Metropolitics

Organizing Against Projet Gentrification: Housing Activism in a White-Supremacist Landscape in Montreal

Pierce Nettling — 2018-11-27T06:00:00Z

Housing activists in Montreal and Quebec have successfully sought to secure tenant rights and social housing for over 50 years at neighborhood, city and provincial level. Here, Pierce Nettling discusses how the continued reliance of left-wing parties on a white francophone political base mirrors the long-standing and systemic problems of racism in the province.
---- Series: Progressive Mayors and Urban Social Movements Montreal's left-based housing movements are rather unique in North

- Essays / gentrification, housing, racism, social housing, Montreal, public housing, Canada, affordable housing, progressive urban politics, race, mayors, progressive mayors, Quebec

Urban Decline Is Not Natural

Jason Hackworth — 2017-04-11T05:00:00Z

Is urban decline inevitable for cities affected by deindustrialization? While many scholars espouse the idea that it is a normal part of a place's economic life cycle, Jason Hackworth argues that urban decline is not natural, but rather produced, typically by factors that have little to do with economics and everything to do with social and political—and often racial—conflict.
---- Series: Shrinking Cities The fate of formerly industrial cities in the Global North—places like Detroit,

- Essays / racism, Rust Belt, Montreal, race, Detroit, urban decay, shrinking cities, urban decline, social conflict, Global North, Liverpool, Leipzig, Belfast, Duluth, Cleveland, Buffalo

The “Dozois Plan”: lessons learned from urban-renewal policies and the history of urban planning in Montreal

Frédéric Mercure-Jolette & translated by Oliver Waine — 2015-10-23T05:00:00Z

Urban-renewal policies justify their actions by decrying neighbourhoods earmarked for demolition. Frédéric Mercure-Jolette seeks to demonstrate this via the little-studied example of the massive operations affecting downtown Montreal in the 1960s. His article also highlights the inextricable links between urban renewal and the paradoxical institutionalization of professional urban planning.
The Projet de rénovation d'une zone d'habitat défectueux et de construction d'habitation à loyer

- Essays / housing, urban planning, housing projects, urban policy, urban renewal, Montreal, slum, profession, development, Canada, salubrity, public action

The politics of municipal mergers (and demergers) in Montreal

Richard Harris — 2013-03-06T05:55:00Z

In the late 1990s, the province of Quebec reacted to metropolitan growth in Montreal by merging the city with 27 of its suburbs, provoking a major debate and, ultimately, a number of demergers. An account written by one of the leading opponents to amalgamation (and ex-mayor of one of the demerged suburbs) discusses the experience and the issues at stake, providing a timely counterpoint to the French debate on “Greater Paris”.
Detailed accounts of municipal amalgamation can be exciting. Who

- Reviews / local government, decentralization, governance, democracy, local finance, local governance, local authorities, intercommunality, Montreal, Canada

Gay populations as gentrifiers in Paris and Montreal

Colin Giraud & translated by Oliver Waine — 2012-02-22T05:55:00Z

Are “gay villages” a sign of gentrification? A comparison between the Marais in Paris – an area gentrified before becoming a gay neighbourhood – and the Village in Montreal – more gay than gentrified – reveals differences between gay communities, as well as the relevance of a gender-based analysis of the city.
From the 1980s onwards, research in the US and Canada highlighted the specific role of homosexual populations, essentially male, in the renovation and regeneration of central districts

- From the Field / France, gentrification, gender, Paris, Montreal, homosexuality, Canada, gay, LGBTQ+, gaytrification