ABSTRACT
Montreal is the world’s second largest French-speaking city after Paris. Having lost the status of Canada’s metropolis in the late 1970s, Montreal remains the nation’s cultural capital, where half of Quebec’s population resides. As one of the continent’s oldest cities, which celebrated its 375th anniversary in 2017, Montreal emerged in the 1960s as a modern, dynamic city, a small-scale, big city, that often ranks among the world’s most livable (or where people are happiest). The chapter argues that livability in the Montreal sense is not so much the work of planners and decision-makers, or an urban model (like Vancouverism), which can be branded and exported, but it is much more the product of a unique urban culture that is deeply rooted in Montreal’s (and Quebec’s) history. Montreal’s unique livable character is related to quality of life issues, such as rich man-made and natural environments, a progressive political culture, and a complex cultural heritage.
Montreal’s built environment presents a uniquely human scale form of urbanity, with strong neighborhood identities, richly layered interstitial spaces, and a peculiar house form, the plex, which allows the cohabitation of renters and homeowners and limits income-based socio-spatial segregation. Montreal’s civic and political culture, with a long tradition of unionism and cooperatism, has given rise to a strong sharing economy and modes of collaborative consumption that range from housing cooperatives, to car and bike share systems, and a well-developed social solidarity economy. Recent decades have seen the growth of very progressive public administrations in some of the city’s boroughs (Plateau, Rosemont), with participatory budgeting, public consultation, and the implementation of many innovative sustainable development initiatives. Quebec’s long tradition of support for the arts and Montreal’s bilingual cultural heritage also add to the city’s livability, in the form of a rich cultural industry, a vibrant artist community, and a rich, year-long use of the city’s public spaces, from endless festivals and art performances to convivial gatherings and social movements.
The chapter attempts to find a new definition of the livable city based on Montreal’s unique case, which is based both on deeply rooted cultural practices and newly developed planning instruments that together contribute to a rich form of convivial and livable urbanity. It presents an analysis of a series of recent and less recent case studies that attest to this unique urban culture: from cultural institutions like the Grande Bibliothèque, one of the most used public libraries in the world; success stories like the Bixi bike share program, now exported to dozens of cities in the world (including New York, Boston, Washington, Chicago, London, and Melbourne); to urban agriculture/soup kitchen programs, like McGill University’s Edible landscape; and vast pedestrianization projects, including St. Catherine Street, which every summer turns into North America’s longest pedestrian street. The chapter also underlines the many challenges faced by Montreal, in terms of endemic homelessness, crumbling infrastructure, ethnic cleavages, urban sprawl, and occasional smog incidents that still remain to be tackled to make the city more livable.
