It will have escaped no one: several formerly working-class neighborhoods in Montreal are now taken over by hordes of ever better-off residents, looking for pleasant living environments, but bringing in their wake real estate booms and evictions. This phenomenon of “gentrification”, which makes the headlines with “renovictions” and vandalized trendy shops, is dissected in Gentriville, a very detailed new book on the subject. Discussion with the authors.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
The Plateau-Mont-Royal, of course, but also Saint-Henri, Pointe-Saint-Charles or Maisonneuve; so many areas having experienced profound socio-economic upheavals in recent decades, where the lower classes were quietly pushed aside in favor of families and more polished professionals. These urban changes, which can be observed in many large cities, are particularly salient in Montreal where, in waves and in concentric circles, neighborhoods are revitalized, embellished and put on trendy finery, at the cost of an explosion land values, opening loopholes for developers or owners eager for profits, pushing historic residents to relocate elsewhere.
In GentrivilleMarie Sterlin, documentary filmmaker and borough councillor, and trained journalist and anthropologist Antoine Trussart analyze this process of “gentrification” (which they prefer to “gentrification”, gentrifiers not necessarily being bourgeois and often coming from the middle class) by studying its history, its forms, its causes and its consequences, while illustrating their remarks with a host of concrete examples.
Very early on, an important complexity emerges. “There are cultural, economic and political aspects there,” lists Antoine Trussart. The tastes of those moving into the central districts have an impact on the commercial offer, the preservation of the heritage or the development of the territory. From an economic point of view, the authors emphasize, among other things, the impact of a vision of real estate confined to investment and profitability, as well as the overvaluation of the status of owner. On the political side, municipalities also play a role, betting on revitalizations and developments leading to increases in property values, which eases their budgetary constraints.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Portrait of Marie Sterlin and Antoine Trussart, authors of a book on gentrification.
Gentrification is an overvaluation of life in central neighborhoods that feeds politicians, real estate speculators and… ourselves, gentrifiers.
Marie Sterlin, co-author of Gentriville
Mme Sterlin underlines an intriguing aspect of the book: the newcomer, vector of the phenomenon, is not always aware of it…
Know thyself
Who are the gentrifiers? Often, citizens from the middle class aspiring to a pleasant, fashionable and “authentic” living environment. Above all, we are looking for an urban village on a human scale – the reproduction of a “parochial way of life”, specify the authors. “The gentrifier is looking for this parochial side, adapting rather well to the density and the proximity of others, far from the culture of the suburbanite”, indicates Ms.me Sterling.
The profiles are varied: from the couple of professionals without children to the single mother passing through the so-called “marginal” gentrifiers, such as artists or students. “They often come from the educated, creative middle class, says Mr. Trussart, with jobs in knowledge industries,” a basket in which Montreal has placed many marbles.
If their aspirations gradually modulate their new neighborhood (such as the commercial and gastronomic offer or the development of parks and cycle paths), they end up generating, often involuntarily, land and property consequences.
Most gentrifiers are oblivious to it, and the vast majority of people are bona fide. They decide to settle in pleasant living environments without necessarily thinking about the consequences of their choice.
Marie Sterlin and Antoine Trussart, authors of Gentriville
Because paradoxically, the gentrifier ends up altering the original ecosystem of the district that he cherished so much, involuntarily trampling on this much desired authenticity, once developers and speculators eye his “trendy” trend, artificially creating or going so far as to recover , cynically, local formulas to pervert them into commercial slogans (the example of #verdunluv explained in the book is eloquent).
By analogy, the authors illustrate the situation with Of mice and Men, where the gentle giant Lennie suffocates the poor rodents whom he squeezes, out of affection, too tightly in his hand. “A lot of gentrifiers see themselves as the last step before the alteration of the neighborhood, saying: ‘Before I arrived, it was fine'”, also underlines Mme Sterling.
A gray area
Gentriville leads us to this thorny question: is “gentrification” desirable? The duo of authors refuses to rule in the face of this double-edged sword, presenting positive effects (transfigured living environments, development of infrastructures, greening) and negative effects (vulnerable residents excluded, unbridled search for real estate profit). “In some ways, it can be positive for middle-class people who want to have an option to live in the city that meets all their needs. But at what price do we get this? It’s up to us, as a society, to decide whether we want it or not, ”says the journalist.
Therefore, what solutions to curb the excesses? The book explores the avenues of soft densification, the development of social housing and community organizations to better protect tenants, but also the questioning of the purely capitalist vision of real estate, perceived as an investment rather than a space. of life, or even an introspection of the unwitting gentrifier. “Becoming aware of how to consume our environments could help, by asking the question: who was there before? “says Marie Sterlin.
“There won’t be an easy solution with a quick fix, because it’s a complex situation with multiple sources. For example, it won’t be solved just by building housing co-ops or HLMs, because today even middle-class families can struggle to find housing in central neighborhoods. […] We also see real estate as a safe haven. However, it is a zero-sum game: the more we try to make money with real estate, the less affordable it will be,” concludes Antoine Trussart.
Gentriville
Marie Sterlin and Antoine Trussart
VLB
248 pages
Soon on the grill of “gentrification”
What will be the next areas of Montreal affected by the phenomenon? The authors evoke Côte-des-Neiges, Ville-Émard and Côte-Saint-Paul (Verdun valves), Parc-Extension (with the arrival of Campus 1000 of the University of Montreal) or even Saint-Michel.