Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban Peasant
I too don't like to include a place like Saint-Jean sur Richelieu in the Montreal metropolitan area but StatisticsCanada may have legitimate non-linguistic reasons to do so. I briefly stopped by the Carrefour Richelieu in Saint-Jean sur Richelieu in 2015. Based on what I saw in the shopping mall, the city did not look very thriving at all at least compared to Montreal. Did you ever suppose that people living in Saint-Jean sur Richelieu commute everyday to Montreal for work which is why it is included in Montreal's metro area? I am not familiar enough with Canada's census breakdown but here in the U.S. our census bureau breaks down metro areas into metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and consolidated metropolitan statistical areas (CMSAs), the latter of which comprises of different MSAs lumped together because they are somehow linked to one another, be it jobs, commuting, or other reasons. Lowell, MA for instance would be included in Boston's CMSA even though it is nearly 50km away. Hamilton, ONT to Toronto would be a good example in Canada. That's probably what StatisticsCanada sees. 35 kilometers is not that far of a distance nowadays, especially since automobiles are travelling faster than ever.
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These US-American metropolitan areas are grossly overstated and extremely overblown.
At least that's how they appear to me and I'm pretty sure that's also how they appear for most Europeans living in the Romance part of Europe, as well as Greece, Switzerland, Austria and countries of the former Soviet Union, who have very dense inner-cities and their metro areas usually only include an urban continuum, maybe sometimes with a few towns more away but never as exorbitant as US-American metro areas.
I acknowledge,
for US-Americans this is probably normal, so for US-Americans it is normal to have such super, super, super large metro areas, everything is big and large.
It's ok for Americans to have their own definitons, please let Québec follow the European approach, though.
The Portland metropolitan area in Maine has 600 000 inhabitants on 7400 km², actually the city of Portland only has 67 000 inhabitants, it would be unimaginable in a European country to declare a city of 67 000 to have a "metropolitan area". Basically these whole Portland metropolitan area is just a collection of towns in a region that is declared to be a metropolitan area. In Europe and Québec, there is another understanding of what a "metropolis" is and what "metropolitan" means. In general, metropolitan is perceived in Europe and Québec as very urban with a high density.
I tried to get information for the Boston metropolitan area on the English wikipedia, but I couldn't find the size of the area that has 4,7 million inhabitants. It's interesting that on the English wikipedia, the areas are not stated in the info box, instead only the super large number of inhabitants is seen. However, I could find the information on the Spanish-speaking wikipedia:
So, the Boston metropolitan area has 4,5 million inhabitants on an area of 12,100km², a density of only 371km². Is this true? Can you confirm that?
The metro area is almost as large as Flanders. For example, Flanders has 13522km² and 6,4 million inhabitants with a density of 477km². Antwerp lies in the middle of Flanders. If we would apply the US-American metropolitan definition to Antwerp, all of Flanders would be the metropolitan area of Antwerp... No one in Europe would consider to be Flanders as the metropolitan area of Antwerp. Actually, if we applied the US-American metro definitions to Europe, half of Western and Central Europe would consist of clusters of 3-10 Million metropolitan areas...
In US-America basically, there is a larger city (well..the city doesn not even have to be large as seen with the case of Portland)
and the entire large region aroun it is declared as its metro area, including everything, including far-away-lying towns, including large pieces of rural land.
What StatisticsCanada is doing right now is an Americanization of the Canadian metropolitan area definitions.
Saint-Jean is not a suburb of Montréal, it historically developped on its own, it just happens to be a city near (yet not very near) to Montréal, that has now been included into its metro area.
Well, there will be people who commute to work to Montréal from Saint-Jean, but I don't think their number is high, rather small. Saint-Jean has its own services. It's not a suburb, migrants don't choose Saint-Jean, for example Brossard (15 - 20 km away) has 40% migrant languages.
Also, I can't imagine why someone would prioritize Saint Jean over the other real suburbs on the South shores. Sainte-Catherine, Delson, Candiac, Châteauguay are all at least 15 km closer to Montréal business district. There are so many suburbs to choose from that are closer to Montréal (and not divided by an extra 15 km land area, which means that travelling back and forth results in 30 km more than the other outlying suburbs).
Yes, automobiles become faster, still it's not possible to drive 150 km/h on the streets on the south shore, and Montréal traffic ensures that it's actually not becoming faster. Still, there's logistic traffic, tourist traffic and traffic towards other regions, as well as some (not much) commuter traffic from others, that pass through the areas around Saint Jean, so a fast automobile does not make it faster to get to Montréal.
Also, in winter...well, in winter Saint Jean certainly is not a good place to travel back and forth to Montréal. That's the time when people applaud themselves for having chosen a location closer to Montréal.
It makes me really angry that StatisticsCanada is manipulating these statistics in such a way. 
So, French "increased" from 65,8 to 65,9 (including mutliple answers), however since they added Saint-Jean, and
Saint-Jean makes up for 2,2% of the total francophone population, and only 0,05% of the anglophone population of Grand Montréal,
French actually decreased to 63,7% (with multiple answers), while English kept progressing. If we discount Saint-Jerôme and Saint-Jean,
French even decreased to below 60%, to around 59% as a single native language in Grand Montréal. In 20-25 years, French will likely have fallen below the mark of 50% in Grand Montréal ( Montréal Island, Laval and the other real suburbs). Statistics Canada will continue to manipulate the statistics and probably further americanize its metro area definitons and include 95% French cities and towns that are 50 or 55km or 60km away in future, they will probably include Salaberry and Valleyfield (93% French) in the next census and they are going to hide the real dimension of French's decline. Each year french is significantly deteriorating, however because of StatisticsCanada manipulation and beautified numbers it only appear as a slow decline or stable.
Also Montréal metro area increased from 3,8 to 4,1 million between 2011 and 2016. But as we know, around 95,000 additonally came from Saint-Jean and are neither a natural nor a migrations growth. Then StatisticsCanada compares growth between urban areas. This is so absurd and hilarious. What if Toronto annexed cities with a total new population of 300 000 inhabitants or simply, they did annex none? Maybe Fusion or someone else from Toronto could say if Toronto annexed new cities or not in copmarison with the last census. What if Calgary annexed a city and then surpassed Ottawa-Gatineau only because it included a new city and Ottawa-Gatineau didn't? We don't know as long as we compare the territories that may have been expanded, renderring a real comparison obsolete.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tchek
I don't think that French gained ground in Flanders.
While it "gained ground" around Brussels, all the historical francophone minority of all the big Flemish cities, Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven... just dwindled to insignificance. Besides, even in the center of Brussels, French gives place to a more international culture.
French knowledge among young Flemish is also becoming lower and lower.
Dutch is actually becoming "the" language of Belgium.
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The linguistic ratio probably remained the same and is stable. The aim of the French and Dutch language "law projects" was to ensure that Flanders remains Dutch and Wallonia remains French and I think it's safe to say that they suceeded. While the periphery of Brussels keeps francisizing, the Flanders local government has made new stricter language laws several years ago to ensure that the periphery of Brussels outside of the communes à facilités, remains Dutch and they were successful. Belgium is a nice example that you can regulate language...
you just need strict, effective laws that make people learn Dutch in Flanders, not a baby weak law like Bill 101 that fails migrants to learn French...
However, I disagree with Dutch becoming "the" language of Belgium.
While it is true that young Flemish learn less French and know less French, we should not forget, that Wallonians rarely ever learnt Dutch and the % number of Wallonians knowing Dutch is lower than the % number of Flemish knowing French. Though, in the Brabant region around Brussels, Flemish youth does know French well.
Moreover, Brussels is the only global city of Belgium and Brussels is predominantly French, hardly Dutch. Yes, English is reducing the importance of French in Brussels, however , English is also reducing the importance of Dutch in Brussels (in the past people looked for workers who spoke French and Dutch, now in Brussels, they common requirements for a job are to know French and English) , and English in general is reducing the importance of knowing French and Dutch in the other part of Belgium.
Once I read a report about someone who lived in the Strasbourg region, just across the border to Germany. The German borderside offered him many opportunities, he would only need to learn German, however that person said that he would rather migrate to Québec than to learn German, it won't be different for youth in Wallonia.
The international élite might work in English in Brussels, but for normal people in Brussels and the Brabant region who come to work to Brussels, the language they use in Brussels is most often French and it will continue in the near future.
Brussels language laws ensure that people who grow up there either attend French or Dutch schools and do their communication with the city in either French or Dutch, and 92% choose French (
Bruxelles est francophone à 92%, selon les déclarations fiscales - La Libre ).
Brussels is by far the largest political, economic, cultural and scientific centre and most important "city-region" of Belgium, as long as it remains a predominatly French-speaking city, Dutch cannot become "the" language of Belgium. Belgium remains divided and has no dominating language.
Montréal can learn very much from Flanders.
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