Montreal, depictions of a mid-size metropolis.

Collin, Jean-Pierre

The current period seems to be a good time for overviews of the Montreal urban area and for predictions about its future. Indeed, as Germain and Rose pointed out in their recent portrait of urban issues in Montreal (2000), the city and the entire urban area are clearly in a transition period. The mid- 1990s appear to have marked the end of several decades of difficulties and the beginning of a long-awaited revitalization.

Metropolitan Montreal in the first decade of the new millennium is exhibiting a remarkable economic performance. Metropolitan Montreal in the first decade of the new millennium is undergoing a renewal of its municipal and metropolitan political institutions. Metropolitan Montreal in the first decade of the new millennium is emerging as a cosmopolitan city that is open to the world, especially in its cultural products and tourism industry.

But this kind of optimism is recent. After remaining unchallenged in its position as the metropolis of Canada from 1880 to 1930 (Gournay and Vanlaethem 1998), Montreal gradually ceded this role to Toronto. The city's decline in the Canadian and North American urban hierarchy after the Second World War was coupled with a long period of economic and urban restructuring. In short, during the latter half of the twentieth century, Montreal had to cope with losing its status as Canada's metropolis to Toronto, while simultaneously experiencing a gradual transformation of its economic structure, its demographics, its political institutions, etc.

Until the early 1990s, Montreal seemed destined to undergo endless restructuring and a continual decline. Studies on the city in the first half of the 1990s were characterized by discouragement and alarmism (Coffey and Polese 1993; Thibodeau in Tellier 1997; Possibles 1991) in the face of a recovery that never seemed able to take foot. From 1976 to 1995, Montreal appeared to be "going to the dogs" [Translation] (Tellier 1997: 4), judging by the exceptionally high unemployment rate in both the city and the metropolitan area, compared with other North American urban areas of similar size. In short, in the early 1990s, Montreal seemed to have become, like a few other cities in the northeastern U.S. and the American Midwest, a capital of poverty and unemployment.

Within this chorus of analyses, several authors had suggested that revitalization factors had also been at work since the 1960s, ensuring Montreal's transition from its status as Canada's metropolis to its role as the metropolis of Quebec in the city's quest for a new identity (Linteau 1994; Senecal and Manzagol 1993; Germain and Rose 2000).

A Francophone "reconquest" of Montreal (Levine 1997) was accompanied by the city's growing ascendancy over Quebec as a whole, driven by a dynamic service sector (Lamonde and Martineau 1992). In practice, this enhanced metropolitan role is based on Montreal's successful transition to the new economy, as seen in the aerospace, biopharmaceutical, information technology and communications sectors. "Montreal has also become the cultural metropolis, with its radio and television networks, publishing houses, and concert promoters. It draws talent from throughout Quebec and exports its cultural products province-wide and beyond" [Translation] (Linteau 1995: 54). In the past ten years, there has been a rapid growth in these phenomena.

But the revitalization factors identified have less to do with Montreal's integration into the Quebec context than with the city's role on the continental and international scene, whether in the transportation sector (especially in container handling), industrial restructuring, changing labour force skills, the presence of international organizations (especially ICAO), or cultural elements that will play a part in Montreal's future.

Moreover, the city's role as the metropolis of Quebec is not particularly unique. As Senecal has pointed out, metropolitan domination in Canada is not as definitive as has been the case in other national contexts. Senecal feels that we should take a nuanced approach to studies on the role of a Canadian metropolis, to the extent that metropolitan domination is actually only partial and that "the organization of Canadian space would seem ... to be made up of several urban systems that are more or less independent of one another" [Translation] (Senecal 1992:31).

Whatever the case, this notion of a Quebec metropolis is used fairly widely to describe Montreal, the conditions of its decline, and the factors contributing to its recovery.

