I was in Montreal for the long weekend and I decided to take the time off from writing. I don't do that very often, but it was the right thing to do this past weekend.

Montreal is one of my favorite cities. I spent quite a bit of time there when I was in my early 20s and I almost ended up at McGill for my undergraduate degree. So I have a soft spot for the place.

One of my friends once described Montreal to me (and contrasted it against Toronto) by saying that it has grandeur. And I think that is exactly the right word.

There are so many moments throughout the city where you just feel its impressiveness. It's almost as if, from the very beginning, the city knew what it was destined to become.

In contrast to this, urban planner Joe Berridge has, in the past, referred to Toronto as an accidental metropolis. And I think that is a similarly accurate way of describing our city.

Sometimes in Toronto (or perhaps oftentimes, depending on who you ask), you have to scratch a little beneath the surface to find what makes Toronto a truly great city.

It's as if the city didn't know what it was destined to become, and built accordingly. Things just happened -- accidentally.

Grandeur isn't usually something that is discussed today in city planning circles. We instead talk about things like angular planes, context and, of course, building height.

But maybe it's time we rethink our list of requirements. Maybe it's time we ask ourselves: "Are we creating a city with grandeur?"

Image: Drone photo from the top of Mount Royal

The above photo was taken on Lake Couchiching (off Lake Simcoe) with a DJI Mavic Mini.

Here is the before straight from the drone.

And here is the after with my Lightroom edits. I then cropped it to a 4x5 aspect ratio because wide landscape photos don't show well on Instagram.

For me, this scene is a reminder to remain bullish on cities. Take people out of the city. Put them on boats in the middle of a large lake. And they'll still find a way to cluster together.

Why? Because humans are social creatures.

This morning I came across this drone photo of Hong Kong by @vnthota:

I immediately thought it was a good example of the typical Hong Kong tower plan that I have been writing about on this blog. You can see the cruciform plan, the light/air cutouts, and how this plan allows for towers to be built directly beside each other.

In some cases the result is perhaps not that dissimilar from a European courtyard block, except the building typology here is high-rise as opposed to mid-rise. Note the outdoor spaces in the middle of the blocks.

The cruciform plan also creates a secondary scale of courtyards at the corners of these “tower courtyard blocks.” That is, where you have 3 towers arranged in a triangle. I only see two instances where you have 4 directly adjacent towers. Probably discouraged.

It’s also interesting to note how relatively subtle shifts in tower positioning seem to open up the possibility of additional towers. You can see that just below the boat in this picture (not sure what the boat is all about).

Is there anything else you find interesting in this picture?