As with many major North American urban areas since the 1960s, Montreal has faced contextual changes that have brought to the fore the question of its development. However, because of its history and the uncertainties linked with Quebec’s constitutional future, attempts to stimulate its development have required certain compromises, often with unexpected results. In order to evaluate the performance of coalitions formed with the objective of meeting the challenges associated with urban and metropolitan development, we have drawn upon the concept of urban regimes. Focusing specifically on Montreal, we ask whether it is possible to transpose urban regime analyses that consider both structural and cultural factors specific to local organized forces. Revealing though they might be, these analyses nevertheless possess certain limitations, notably the underestimation of the weight and increasing importance of players and forces occurring on a metropolitan scale. This is particularly true in the case of Montreal.

This article is based upon a series of interviews conducted with former political and administrative agents at the municipal, provincial and federal levels, in charge of Montreal’s metropolitan development policy from the 1980s to the present. Business representatives (Chambre de Commerce du Montréal Métropolitain, Montréal International) and labour (Fédération des Travailleurs du Québec, FTQ) were also interviewed. The information collected was supplemented with an analysis of administrative records.

As has been the case in numerous European and North American agglomerations, Montreal has faced economic, social and cultural changes that have compelled its economic and political elites to revise their alliances and the compromises that shape them. These efforts have characterized the city’s two successive urban regimes, in place since the middle of the 1950s, both banking on the international promotion of Montreal.

The first regime, personified by mayor Drapeau and his Parti Civique, remained relatively stable until the late 1970s when it was forced to rethink its urban policies. The end of Drapeau’s reign and the electoral success of the MCM constitute the political backdrop against which a new regime emerged. The Fordist crisis, combined with the new political opportunities generated by the crisis in Canadian federalism and the coming to power of the Progressive Conservatives on the federal scene, allowed for a reevaluation of the parameters along which Montreal’s internationalization operated. The transformations underlying these crises and changes led the city’s economic and political elites to suggest a strategy for the internationalization of Montreal that can be deemed proactive. As in the past, the strategy was geared toward international promotion, but this time with a focus on the new economy and, at least in part, on the economic interests associated with it. In this context, the metropolitan dimension could no longer be ignored.

Indeed, many of the businesses that supported the new regime were located in peripheral areas; and it was in those same areas that many of the resources that would ensure the viability of this new regime were located.

01/03/2008

Pierre Hamel and Bernard Jouve

research

Urban Policy