. San Francisco firm IwamotoScott Architecture won the $10,000 grand prize for its entry. Their concept buried the network of infrastructures to create more surface for buildings. Furthermore, the city’s energy came from algae fields that generate hydrogen. The site of the tv channel has all the information on the contest. The winning firm posted their images on their Flickr account. http://www.history.com/minisites/cityofthefuture

29. Edinburgh 28. Hamburg 27. Cape Town 26. Santiago 25. Tel-Aviv 24. Melbourne 23. Lyon 22. Portland 21. Panama City ----------------------- 20. Montreal 19. Los Angeles 18. Vienna 17. Madrid 16. Miami ----------------------- 15. Toronto 14. Tokyo 13. Buenos Aires 12. Rome 11. Vancouver ----------------------- 10. Paris 9. Copenhagen 8. Hong Kong 7. Berlin 6. New York ----------------------- 5. Sydney 4. London 3. San Francisco 2. Barcelona 1. Chicago (Courtesy of Ask Men) I am totally shocked that Munich did not even make the list. It is an interesting list. I wonder where Monterrey, Mexico would have been on this list. Also Honolulu and Boston.

Environmental study, alignment approved for high speed rail Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, July 9, 2008 (07-09) 12:55 PDT San Francisco -- The High Speed Rail Authority granted final approval to the Pacheco Pass alignment to the Central Valley, and to the environmental studies supporting it, Tuesday. With that decision, which came on an 8-0 vote, with member T.J. Stapleton absent, the alignment and environmental study for the 800-mile statewide system are complete. The next step is up to the voters, who will decide on Nov. 4 whether to approve a $9.9 billion bond to help fund construction of the system, estimated to cost at least $30 billion. Environmental studies for the rest of the system were completed in 2004 but controversy over which route to use between the Bay Area and Central Valley - the Pacheco Pass or the Altamont Pass - prompted further studies and much debate. The proposed high-speed rail system would whisk travelers from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles in two and a half hours, and would travel at speeds up to 220 mph. <img src="http://www.intellexual.net/temp/hsr.jpg"> http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/ this thing is finally coming together! the next step is for voters to approve a $9.9 billion bond to fund the construction of the system. this bond won't increase your taxes.

Monday, February 04, 2008 A young Montreal circus troupe leaps onto 42nd St. BY MICHAEL GILTZ Sunday, February 3rd 2008, 4:00 AM It's a stretch for Heloise Bourgeois during a performance of 'Traces.' The five young circus performers starring in the inventive show "Traces" at the New Victory Theater (229 W. 42nd St.) this Friday through March 2 learned to hold a crowd's attention the hard way: by working as street performers in Europe so they could afford to eat and rent a hotel room. "I remember the first show we did in London," says Francisco Cruz, 24, who, with younger brother Raphael and three of their best friends, went on an unofficial "tour" of Europe during a summer break from clown school in Montreal to work the crowds for pocket change. "We made this whole show, written all down on paper. But I don't think we picked the best spot. Our show was 25 minutes long and we made, I think, three pounds," Cruz laughs. "That's about $6! It was ridiculous." But they'd been performing and rehearsing together for years. Francisco and Raphael grew up just outside San Francisco and met their friends Brad Henderson and William Underwood while studying circus moves, like Chinese hoop-diving, hand-to-hand (which involves gymnastics-like moves with a partner) and Chinese-pole maneuvers. They all went to Montreal for circus college, and there met Héloïse Bourgeois. The five became inseparable, constantly working together on tricks and routines. So they knew how to adapt. "For the rest of our time in London, instead of doing street shows, we'd actually work a street light," explains Cruz. "We'd find a busy intersection, and when there was a red light, we'd run out, do a trick then run to each car and try to get money. And they'd be throwing money at us! In an hour, we'd make about 80 pounds. In two hours, we'd make 200 pounds." If it wasn't already clear, they were meant to work together. Luckily, as they neared graduation in 2001, a Montreal-based circus company called the 7 Fingers was looking to create a show. Veterans of the nouveau performance phenomenon Cirque du Soleil, the 7 Fingers had casually formed out of a desire to create their own show. "We really wanted to create something we called 'circus with a human scale,'" says Shana Carroll, one of the artistic directors of the company and, along with Gypsy Snider, a director of "Traces." "We'd been doing these huge productions, and our instinct was to go intimate and demystify circus." Their first production - "Lofts," in 2002 - was an immediate hit and is still performed all over the world. They wanted to build on that success without duplicating it, and here was a group of kids Carroll had known since most of them were little. (She and Snider urged them to further their learning in Montreal.) "After their three years of circus school, we thought, hey, we should hire them!" says Carroll. "If anyone is going to do a show with them, it should be us." The result is "Traces," a 90-minute burst of energy and creativity that incorporates everything from basketball and skateboarding and piano playing to classic stunts. It has played on four continents so far. In classic 7 Fingers style, the five performers reveal details about themselves so the audience becomes invested in them as personalities and really cares about the dangerous, physically demanding work they do onstage. It's the same lesson they learned in London. "It's not only about the trick," says Cruz of the show he has been working on and performing in for more than two years. "People need to see personality. They need to see we're having fun." Sometimes, almost too much fun. "They're young, and there are attention-span problems compared to other people we're used to working with," laughs Carroll, who hopes another 7 Fingers show - "La Vie," a dark cabaret act - can return to New York for an extended run after playing in the Spiegeltent at South Street Seaport last year. "Putting skateboards and basketballs in the shows, sometimes we think it wasn't such a good idea because every time there's a five-second break, they're jumping around!" http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/arts/2008/02/03/2008-02-03_a_young_montreal_circus_troupe_leaps_ont-1.html

World vibe at Montreal jazz fest David Rubien, Chronicle Staff Writer Thursday, June 21, 2007 "Jazz is a tree that has many leaves," says André Ménard, artistic director of the Montreal Jazz Festival -- a terse and apt summation of not only jazz but also his festival and the city of Montreal itself. The festival -- beginning its 28th annual edition June 28 and running through July 8 -- is the biggest of its kind in the world, an event that features more than 350 free outdoor concerts and 150 paid indoor shows. It is expected to draw more than 200,000 attendees, yet it manages to feel intimate. It's hard to imagine how a music festival that traffics in such numbers could be as sophisticated, smooth running, user friendly -- and inexpensive -- as Montreal's, but it is. Purists may raise eyebrows over the fact that two of the festival's headliners are Bob Dylan and Van Morrison (both shows are sold out), but this festival long ago got past distinctions of genre. In fact, in booking nonjazz acts, which Montreal started doing about 20 years ago, it pointed the way to survival for every major jazz festival, including San Francisco, whose fall lineup includes nonjazz acts Caetano Veloso and Ravi Shankar, and Monterey, where Los Lobos and DJ Logic will perform. "In 1986, when we last programmed Van Morrison, people questioned it, but he was on the cover of (jazz magazine) Down Beat three months later," Ménard says. "I wish every jazz album was as spiritually strong as Van Morrison's music. ... And as for Dylan, the way he redoes his songs -- that's a jazz attitude." Attitude is the right word. It's the thread that connects jazz acts the festival is producing this year, like Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Wayne Shorter and Bill Frisell, with world music acts like Angélique Kidjo, Femi Kuti and Richard Bona, with rock acts like Garth Hudson, Rickie Lee Jones and the Cowboy Junkies. It's not a punk or grunge attitude, obviously, but a dedication to musicianship and exploration -- a willingness to stretch and take chances. A jazz attitude. The strong world music presence at the festival -- 30 countries are represented, from a Chinese jazz singer covering Patsy Cline, to French new-wave pop, to Italian barrel percussionists, to Malian kora, to Australian didgeridoo, to Garifuna singers -- is appropriate, given the diverse ethnic mix of Montreal, which, as home to 80 nationalities, is