Gentrification is not just the arrival of middle-class people in the poorer neighborhoods of a city followed by an increase in rents and property values. Tax breaks, green infrastructure and other state-led urban restructuring efforts are also contributing to this phenomenon. Simply put, the current housing crisis in Montreal is the result of intentional policies and, when you consider the real estate megaproject in the Bridge-Bonaventure sector, which essentially offers a Griffintown 2.0, it is as if no lesson of the last 35 years.
At the start of the 1980s, social diversity imposed itself as one of the pillars of progressive town planning. It starts from the basic idea that the “culture of poverty” imprisons the poor in an intergenerational cycle. This hypothesis holds that associating with prosperous people from the middle class favors the transmission of certain winning values of this class to the poor. The research contradicts it.
It is staggering to note the lack of structural understanding of the root causes of poverty, as well as the indifference towards the effects of a massive influx of middle-class people into deprived neighbourhoods: the price of rents is exploding , property values and property taxes are rising, the number of rental properties is declining, businesses are becoming more upscale, and neighborhood associations are turning away from less affluent residents. Finally, the poorest end up being expelled from their neighborhood to the outskirts of the city.
The reconversion of popular neighborhoods
As I explain in my new book on the history of urban change in Montreal, the 1980s and 1990s were a watershed moment. The Montreal Economic Summit of March 1986 provided political cover to lift the moratorium on condo conversions, which had been in effect since 1975. This political decision allowed landlords to convert their rental units to condominiums. The City justified itself by arguing that this would improve its aging housing stock and stimulate the Montreal economy. A lot of public funds have also been invested in the redevelopment of industrial and railway land in order to convince middle-class owners to return to the city centre.
The Sud-Ouest borough in Montreal is a striking manifestation of this. The post-industrial transformation of the Lachine Canal was a powerful selling point for developers looking to attract a clientele of young professionals to the area. It represented an essential green infrastructure for gentrification, but it resulted in the reconversion of the popular districts of the south-west of the island.
Among the first sectors affected by gentrification was Little Burgundy, which in the 1980s gradually acquired a reputation as a racialized “ghetto”, supposedly the Quebec version of Harlem, in New York, or Watts , in Los Angeles. The canal side and former railway lands that once ran through the middle of the neighborhood have been redeveloped for the middle class with public money, creating a segregated neighborhood. When you walk on Notre-Dame Street West today, can you really say that its businesses cater to the two groups separated by this racial and social divide?
This change in policy did not come without resistance from people in the neighborhood. However, relations became increasingly strained between local activists who were convinced that change had to be managed and those for whom it was a political and economic stalemate.
The Copak precedent
An important turning point came in 1987 when it was rumored that McGill University wanted to transform the former Copak factory, located near the Lionel-Groulx metro station in Saint-Henri, into a student residence. Despite the opposition of the Popular Organization, Information and Regrouping Project (POPIR), other local groups sought to negotiate favorable conditions to compensate for this loss of industrial space and the arrival of a student population. mainly from the middle class in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Montreal. Ultimately, McGill agreed to pay $500,000.
With this Copak precedent, we paved the way for accommodating gentrification in the community and a future without working-class neighborhoods downtown. At the time, Jean-Pierre Wilsey, from POPIR, was already ringing the alarm bell: “Should we participate in the piecemeal sale of our neighborhoods on the pretext that the promoter will give us money? »
This accommodation to gentrification was consolidated in 2005 in the form of a municipal policy requiring the inclusion of 15% social housing for any large condominium project (but not necessarily within the project). This accommodation is sometimes referred to as a “Quebec model”, when in reality it has been absolutely incapable of protecting the most vulnerable and has led to the current situation.
During the month, the Office de la consultation publique de Montréal bought expensive advertising space in newspapers to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Unfortunately, I don’t have the heart to celebrate, because the Office has greatly contributed to legitimizing the process leading to the current housing crisis. Projet Montréal must intervene forcefully in the megaproject of the Bridge-Bonaventure sector to avoid perpetuating the political failures of the past.