Saturday, December 10, 2011

Montreal--One of the Top Ten Hippest Cities in the World

The New York Times and its sister paper, the International Herald Tribune, recently identified the 10 hippest cities in the world.  
The staffs specifically
“examine[d] some cities that aim to be both smart and well managed, yet have an undeniably hip vibe. Our pick of cities that are, in a phrase, both great and good.”
Presented in alphabetical order (so no one knows exactly how each city actually ranked), the cities include:
  • Auckland, New Zealand
  • Berlin, Germany
  • Barcelona, Spain
  • Cape Town, South Africa
  • Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Curitiba, Brazil
  • Montreal, Canada
  • Santiago, Chile
  • Shanghai, China
  • Vilnius, Lithuania

Not only is my city the hippest in North American but apparently, my neighborhood is also among the hippest on the continent.  Both the Utne Reader and the Project for Public Spaces ranked the Plateau Mont-Royal as one of the hippest neighborhoods in North America.  

But the Utne Reader gave that rating in 1997 and there’s no date in the Project for Public Spaces discussion, so I have no idea if the neighborhood is still hip. Or worse, whether I’m personally dragging down the hip factor.  

(To see the original article and find out why the editors ranked these cities so highly, visit

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