Writing challenge #2

It is easy to see why the people who are living in Griffintown are unhappy about the hyperdensity route that the real estate planners are taking. In fact, we can see numerous amounts of high-rises present and hardly sense any charm or personality in this area. Raphaël Fischler, director of the school of urban planning at McGill, says that the lack of imagination is due to the fact that “developers are interested in putting down as many condos as possible that sell as well as possible. They are not so interested in innovation, although they benefit from the branding.” In addition, this lack of creativity has left numerous people upset, people like Harvey Lev. Lev, a landowner and community activist who is being forced to sell his plots of land to developers, argues that “the best neighbourhoods are those with three and four-storey dwellings, like the Plateau, Rosemont, and N.D.G.,” places where townhouses and low rising buildings are prominent. These low-rising structures give characteristic to the area, allowing people to actually enjoy these neighbourhoods because, just like Lev mentions, “who in their right mind wants to live in a neighbourhood that’s interspersed with 20-storey non-architectural towers?”