Its urban form, its inhabitants’ way of life, or the abundance of surrounding resources explain the bad result of Montreal in term of ecological impact. Montreal would gain to make efforts in this domain and we saw that it has started to do some. As Montrealers form an ecosystem with their environment, their negative impact…
Category: Montreal
Montreal’s public transports: a new dynamic after a long stagnation
Montreal is a North American city with wide spread out suburbs. Even if it has a quite developed public transport network with hundreds of bus lines, 4 subway lines and 6 commuter train lines, it cannot properly serve all the metropolis. On the following graphs we see what share of people going to work uses…
Montreal’s water management
Montreal is situated in Canada, whose water abstractions per capita, were the second biggest of the OECD countries in 2011. A McGill university webpage indicates that the average Canadian uses about 329L of water every day and that according to the Ville de Montréal, the average Montrealer uses 225L everyday. To compare, on the website…
Montreal, pioneer in Urban Agriculture
In 2013, a survey indicated that 42% of Montrealers practiced urban agriculture. Montreal have been a pioneer in this domain and is still ahead of its time. Stéphane Castongay explains in a chapter of the book Montreal, The History of a North American City, the agricultural past of Montreal since the arrival of European settlers,…
Montreal’s verdissement: a way to struggle against Urban Heat Island (UHI)
One of the ecological priorities for Montreal seems to be revegetation (verdissement in Quebec French), principally to struggle against heat island effects but also to boost biodiversity and make the city more pleasant and beautiful. This goal appears in several official documents. In Montreal’s last sustainable plan for the period 2016-2020, one of the four…
Montreal towards ‘zero waste’? An effort on organic waste
Waste management is a key competence of municipalities, both the collection and the treatment, and is important for hygiene, health, comfort and the environment. The consumer society leads us to consume more and more goods and produce more and more wastes. Sustainable waste management goes with recycling. It goes also with a reduction of the…
Air pollution in Montreal
How much serious is it? Air pollution is one of the biggest environmental issues for cities in the 21st century. Moreover it is also an issue of public health. As we can see on a UK governmental webpage, the two major air pollutants are Particulate matter (PM), ‘a complex mixture of solid and liquid particles…
Introduction to Montreal
Montreal is the second most populous city of Canada and the first of the province of Quebec. It is one of the cities we will focus on for this blog and we start with its presentation. Summary of Montreal’s history The hill that dominates the emplacement of the actual city of Montreal was named “Mont…
Urban Political Ecology UCL 