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https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/fresh-middle-ground-alternatives-between-nimby-and-yimby FRESH MIDDLE-GROUND ALTERNATIVES BETWEEN NIMBYAND YIMBY by DAVID ROSOW and MICHAEL WARD MIMBY – Maybe In My Back Yard MINDY – Maybe In the Neighborhood Down Yonder [gestures that way] SIMBA – Suitable In My Back Alley TAFSA – Try A Few Streets Away POOFY – Possibly On Our Front Yard PONY – Perhaps Our Neighbor’s Yard IGOODFAB – I Guess On Our Deck For A Bit ARBYS – Around the Rogers’ Backyard Shed OBESITY – Ok, But Everything Stays Inside The Yard ACTUALLY – Also, Consider Trying to Use A Little Less Yard HAMILTON – How About a Mother-In-Law Type Option Nearby HANDMAIDS – How About Next Door, Maybe, Assuming I Don’t See MAMBO NUMBER FIVE – Maybe Analyze More Buildings Objectively, Nicely Undermining Many Baseless Excuses Reactionary Fighters Inevitably Voice Endlessly THANOS – There’s Half A Neighborhood Opening Shortly

http://www.montrealgazette.com/travel/exploremontreal/index.html montrealgazette.com series called Urban Villages, in which we look at Montreal's up-and-coming neighbourhoods.

Series of articles in today's Gazette

Torontonian chills out in chic Montreal Posted: August 20, 2009, 4:25 PM by Karen Hawthorne food, travel Slow down: Linger at sidewalk cafes, stroll the neighbourhoods and eat some cheese Karen Hawthorne, National Post Most days, I embrace the go-go mentality of Toronto, but every now and then I need a break. A getaway to Montreal, lingering at the sidewalk cafes, strolling the neighbourhoods and eating good cheese sounded like the perfect late-summer diversion. Montreal has a chic but easy-going attitude, so even A-types don't feel the pressure to see everything or get everywhere. (...) Read the article http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/08/20/torontonian-chills-out-in-chic-montreal.aspx

Toronto's two solitudes: Poor city beside rich city Nov 20, 2008 04:30 AM Comments on this story (3) David Hulchanski "We heard as well about parents whose struggle to hold down two or three jobs leaves them with no time or energy to parent, of youth being humiliated by the obviousness of their poverty, of the impact of precarious and substandard housing on their ability to study and learn and engage with friends, and about the numerous other daily stresses of living on the margins of a prosperous society." – Review of the Roots of Youth Violence, Vol. 1, p. 31. We learned last week that among the roots of youth violence is the lack of good jobs – jobs that support a family, jobs that support an average lifestyle, jobs that support good quality housing. Though we already knew this, as a society we need to stop moving in the opposite direction. It wasn't too long ago that our language did not include terms like "good jobs," "bad jobs" or "the working poor." How could you work and be poor? Many people today are working more than full-time and are poor. They have no choice but to live in the growing number of very poor neighbourhoods. Money buys choice. Many neighbourhoods are becoming poor in the sense that most of the residents are living in poverty, and poor in the sense that housing, public services and transit access are all inferior relative to the rest of the city. The growing polarization between rich and poor is happening in part because of the loss of average, middle-income jobs. There used to be far fewer concentrations of disadvantage in Toronto. In the early 1970s about two-thirds of the City of Toronto's neighbourhoods (66 per cent) were middle-income – within 20 per cent of the average individual in-come of the metropolitan area. By 2005, the middle income group of neighbourhoods had declined to less than one-third (29 per cent). The trend is the same in the communities around the city's boundaries – the 905 area. The number of middle-income neighbourhoods declined by 25 per cent, from 86 per cent to 61 per cent, during the same period. Now 20 per cent of the neighbourhoods in the 905 area have very low average individual incomes, compared to none in 1970. This income polarization – the decline of the middle group with growth in the two extreme poles – is not only a general trend among Toronto's population, but it also is the basis of where we live. The City of Toronto is now divided into increasingly distinct zones. One zone of tremendous wealth and prosperity, about 20 per cent of the city, is located mainly along the Yonge corridor and stretching east and west along Bloor and Danforth. Average household income was $170,000 in 2005, 82 per cent of the population is white, only 4 per cent are recent immigrants (arriving 2001 to 2006), and only 2 per cent are black. Some of these neighbourhoods are more white and had fewer foreign-born residents in 2005 than in 1995. In contrast, there is a huge zone of concentrated disadvantage. It is still located in part in the traditional inner-city neighbourhoods, but now is also in the inner suburbs, the car-oriented areas built during the 1960s and 1970s. This is 40 per cent of the city, about 1.1 million people. Close to one-third of residents live in poverty (are below the low-income cut-off measure used by the federal government). Only 34 per cent are white, 15 per cent are recent immigrants, and 12 per cent are black. Federal and provincial economic policies, while seemingly abstract and high-level, play themselves out on the ground in our neighbourhoods. Paying a growing segment of the population wages that do not support individuals, let along families, at a basic standard of living and a fundamental level of dignity is not sustainable. The now well-documented rise in income inequality, income polarization and ethnocultural and skin colour segregation are city-destroying trends. They are trends produced by commission and omission, by public and private sector decisions. We need to use our regulatory power for the common good to focus on improving the labour market through measures like a living wage and providing people with a voice in working conditions via a fairer path to unionization. One-sided policy-making is not only generating greater disadvantage, it is destroying the city as a great place to live and work. Nothing is trickling down. The city is increasingly segregating itself as the social distance between rich and poor increases. Immigrants are arriving in a very different economy than they did 30 and 40 years ago. A recent Statistics Canada study concludes, for example, "that the wage gap between newly hired employees and other employees has been widening over the past two decades," the "relative importance of temporary jobs has increased substantially among newly hired employees," and that compared with "the early 1980s, fewer male employees are now covered by a registered pension plan." In short, policies have allowed fewer jobs to pay a living wage with good benefits. This did not happen by accident. It is not only possible but essential that we have an economy with good jobs with at least a minimum living wage for all. We need public policies that support the goals of a just and inclusive society, and we have to ensure that the use of political power benefits the common good. These are key goals of the Good Jobs Coalition and form the agenda for Saturday's Good Jobs Summit. They are essential to reversing the city-destroying trends at work in Toronto today. David Hulchanski is a University of Toronto professor and author of the report The Three Cities within Toronto. This is one of a series of essays created for the Good Jobs Summit, which takes place Nov. 22 in Toronto.

