I often say that I grew up in the country but the reality is that rural area was adjacent to a city afflicted with all the worst symptoms of suburban sprawl: strip malls, cookie-cutter housing developments, and the endless streets named after trees but with few of their eponyms in sight. Even the larger cities within a couple of hours drive suffered from the same sprawling characteristics of dull Western US cities. It's no a wonder to me, then, that I've always been attracted two unusual, eye-catching, and even quite strange examples of architecture.

The buildings of Philadelphia, West Philly near Penn especially, are awash in color. On streets with names like Pine and Hazel, with massive examples of their namesakes actually a part of the environment, row houses and old Victorians alike have been painted pink, bright green, and silver. A strange juxtaposition of beauty and the endemic violent crime in the area.

In Montréal this week, I was in Westmount for probably the first time other than driving down Sherbrooke on my way elsewhere. This small set of houses in the hyper-gentrified area of rue Victoria immediately recalled West Philly: