Living in Laval - La vie à Laval

The City of Montreal has recently launched its offensive against the suburbs of Greater Montreal, partnering with various condo developers and other real estate industry types to promote the charms of living in Montreal, and debunk myths that living in the city is infinitely less convenient.

Since we (mostly) work, live and play in Laval (which presumedly is the “South Shore” of the ever-growing Rive Nord, but we digress…), we find this campaign rather interesting. Especially since we’ve all moved from some other place, including the boroughs of Montreal. Think about it- everyone chooses where they want to live based on their own personal criteria, such as budget, lifestyle, place of work and school, and so on. So when things become a question of City vs. Suburb, we pay attention to the reasoning.

A slice of Montreal’s vast website encourages young families to crunch the numbers and see for themselves why saving money by not requiring a second car saves them huge amounts of money for the long-term. It’s a good exercise for any property shopper, but in terms of quality of life, we would prefer people saw the big picture beyond the monetary piece of the puzzle.

Also, it seems like the developers involved in the Open House Weekend are predominantly selling condos. Is that 5 1/2 going to be large enough once the kids get bigger? Are you ok with using public transportation to do your errands? Say a couple finally does decide to buy a car- can they be sure to find a parking spot? Is it on the street? Can they realistically afford a detached house, with a yard, eventually, with these savings or will they be content with letting their kids play in the city’s parks? 

We’d also love to know where to find such obnoxious people as the guy asking all kinds of probing questions to random strangers off the street, like in this radio commercial. We know, the point is to show that the woman lives close to everything, and certainly enjoys life as a family woman, as she deserves to. But we’re not so sure we’d be as polite as her once accosted.

Montreal is a stunning city- we all know it.  But like everywhere else, the suburbs grew out of people’s wariness with such close proximity to everyone, and wanting their own little patch of grass and quiet. Heck even the suburbs lose people to even more rural areas. It’s no longer a question of being a hip urban dweller vs. tragically unhip suburban drone. Instead of seemingly encouraging reasonable people to embrace city life as family-friendly, it sounds more like a desperate attempt to save their shrinking tax base.  :-s

Wherever you want to live, be sure to check out the city’s incentives to moving there- are there programs for first-time home buyers? Tax breaks? If you buy an older home, are there incentives at the municipal level to renovate it?

What do you think? Let us know by writing to info@mar-vo.com, or by commenting under this article.