Place des Arts

A couple of 100 million dollars were spent on revamping this neighbourhood. It's mostly stone paving, it sadly lacks trees and other vegetation, and the lawns need to be replaced every year, at considerable expense, after the summer festivals pack up and leave... leaving behind a disaster zone.

Montreal doesn't have a clue about city planning: for inspiration, they may have looked at what has been done in European cities, but then decided to reinvent the wheel. They made it a square wheel, obviously.

There's a tiny ray of hope coming from Old Montreal: Place d'Armes is not so bad (if you ignore the cars unneccessarily crossing the square on three sides). Now what are they waiting for to pedestrianize the whole historic quarter?!

There I go again: being all European about things like this.