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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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It's impossible to understand the real estate market development without looking at and finding explanations to the major peoples movements within this large urban area. One of the main demographic developments includes, but isn't limited to, the continuing outflow of white French-speaking population from the core Island of Montreal toward its suburbs. Those who move out are particularly interested more recently in buying residences within the North Shore crown of mushrooming communities.

At the first glance the only reason for this mass exodus should be economic, and some 30-40,000 French-speaking Canadians leave each year the core island to settle down in other parts of Montreal because of the different real estate prices. The residences close to the downtown are several times more expensive than in the far away communities. People starting their homeownership life will logically gradually move up the social scale by first moving to cheapest possible properties within reach. With no such convenient properties closer to the downtown, and practically no detached houses within the range of $150,000, they have first to move far away and then gradually try to move closer to the downtown by climbing up the social scale. There is even a popular saying that a household reaching an annual income of more than 50,000 per year moves right away from phone area code 514 (for the core island) to are code 450 (for the surrounding areas).

There are however two supplementary explanations for this mass exodus, which is partially hidden in the statistics by the fact that the main inflow of new immigrants to the province of Quebec targets the older, cheaper and more accessible for the public transportation rental neighborhoods in the core island. One of these explanations is that the French-speaking movers don't appreciate the increasing number of visible minorities that settle down in the core Island of Montreal. According to this explanation the white French are emulating the behavior of the white Americans that fled many urban downtowns in the United States after the WWII that were eventually settled by several different minorities and later by illegal migrants.

If this explanation holds then we should assume that the exodus would continue, especially if Quebec doesn't gain independence and the current immigration influx continues unabated. Unfortunately this 'racist' explanation isn't easy to prove. As a matter of fact the Quebec population is less tolerant toward the cultural minorities than the Canadians in average, but there is a clear distinction between lack of tolerance and the willingness to move away because of it. In any way this explanation doesn't replace the economic argument, it may at best only supplement it.

Another supplementary explanation is that more and more people are looking for alternative kind of communities with higher quality of life like those mushrooming neighborhoods on the North Shore. At half an hour drive north of Montreal the Laurentian Mountains offer excellent conditions for winter and summer rest and sports. It isn't the cheaper housing or the lack of foreign migrants that attract more white French-speakers, but rather the close proximity to the pristine nature. No matter which explanation or combination of them is true, the fact is that the population of Montreal is more and more inclined to move away from the downtown and its close suburbs, and that the North offers best deals to many first buyers.

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