Cleaned up? Not so much One-Quarter of Montrealers see problem behaviour in their neighbourhoods The view on St. Antoine St. W. Almost a quarter of Montrealers said social incivility in one form or another is a problem in their neighbourhoods. Fifteen per cent mentioned drug use and five per cent specified prostitution. CHRISTOPHER MAUGHAN, The Gazette Published: 20 hours ago Montreal has been known as "sin city" for the better part of a century, ever since Americans started coming here to drink freely during the Prohibition era. A new survey suggests little has changed since. Researchers at Statistics Canada asked people living in big cities how often they witnessed incidences of social and physical incivility - that is, drunkenness, drug use, prostitution, vandalism, littering and the like. Montreal ranked second in almost every category. Twenty-four per cent of Mont-realers said social incivility in one form or another is a problem in their neighbourhoods. Fifteen per cent specifically mentioned drug use and five per cent mentioned prostitution. The view on St. Antoine St. W. Almost a quarter of Montrealers said social incivility in one form or another is a problem in their neighbourhoods. Fifteen per cent mentioned drug use and five per cent specified prostitution.View Halifax and Vancouver were the only cities to report higher rates of social incivility, at 25 and 26 per cent respectively. They were also the only cities to report higher rates of drug use at 19 and 17 per cent respectively. As for prostitution, only Vancouver had a higher rate, with eight per cent of residents describing it as a problem. People in 12 cities participated in the survey, the results of which came as no surprise to people downtown yesterday. Guillaume Fontaine, 27, works at a club near the corner of Ste. Catherine St. and St. Laurent Blvd. He said he sees drug users hanging around all the time. "Right in front of us across the street, in this area outside the doors there, they sit down and smoke their crack." It's a routine they seem to have been allowed to slip into. Fontaine said he sees drug users "on an everyday basis" ever since he took a job in the area two years ago. Others who work near the city's most notorious corner had similar complaints. "You can see the prostitutes and drug dealers working all the time, even early in the morning," said Hélène Dumont, 49. Montreal executive committee member Marcel Tremblay said police have behaviour like drug use, prostitution and vandalism under control and residents need not worry about the survey's results. Tremblay said Montreal's rates of drug use, public drunkenness, vandalism or prostitution may be high for Canada, but aren't through the roof by any means. "If you go all over North America, or all over the world, you'll have exactly the same thing." And Tremblay was quick to point out that Montreal does quite well in preventing violent crimes. "Have you seen the figures on security? We're (among the cities) with the least killings in Canada. We're able to go out 24 hours a day," he said. But implementing community policing initiatives is just a part of what needs to be done to keep pushers, pimps and vandals off the streets, said Irvin Waller, director of the University of Ottawa's Institute for the Prevention of Crime. "The solution ... is some combination of law enforcement and social services that tackle the roots of the problems," he said. "These social problems have been made a lot worse because of the large cutbacks in housing and mental hospitals in Canada in the 1990s. Montreal had a particularly bad time of that." Most people on the street yesterday agreed with Waller, saying Montreal needs better social outreach programs rather than more police officers. "It's obvious some of the people hanging around here are high, just look at them. But I think that's just the way it is in a big city," said Karima Lachal, 32, gesturing toward the UQÀM-Berri métro station. Just then, a short, thin man with greasy, matted hair and a few days' stubble staggered over to ask if she had any change. Lachal politely brushed him off. "There's a living example of what I'm talking about," she said. "Anyway, I think the police are doing their job, it's just that these people need more help on a social level." cmaughan@thegazette.canwest.com © The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

:eek: :eek: Montreal gets geotourism designation The Gazette Published: 7 hours ago Montreal can expect a substantial boost in tourism as a result of becoming the first city to be awarded a geotourism charter by the Washington-based National Geographic Society. On his first visit here, John Francis, National Geographic's vice-president for research, conservation and exploration, said it was not hard for the multi-media publisher to select Montreal from other unnamed applicants. "This metropolitan city has and natural assets that appeal to visitors," he said before a signing National Geographic's "geotourism charter" with Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay and other officials today. Montreal, he said, can "stand as a guiding light for protecting cherished resources around the world." The city's "holistic approach to tourism" is a continuing process. Guatemala, Honduras, Norway, Rumania, Arizona, Rhode Island also have been singled by National Geographic out as global destinations. It recognizes the importance of urban centres to global tourism and rewards those who safeguard the "uniqueness of integrity" of special places. Special attention is given to architecture, cuisine, neighbourhoods, neighbourhoods, entertainment districts, green spaces, historical, cultural, and urban landscapes. After his first visit this morning, Francis said he could see Montreal is doing a good job of preserving its heritage and is "worthy of visiting." National Geographic, through its flagship magazine and other publications, TV channel, and other platforms, is said to reach some 300 million people each month. About 7.5 million visitors came to Montreal last year, pouring $2.5 billion into the economy