A Montreal Map Showing The Richest And Poorest Neighbourhoods In The City
As it's been said far too often: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. And in Montreal, that old adage is plain fact.
You can see it for yourself thanks to a detailed analysis on the average incomes of residents in Montreal's many boroughs, created by Radio-Canada.
Placedonto a map of the island, you can plainly see which neighbourhoods are filled with residents who rake in far more than the average income of a normal Montrealer, and those who make far less.
A "then vs. now" element is also attached to the map, as you can look back upon the distribution of wealth across Montreal in 2001, then jump five and ten years into the future and see how the average income of a borough shifted in 2006 and 2011.
Not that much changed from 2001 to 2001. In the span of a decade, where wealth can be found in Montreal (or lack thereof) stayed relatively the same. Save for a couple of minor exceptions, the affluent borough Montreal retained their wealth, if not getting richer, and the poorer areas stayed poor.
Red-hued areas on the map signify neighbourhoods with an average income higher than the city's standard, with a darker shade used to demonstrate how much it exceeds the average. Blue is the designated colour for poorer neighbourhoods, with the shade demonstrating how far below it is the city's average.
The colour-scheme of the map plainly points out the divide between the rich and poor peoples of Montreal, which may as well just be called the east vs west. With but a glance you'll notice how the western areas of Montreal are the richest in the city with the eastern-end being far poorer, not that most people weren't aware of that fact.
There are some exceptions to the "west is rich, the east is poor" rule of Montreal, but as the map shows, it's a pretty apparent geoeconomic fact of the city.
On the affluent end of things, Westmount, the northern end of Mont-Royal, Île des Sœurs, Beaconsfield, and the south-east of Centre-ville were marked as the neighborhoods boasting the richest residents. The poorest neighborhoods were shown to be Parc-Ex, Saint Michel, Montréal-Nord, Hochelaga, and Ahunstic.
Again, not that any of that will really surprise you. Westmount being the richest neighborhood in Montreal? Who could have guessed? Note the sarcasm, because the fact that the northern end of Westmount has an average income 307% higher than the city's average did not shock me in the slightest, and I'm sure you feel the same.
For a closer look at this data, head Radio-Canada's original post or to the map's host page here. You can even plug in your own postal code to see how your borough stacks up in terms of income.