I Visited the Best* City in North America
I Visited the Best* City in North America
* according to literally hundreds of people who have contacted me about this over the years.
What's with the down votes? I liked the video, it was very extensive and I think showed a more fair representation of Montreal than apparently many other videos.
I think it's from anti-njb people because he is admittedly very pro-dutch and seems a bit simpy sometimes. His comment on NA being unrepairable and how people should just move to the EU was also controversial I think.
I think this video is really good, but he is also one of the most entry-level urbanism YTers, so I think some people judge him for that.
I get where NJB is coming from with the "move to EU" sentiment. If you personally want a better car free life, take the easy option and move somewhere like minded. You could spend a decade in north america fighting for a bicycle lane just for motorists to protest it unless cyclists pay "their fair share" in taxes.
There are some places in north america with decent transit and walkability but their scarcity often makes them expensive to live in, even after factoring in savings from not owning a car. It is an incredibly steep uphill battle for most other areas to shift away from car centric design.
but he is also one of the most entry-level urbanism YTers
Is he? He’s certainly very common entry-point into urbanism, but I don’t think that’s the same as being entry-level. I actually think he’s the best of the big urbanists.
Oh the Urbanity often seems to excuse some poor urbanism, and even when they aren’t doing that I find them far too neoliberal for my tastes.
CityNerd is brilliant, and he has a bunch of excellent videos. I particularly like the ones where he shows his gravity model for high speed rail. But he also does a hell of a lot of listicles which I can’t say are the greatest of high-quality content.
RMTransit does some good videos on fundamental topics, but his scope is very narrow—almost exclusively public transport, rather than other urbanist topics like cycling, walkability, different kinds of density & zoning, etc. I find them to be frequently very dry and not really focused as much on urbanism as it is on technical considerations. Interesting, but often more for the same reason I watch Wendover, rather than the same reason I watch NJB.
City Beautiful is probably my second-favourite of the urbanists. He covers a great diversity of topics in great quality. There’s just something that for me at least means I less often feel the calling to rewatch his videos to double-check a point then I do with Jason Slaughter’s videos.
Well for one the video is wrong, the best city in North America is Toronto, with an asterisk or without
Some real garbage takes in that one.
Which did you disagree with? I live in a far less hospitable biking city, but still thought he was right about:
- Urban highways through Montreal aren't great.
- Bike lanes that suddenly end discourage all but confident users.
- Land use around many of the Montreal Metro stations was poor.
- The hodgepodge of municipalities is a double-edged sword, some good and some bad.
- Montreal is like many North American cities and often chooses to put bike lanes and infrastructure on smaller streets because it's cheaper and draws less opposition than putting them on main thoroughfares.
- The pedestrianized streets are awesome and pretty well done, and should probably be made permanent.
You could contribute to the conversation by listing some of these takes and giving analysis on them.
Like what? I found it to be pretty accurate.
Source: I live there