considered North America's gateway to Europe and beyond. That is true even though almost everyone younger than 60 speaks English fluently. Centrally located downtown at the complex of theaters, museums and hotels called Place des Arts, the Montreal Jazz Festival packs all the action into a relatively compact space. Free outdoor shows are on nine small -- and one whopper -- stages, and 12 indoor venues feature the paid nighttime shows. The festival doesn't only stick the little-knowns on the outdoor stages, either. This year, a Brazilian carnival bash with Carlinhos Brown gets things going June 28; last year, it was the Neville Brothers. With more than 50 performances a day, it's clearly too much to take in, so it's a good thing adventure beckons outside the Place des Arts from any direction you choose. Heading south toward the St. Lawrence River, you'll hit Old Montreal, where you can easily spend an afternoon investigating the cobblestone streets, some with buildings dating to the 17th and 18th centuries. Stop at any of the many bistros offering mussels and pomme frites, usually with a good selection of French and Belgian beers and, of course, wine. Continue south to the river and at 27 De La Commune, you'll find Boutique Ça Roule, where you can rent bicycles -- a great way to see the city. But if dodging traffic sounds daunting, there's a leisurely ride to be had along the tree-lined Canal de Lachine, where heading west you can stop at the Marché Express, Montreal's equivalent of the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, only it's open every day. Less than a mile northeast of the festival grounds are enticing residential neighborhoods of many ethnic flavors along Boulevard St.-Laurent and Rue St.-Denis -- including the Latin Quarter, where last summer a spontaneous parade broke out, clogging streets, when Portugal defeated England in the World Cup soccer quarterfinals. Keep heading north along St. Laurent and you'll hit the Jewish neighborhood that gave the world, believe it or not, William Shatner. Now we can settle for old-school deli sandwiches and soda-fountain drinks at Wilensky's Light Lunch, or superb bagels at La Maison du Bagel or St. Viateur Bagel. Heading back south to the festival, consider having dinner at what many call the most authentic French bistro in the city, L'Express. There's nothing pretentious about this spot. It's all business, packed with locals who seem ecstatic to be there, digging into bowls of bouillabaisse or scarfing pate foie gras or bone marrow, and tossing back wine that practically dances in the glass. There's so much more to do: great museums, galleries, beautiful parks, a 20-mile underground city where people spend much of their time in the frigid winter, day trips to the Laurentian mountains. Once you've spent a day exploring the city, the music back at the festival -- be it danceable, cerebral or both -- offers a way to relax and synthesize your experiences, processing them through the sensual to the aesthetic to the spiritual and back. That's jazz, and that's Montreal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you go All locations are in Montreal. Prices are in Canadian dollars. Getting there From San Francisco, Air Canada flies nonstop to Montreal. A number of airlines offer one-stop connecting flights. Where to stay Hyatt Regency Montreal: Online rates for doubles from $244 (about $229 U.S.). 605 modern rooms and suites across from the Place des Arts. 1255 Jeanne-Mance. (514) 982-1234, montreal.hyatt.com. Hotel Place des Arts: Eight air-conditioned rooms, studios and suites in a renovated Victorian building downtown. $40-$80 ($37.55-$75.10 U.S.). 270 Rue Sherbrooke W. (514) 995-7515, http://www.hotelplacedesarts.com. Where to eat L'Express: Bustling traditional French bistro. Entrees $12-$22 ($11.27-$20.65 U.S.). 3927 Rue St.-Denis. (514) 845-5333. Wilensky's Light Lunch: Tiny shop serving classic deli fare 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. Entrees less than $10 ($9.39 U.S.). 34 Fairmount St. W. (514) 271-0247. What to do Montreal Jazz Festival: June 28-July 8. Various venues across the city. $12.50-$87.50 ($11.73-$82.14 U.S.); many free performances. (888) 515-0515, http://www.montrealjazzfest.com. For more information Tourisme Montréal: (877) 266-5687, http://www.tourisme-montreal.org. E-mail David Rubien at drubien@sfchronicle.com. http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/21/DDG4MQI4M71.DTL This article appeared on page E - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle