Caca and James consider the map of most artistic places in Montréal...

Cracking the creativity code by Kelly Nestruck, reproduced from the National Post (Toronto), October 28, 2005 (original article here)...

Montreal has five of the 10 most creative neighbourhoods in the country, according to a new report released yesterday by Hill Strategies Research. Based on data from Statistics Canada's 2001 census, "Artists by Neighbourhood in Canada" details which Canadian postal codes contain the highest concentrations of working artists.

Montreal's H2W is the artsiest neighbourhood in the country, with 605 artists out of 7,560 workers, or 8% of the workforce. (Overall, artists make up 0.8% of Canada's workforce.) H2W, bordered on the north and south by Mont-Royal and Pins and the east and west by Parc and St-Denis, is the centre of the Plateau Mont-Royal district, whose streets were made famous in works by Mordecai Richler (St Urbain's Horsemen) and Michel Tremblay (Sainte-Carmen de la Main). "It's a wonderful and amazing neighbourhood," says local resident Chris Hand, whose Zeke's Gallery is one of 27 places that show art in the "Horse 2 Water" postal code. Among the creative folks Hand knows with a home address in H2W are Governor-General's Award-winning poet Erin Moure, sculptor Israel Charney, jazz festival programmer Laurent Saulnier, and inflatable artist Ana Rewakowicz. The eastern and northern parts of the Plateau -- H2J and H2T -- have the second- and third-highest concentrations of artists in the country, 6.1% and 5.6% respectively. [James, aspiring cartoonist, and Ryan, aspiring film maker, both presently reside at the über-trendy postal code H2J 1X7...]

Elsewhere in central Montreal, both H2V (Outremont) and H2L (Montreal Papineau, below Rachel) tied for the seventh most creative neighbourhood in Canada; B.C., the province with the highest proportion of arts workers, has two postal codes tied for seventh, too: V8K on Saltspring Island and V6A in East Vancouver.

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