Category: Urban Ecology

The Great Montreal Rebuild

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This native advertising series combines Concordia University‘s expertise and the Montreal Gazette‘s talent, and appeared as part of the newspaper’s special reports for “Montreal Reimagined.” Taking on urban development in Montreal, I was tasked with exploring the diversity of disciplines that could rebuild our great city. The series was published over 10 weeks, with pieces appearing in the print newspaper, on the web, and on iPad, complete with infographics and videos. Photo by La Portraitiste.

Climate Change, Renewable Energy and Infrastructures (published March 2, 2015)
“Can we confront climate change in a way that’s meaningful enough to make a difference? ‘The challenge is big,’ Prof. Damon Matthews said. ‘There’s no single solution, but there are lots of little solutions.’ That’s why the focus for a number of researchers in Montreal is developing solutions to reduce the impact of climate change.”
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Solar Energy Powering Montreal’s Bright future (published March 6, 2015)
“Whether it’s in a commercial building or a single-family home, this intelligent technology goes further, making sure occupants stay comfortable — and even predicting the next day’s weather conditions to modify the building’s heat or cooling controls accordingly. Notably, these smart, solar-powered buildings can be designed to store energy.”
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Paving the Way for Sustainable Housing Development (published March 16, 2015)
“Despite the city of Montreal’s moratorium on condo conversions in the early 1980s, a loophole has allowed a new condo category to emerge.What Rutland and his colleagues discovered was that in Petite-Patrie, more than half of the condo conversions since 1991 were “undivided” co-ownerships. Traditionally, undivided co-ownership has provided a way for people to own a part or share of an overall building. Since 1994, however, it has become possible for these shares to be linked to particular housing units within the building. The units of the building can then be bought, sold, and lived in very much like a divided co-ownership. Most significantly, the undivided condo category is not covered by the moratorium, making the protective policy increasingly irrelevant.”
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Building a Social Economy: Sustainability from Within (published March 20, 2015)
“Take the story of Marmite, the concentrated yeast spread commonly used in the U.K. Love it or hate it, this byproduct of beer brewing combines corporate responsibility and waste reduction by turning something that would normally be a leftover into something that has value in its own right.”
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From Lab to Market: Investing in Montreal’s Scientific Sectors (published March 30, 2015)
“Investing in research is crucial to making sure Canada remains one of the top five leading countries in aerospace. According to Aéro Montréal, most of Quebec’s 43,500 aerospace jobs are in Greater Montreal, making the city the second world capital in terms of aerospace job density.”
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Montreal’s Makes the Most of Its Creative Resources (published April 3, 2015)
“It’s not surprising that Montreal was appointed to UNESCO City of Design in 2006. The city is teeming with creativity, starting with about 500 film and TV production and distribution companies, 70 ad agencies, 25 cinemas, at least 23 theatre venues, and 12 Maison de la culture establishments. Not to mention that Montreal hosts countless festivals, and is home to myriad architects, designers in all capacities, musicians, and artists. Montreal certainly has a creative drive, but what does this unique sector of our economy need to continue to thrive?”
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The Impact of Public Transportation on Neighbourhood Development (published April 13, 2015)
“Public transportation exists to provide affordable mobility, connecting Montrealers not just to their city, but to friends and family, and, in many cases, their jobs. At the same time, recent research suggests Montreal’s métro may have contributed to the changing demographic composition of surrounding neighbourhoods; in other words, gentrification.”
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The Wellington Tower’s Living Legacy (published April 17, 2015)
“If we’ve all but forgotten Griffintown’s St. Ann’s Church or its old fire station, it may be because the new residential highrises in the area leave little clue as to this tiny neighbourhood’s former industrial identity. Not everything’s gone, but in 2013, when the city announced its plans to redesign the Wellington Tower — that iconic, graffitied, minimalistic building hovering above the CN tracks bordering the Lachine Canal — a group of people decided it was time to start making memories.”
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Creating Green Space Diversity and Connectivity (published April 27, 2015)
“It’s estimated that roughly 20 per cent of Canadians suffer from respiratory allergies. But according to biodiversity and bioenergy specialist Melanie McCavour, a PhD candidate and lecturer at Concordia, there’s an easy, inexpensive, and effective thing cities could do to both increase biodiversity and alleviate those allergy symptoms: Plant more female trees that produce fruit.”
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Perfect Blue: Facing Montreal’s Waterways (published May 1, 2015)
“Central city dwellers know that they’re surrounded by water, but they often don’t have much of a relationship with it. Unlike cities like Paris, London, Berlin, and Prague, there’s no body of water cutting through Montreal’s urban core. The Lachine Canal is an offshoot of the St. Lawrence, but it’s still largely at the edge of the island, and as a public space, it doesn’t yet compare to the Seine or the Thames.”
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Segways slow to take hold

