August 11th, 2007
Differences of Scale
In Paris, you’d need the better part of a morning to walk from the narrow, stone-laden streets of the Marais to the modern glass-and-concrete monumentality of La Défense. In Montreal, it takes less than ten minutes to wander from Old Montreal to René Lévesque Boulevard. Here, as in nearly all North American cities, the intimacy of the human-scaled city is but a fleeting illusion.
Tags: Exploring the City, Montreal, Streetlife
Donal Hanley says:
I think fleeting illusion is a good phrase but a bit harsh here – old Montreal is as big as Dublin’s Temple Bar or many other old quarters and is still more human in scale than many North American downtowns with the exception of some areas aroun Rene-Levesque. I’m going to Toronto for the first time in September and looking forward to seeing how it compares.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Donal Hanley says:
A fleeting illusion…to be pursued but never attained?
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:33 pm