A Travel YouTuber Asked Locals ‘What’s Wrong With Montreal?’ & People Got Really Deep
Montreal is often regarded as one of the best places to live in Canada — and with a booming nightlife, unmatched food scene and an abundance of history and culture, we've got it pretty good. But much like any other city across the globe, we are far from perfect.
From issues including economic disparity, language laws, and discrimination, to arguably more trivial drawbacks including too much construction and cold winters, Montrealers would surely agree that the city has its flaws.
When Canadian travel content creator Dan Vineberg, who goes by The New Travel on YouTube, paid a visit to Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, he asked locals "what's wrong with Montreal?" and folks got real deep, real fast.
The New Travel | YouTube
The first person Dan asked had a lot to say about Montreal graffiti. "In Montreal, a big problem we have are the kids who do the tags," he said. "They put their graffiti in places all over the city. It's less common than in Europe, but we have it here too and no one does a thing about it."
Others had a lot to say about the construction. "There's no way I'd ever live here and own a car," one person said. "The construction? Oof. Construction is rough." Dan also asked a fellow McGill student from California what they didn't like about the city, and construction and the cold weather were definitely up there.
As for cold winters, one person went beyond the frigid temps, saying it's the quietness of the winter that they don't like. "We stay inside a lot at home [during the winter] it is like the whole city is in hibernation. There's so much to do in the summer … but during the winter, there's no one. The city goes to sleep a bit."
Other responses went beyond the surface, touching on issues surrounding discrimination, language and money.
"Is there something about the city you don't like?" Dan asked another respondent.
"What I don't like about Montreal...it's complicated. There's discrimination from time to time," one Montrealer said. "If you want to work in a big company...me I am Moroccan, I am Arab. You can have your diploma [...] but if you want to become a director, you can't, because the person at the top is often white."
Economic inequality from borough to borough was also brought up. "What I like least about Montreal, unfortunately, is the economic disparity," one person said — using an example of the differences in life expectancy between those who grow up in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough of Montreal versus Outremont. "It's completely absurd that a few kilometres away, we have such differences. The class difference is absurd."
Of course, a "what's wrong with Montreal?" video wouldn't be complete without touching on Quebec's language laws.
When asked what they'd change or don't like about Montreal, one person said that the city is becoming more and more English. "We're losing a bit of our identity. It's necessary to be able to speak French to be part of life and the community here in Montreal," they said.
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