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Originally published in the Montreal Gazette on October 4, 2014. Photo by Vincenzo D’Alto.

“Segways are zero-emission modes of transportation, they don’t take up much space, and different studies have concluded that they’re as safe as bicycles. So why didn’t they ever catch on?

The biggest hurdle is categorization, with transportation departments worldwide struggling to classify the Segway and regulate its use. Is it a motorcycle, a moped, or a kind of bicycle? Should it be allowed on sidewalks, bike paths, or roads? It’s so befuddling that three-quarters of Segway’s Wikipedia page is devoted to detailing several countries’ varying, and often strict, bylaws on the glider.”

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Burb is the word

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As city folk with city jobs, city flats, and turnkey city amenities, it’s almost too easy to snub Suburbia. After all, we have access to everything! Well, everything that’s cool and original, anyhow. Want to buy an obscure punk album? Done. Need to chill out at a place that only plays drum ‘n’ bass and specializes in green salsa and orange guacamole? Right this way, madam. Want to catch an Oud trio? They’re here all week.

Yeah, we city mice can do anything we want, any old time. Except, of course, when it comes those huge power centre depots. You know: the IKEAs, the Toys ‘r’ Uses, the Walmarts. Not every city is built this way, but in Montreal, you’ll only find those kinds of shops in suburbs or at the edge of town. Seriously! My friend registered her baby shower gifts at Babies ‘r’ Us, and my options were the one in Laval, the one near a highway in the east, and the one on a highway in the west. I opted for the one I could access by public transit: east it is!

If you haven’t been to Montreal, you probably don’t know this about our island: only the central part of it is actually city. The rest is suburban areas. They used to be their own municipalities, but then a merger was imposed on them during Mayor Tremblay’s controversial “Une île, une ville” project. Technically, everything on the island is part of Montreal Met, but in practice, those municipalities are their own little entities. And once you’re there, it isn’t difficult to see why.

These areas were planned completely differently. They’re newer also, so gone are the 3-storey row houses, the (surprisingly dangerous) spiral stairways and the balconies. They’ve been replaced by, well, real houses with sizeable bathrooms, and maybe even a big backyard. Ah yes, and the sprawl…how we city mice love to criticize the sprawl.

But yesterday, while mosying in Anjou’s Power Centre Central, I found myself enjoying the quiet, uncomplicated, friendly nature of the suburbs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a snob: I won’t live in the burbs. In fact, I’ll sacrifice proper living arrangements to avoid it.  But when you’re there, it’s easy to get enchanted, and here’s why.

1. Clean living

Okay, some people will call it “whitewash,” but for a fleeting moment, I’d like to enjoy it for what it is: cleanliness. Look, I get it. The suburbs were created to keep out what white people considered undesirable: grafitti, squeedgy kids, and most ethnicities. And I’m with  you on this one: at night, I’d rather be walking home alone on a busy city street than a barren suburban avenue. But during the day, it’s nice to stroll along a sparkling, sanitary boulevard with brightly coloured lamp posts and street markers, and coming across the odd bench that doesn’t need a park to exist. What can I say? It’s lovely!

2. Sensational silence

Maybe it’s because I ended up in a power centre on a Thursday afternoon instead of a Saturday morning, but it was nice to hear a whole lot of not much. City life equals constant noise, even on a quiet residential street. I found myself interacting with noise differently in the burbs as well. The sound of a car driving by seemed more like a gentle hum, where it’s an intrusive whoosh in the city. I even noticed that birds were chirping. Not that they don’t do that in an urban environment. It’s just that it’s harder to single them out in the muddle of things screaming for your attention.