Coffey and Polese (1993) consider the matter from the perspective of the relative decline of Montreal's empire due to the shrinking of its area of influence "as a commercial and cultural centre" [Translation], a process they define as follows: "A city may come to lose its dominance over its economic and cultural hinterland, resulting in a reduction in the size of its service sector and the number of jobs associated with this sector" [Translation] (421).

But this notion of empire involves an important nuance, since what it emphasizes is not so much the city's relations of dominance over a hinterland as the city's role as the leader of this hinterland within a network of metropolises. In this context, a metropolis is defined more by the quality of its inter-metropolitan relations than by its domination of internal politics. So it could be said that Montreal is strengthening its position as Quebec's metropolis by emerging as an international city.

Some observers feel that this type of repositioning of metropolises is happening more frequently and even consider this a significant feature of the current period. So the shift from Canada's metropolis to Quebec's metropolis should be seen not only as a shrinking of Montreal's area of influence, but also as one of the manifestations of "metropolitanization," a veritable territorial restructuring of the world system (Fontan, Klein and Tremblay 1999; Klein 2000). The question of how a metropolis interacts with its immediate periphery then becomes secondary and even unimportant.

Does Montreal's emergence as an international city make it an exceptional environment, that is, a distinct city-region in a distinct society, to paraphrase Coffey and Polese (1999)? I feel that the question should be posed quite differently. In an analysis produced in early 2000, we pointed out that, from the perspective of the development and transformation of its economic structure, Montreal seems a "typical" metropolis in the Canadian context and also, in several ways, when compared with American city-regions of a similar size (Collin and Seguin 2000).

Despite its distinctive qualities (including a stronger manufacturing sector) and even a divergent position in certain aspects, observation of the main tendencies in the late 1990s shows that, overall, there is nothing exceptional in the behaviour of Montreal's economy, whether in the history of its restructuring or in the trends emerging in its ongoing transformation. In its socio-demographics, Montreal is in many ways very different from other Canadian cities, and yet the underlying tendencies are the same. Similarly, on the level of local and regional governance, the recent reforms affecting Montreal differ very little from those that have affected other large Canadian cities since the mid-1990s.

In short, Montreal is not significantly different from other urban centres, and the analyses that follow, while primarily shedding light on specific aspects, are useful for anyone wishing to understand some of the urban issues facing Canada at the beginning of the new millennium.

In this issue

Featured in this issue are several depictions of Montreal realities. With the exception of the-first article, these disparate profiles are the result of empirical research on various aspects of this mid-sized North American city.

The first article analyses the usefulness and relevance of an approach based on a regional or metropolitan perspective by placing the notion of the city-region in its historical context. Concentrating primarily on Montreal, Collin, Dagenais and Poitras raise questions about the most appropriate scale for clarifying the underlying tensions in the development of an urban area. The authors emphasize that the metropolitan issues facing Montreal today have deep historical roots, reaching back at least as far as the early decades of the 19th century. The first part of the article offers a brief synthesis of studies that have tried to use the region rather than the city as an analytical framework for the historical development of Montreal. This is followed by an exploration of the definitions and various identities that have been attributed to the region. Finally, the authors recommend that historians and geographers revise their research approaches and strategies and the analytical frameworks they use by considering convergences in urban and environmental history, and focussing more on the crucial role of intra-metropolitan relations in studies on the making of a metropolitan space.

The next two articles examine the context of the Island of Montreal, a political entity currently being redefined and transformed, in looking at issues in urban governance. Alain Faure's article focusses on the impact of the transformation of Montreal's municipal political structure. And Fontan, Hamel, Morin and Shragge discuss a particular sector of civil society: community economic development.

Alain Faure investigates the origins of municipal reform, which he views as especially illustrative of the influence urban issues can have on the political system as a whole. Based on the results of field research conducted before and after the merger of the 28 municipalities in the Montreal Urban Community, the analysis is divided into three parts. The first part briefly summarizes the new agenda of urban priorities in Quebec, and concentrates in particular on how this new agenda was developed during 2000 and 2001. The second part looks at how interest groups helped to shape the new approaches to the organization of municipal lire on the Island of Montreal. The last part of the study deals with the implementation of the legislation creating the new Ville de Montreal, and especially with the impact of the voting regime chosen. Here, the analysis shows that, contrary to the generally accepted view, the reform was not unilaterally imposed by the provincial government. Indeed, a study of the conditions underlying the gradual development of the political and administrative architecture of the new city highlights a process of negotiation involving the urban area's main political leaders. Faure concludes his article by suggesting that the new Ville de Montreal should be seen as file political laboratory of a veritable freeing of municipal authority from provincial authority, and of the emergence of a new urban citizenship in Quebec.

Jean-Marc Fontan and his colleagues assess another dimension of the debate and the ongoing advances associated with the renewal of urban governance in Montreal by analysing the new metropolitan context that local economic development must deal with and the process of institutionalizing Montreal's corporations de developp-ment economique communautaire (CDECs, or community economic development corporations). Noting that urban issues have clearly changed and now mainly involve questions of exclusion and social integration (rather than planning and control of the urbanization process), the authors consider the issues facing advocates of local economic development and how the CDECs have had to adapt their approaches. In particular, the authors look at the continual process of institutionalization that has marked the development of the CDECs' action over the past 20 years. At the end of their transition from a grassroots organization to a virtual apparatus of the State, the CDECs are currently facing new pressures, which will inevitably lead to further changes in their approaches and priorities. The last part of the article discusses these changes in regard to five issues: the role of local development in reducing poverty and promoting social equity, in fostering participatory democracy, in community-based innovation, and in the context of the new metropolitan deal; and finally, the CDECs' role in the renewal of local development in Montreal.

The next two articles examine the City of Montreal before the 2001 merger and focus on little-known aspects of the city's municipal administration: management of the urban underground, and promotion of international tourism as a major element in the fiscal revitalization of the central city.

Thibault, Trepanier and Fougeres describe the recent history and practices of a little-known component of Montreal's municipal administration--the Commission des services electriques de Montreal (CSEM). Underground urban infrastructure has currently taken on a new importance, on the one hand because much of it needs to be repaired (waterworks, sewerage, gas and electrical networks), and on the other hand because new infrastructure has to be planned (fibre-optics networks, new communication technologies). The accomplishments of this para-municipal organization, which since 1910 has represented a unique experience in the deployment of underground technical networks, shed light on coordination activities between various municipal public services. The 620 kilometres of concrete infrastructure under Montreal's streets that are managed by the CSEM clearly show that it is possible for different technical network operators to work together on common projects. But the analysis also shows that, despite this institution's commitment to innovation, the clash among different technical cultures using the same underground infrastructure makes coordination and management of the urban underground so difficult that the usual outcome of these clashes is the status quo.

Marc V. Levine takes a critical look at another aspect of Montreal's municipal policy: promotion of tourism as a major element in the fiscal strategy of the central city. The analysis is based on the use of a data source that is especially rich in information but has been little exploited to date: that of Tourisme-Montreal. The author questions what has generally been a very optimistic evaluation of the impact of the major investments made since the early 1960s to turn Montreal into a world-class tourist destination. He examines the net fiscal impacts of "mega-events" such as the 1976 Olympics, major public infrastructure including the convention centre and the casino, and tourist attractions such as the Biodome. After calculating the spin-offs in terms of jobs, fiscal inflows and enhancement of the built environment, as well as the direct and indirect impacts on the local public economy and on the budgetary choices of such a tourism promotion policy, the author concludes that the fiscal impacts are not very impressive--marginal at most--and, more probably, negative overall.

Finally, in the sixth text, Andree Fortin and Melanie Bedard look at the dynamic between the city centre and the suburbs in the Montreal area, as manifested by the residents of metropolitan Montreal in their representations, their mobility and their spatial identities. In this research note, which compares data from a 1978 survey to data from a survey conducted in 2000, the authors concentrate on the spatial identities of three groups of residents: residents in the city's downtown, inner suburbs, and outer suburbs. The analysis reveals that even as early as 1978, the central city was no longer central in the representations and travel patterns of many suburbanites. But what is especially striking is that although differences between the city centre and the suburbs are not merely structural in nature, they are not necessarily where we might tend to think they are. In fact, the representations of urban and suburban space and the values associated with residential life are relatively unanimous, and vary very little according to the place of residence.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ms. Carole Ladeuix and Lucie Quevillon, who assisted in the production of this thematic issue at two key stages of the project, for the time they devoted to this activity and the professionalism of their work. I would like to thank also Ms. Evelyn Lindhorst who did the translation from French.

References

Coffey, William and Mario Polese. 1993. "Le declin de l'empire montrealais: regard sur l'economie d'une metropole en mutation" Recherches sociographiques 34 (3) (septembre-decembre): 417-437.

--. 1999. "A Distinct Metropolis for a Distinct Society? The Economic Restructuring of Montreal in the Canadian Context" Canadian Journal of Regional Science XXII (1-2): 23-40.

Collin, Jean-Pierre and Arme-Marie Seguin. 2000. Une agglomeration en changement: premiers elements d'un bilan d'ensemble. Montreal: INRS-Urbanisation, Observatoire metropolitain de la region de Montreal. http://www.vrm.ca/documents/agglomeration.pdf.

Fontan, Jean-Marc, Juan-Luis Klein and Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay (eds.). 1999. Entre la metropolisation et le village global. Sainte-Foy: Presses de l'Universite du Quebec.

Germain, Annick and Damaris Rose. 2000. Montreal. The Quest for a Metropolis. Chicester: John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.

Gournay, Isabelle and France Vanlaethem (eds.). 1998. Montreal metropole, 1880-1930. Montreal: Boreal and Centre canadien d'architecture.

In collaboration. 1991. "L'Autre Montreal" Possibles 16 (1).

Klein, Juan-Luis. 2000. "Une strategie metropolitaine : pour une nouvelle vision des rapports interregionaux." In Quebec 2001. Annuaire politique, social, economique et culturel, edited by Roch Cote: 281-287. Montreal: Fides.

Lamonde, Pierre and Yvon Martineau. 1992. Desindustrialisation et restructuration economique. Montreal et les autres grandes metropoles nord-americaines, 1971-1991. Montreal: INRS-Urbanisation, "Rapports de recherche," No. 14.

Levine, Marc V. 1997. La reconquete de Montreal, Montreal: vlb editeur.

Linteau, Paul-Andre. 1994. "De metropole du Canada a metropole du Quebec : les transformations recentes de Montreal et leurs consequences pour l'avenir." In Associazione Italiana di Studi Canadesi, Canada E Italia Verso Il Duemila : Metropoli A Confronto: 57-75. Fasano, Italy: Schena Editore.

--. 1995. "Quebec et Montreal : des destins differents et complementaires" Forces 111 : 48-54.

Senecal, Gilles. 1992. "Du 'Montreal' de Blanchard a reconquete de la ville." In Montreal." esquisse de geographie urbaine, edited by Raoul Blanchard: 7-43. New edition prepared and introduced by Gilles Senecal. Montreal: vlb editeur.

Senecal, Gilles and Claude Manzagol. 1993. "Montreal ou la metamorphose des territoires" Cahiers de Geographie du Quebec 37 (101) (September): 351-370.

Tellier, Luc-Normand (ed.). 1997. Les defis et les options de la relance de Montreal. Sainte-Foy: Presses de l'Universite du Quebec.

Thibodeau, Jean-Claude. 1997. "La relance de Montreal : une question de long terme." In Luc-Normand Tellier (ed.), Les defis et les options de la relance de Montreal: 25-38. Sainte-Foy: Presses de l'Universite du Quebec.

Jean-Pierre Collin

INRS-Urbanisation, Culture et Societe

Villes Regions Monde, Montreal