3. Boundaries

I love how things are kind of clustered and glued together in Montreal. There’s hardly room to take a breather between buildings that don’t necessarily match, and it’s all part of the charm. But I can also appreciate the spaces between places in the suburbs, and how each is made to fit the town’s over-arching concept. The Toys ‘r’ Us goes there, and the Best Buy goes here, and there’s never going to be any confusion between the two. I also like the soothing ubiquity of lawns. I know the surroundings are highly manufactured, but really, so is everything about a nightclub.

4. Generica

Warning: I’m not being ironic and this is not a veiled criticism. This occurred to me when I walked into the Pier 1 Imports, and it was the first time I’d been inside this chain for years and years. It actually gave me a bit of perspective. Back in Moncton, New Brunswick, Pier 1 was where you went to get original, design-y bits and bobs for the house, and if you had real money to spend, some nice backyard furniture. Now it’s a haven of similarities, with that Martha Stewart quality to everything. It says that you’ve read the right 5 books on culture and design, but you still want to get those tinted, textured drinking glasses at a reasonable price. Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to buy myself that bamboo breakfast tray. True, their products are generic, but they’re also pretty enough to provide the illusion of personal style, which would still be an illusion even if you shopped at some posh deco store in Montreal. I guess what I’m saying is that there are many ways to be pretentious. Some are less complicated than others, and that’s where Pier 1 comes in.

5. Friendliness

When I moved to Montreal 12 years ago, I was a very different kind of driver. I let people take a left turn. I stopped at crosswalks. I even had a series of clear “mea culpa” gestures for every faux pas. Now, I just ram. It’s not because I have a sense of entitlement. It’s just that it’s the only way to survive in this city that distributes licenses to lunatics, and rather freely. Whether I’m driving, biking or walking, I’m mouthy, defensive, and angry. So in Anjou, when the cars stopped to let me cross, or when sales clerks didn’t seem annoyed at my questions, I naturally felt all fuzzy inside. I’m always psychologically armed to the teeth when I perform even the simplest tasks in the city. So yeah, it’s nice to let my guard down for a blessed minute.

+++

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to move. The truth is, I hate driving, and that’s always part of the deal with the burbs. I love my chaotic city life, and how the things I need are nearby. But you know, if I had my way, I’d have my condo on St-Hubert Street for the days when I’m feeling MacBook & Malibu, and a little country house on Lakeshore Drive for my Scotch & Smith-Corona nights.

Irk Day

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Call me a humbug, but I can’t stand token days like these. People wish each other a Happy Earth day, and their deed seems to be done. But really, can you blame them? What else can they do? Unless some TV commercial on lightbulbs or George Stromboulopoulos intervenes, it’s difficult to know just how we, as individuals, can make a difference.

The sad truth is that even with every citizen adopting “acts of green,” the amount of waste and pollution produced by industry alone would still more than double that of each household. Do you have any idea how much trash just one hospital generates? Here‘s an idea.

This reminds me of Rosie O’Donnell’s reaction to the televised 9/11 fundraiser (you know, where Céline sang “God Bless America”). She wondered how producers had the nerve to ask common folk for money, when it should have been corporations and government contributing to the cause.

In much the same way, when it comes to the environment, I think responsibility should begin with the institutions that govern us. It’s not enough for individuals to drive hybrid hatchbacks. It’s the tractor-trailers and airplanes that need to get the green treatment. It’s not enough for citizens to compost their own food. It’s restaurants and grocery stores that need to find a way to reduce their organic waste (most eateries throw out an average of 10 full garbage bags per night, while most household averages 1.5 per week).

Citizens have always been keen to participate when governments take progressive ecological measures and integrate them seamlessly into our daily routines. It’s been proven, time and again, that people will pay a higher fee or a tax increase for greener vehicles (e.g. public transportation). Corporations need even more guidance, but if the right consultant leads the way, companies are usually quite cooperative, probably because at the end of the day, they’re run by citizens.

I guess what I’m getting at is that Earth Day means nothing if we’re not willing, as citizens, to put pressure on our  employers and our government to implement the changes we need to stand a chance against an over-polluted planet. Then we wouldn’t need a token day to remember what we’re not doing.