Downtown Montreal and Toronto: Distinct Places with Much in Common
1999; Volume: 22; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1925-2218
Autores Tópico(s)Urban Planning and Governance
ResumoDiscourses over the last twenty years have emphasized the differences between Montreal and Toronto, including the differences in the pace of development in their downtown areas. In spite of different growth rates and absolute size, these two downtown areas have shared a trajectory of urban development which has been shaped by their membership in the Canadian economy, and more widely by their status as substantial cities with diverse economies within north-eastern North America. This paper pays attention to these downtowns as places with distinct character shaped within a broader framework of change. A more detailed description of the last two decades highlights some of their current differences. The following text focuses to a large extent on office development and those activities which are accommodated in office buildings. The reasons for this emphasis are the dominance of offices in the downtowns between the 1950s and 1990s and my personal research interests. This paper reports on work in progress. While other features of downtown are considered, they deserve far more empirical research and critical reflection. Downtown, the object of this paper, is a flexible notion. Here, the focus is on areas rather than narrowly defined business Municipal governments have some notion of a special at the centre of the metropolis and I shall follow their delimitations. In Montreal, the area is the Ville-Marie District (Montreal, Ville 1990), which succeeds an earlier delimitation and the name Centre-Ville. In Toronto, the area bears the official name Central Area (Toronto, City 1993). Therefore, throughout this paper I use area as a generic term, and Central Area as a politically defined territory in the case of Toronto. Defining the Territory The Ville-Marie District officially consists of 12 square kilometres, stretching over six kilometres from the top of the Mountain to the south shore of the St. Lawrence River (Figure 1). From its western extreme at the boundary of Westmount at Atwater Avenue, the Ville-Marie District stretches east to Amherst Street over a distance of almost four kilometres. Toronto's Central Area reaches from the Islands in the south to north of Bloor Street (Figure 2). It stretches four kilometres from Bathurst Street in the west to the Don River in the east, and south of Queen Street the Central Area includes the central industrial districts. Thus, the Central Area stretches over seven kilometres. The Central Area, without the Toronto Islands and the Port of Toronto area, covers about 20 square kilometres. The inverted T-shape of the Central Area is a creation of the 1976 Central Area Plan, a political document discussed later. Due to political decisions taken in the late 1960s, in order to appease residents, the office clusters along the Yonge Street subway axis between Bloor Street and Eglinton Avenue have been declared as regional commerce centres. Although it can be argued that these areas are part of a office corridor (Gad 1979), they have been excluded from the Central Area definition by the City of Toronto. If city versus suburban employment or office space comparisons are made, it makes sense to include these clusters in a central district (Gad 1985; also see Figure 2). Within these areas are more narrowly defined core areas. Montreal's Master Plan of 1990 delineates a Central Business District (Figure 1) stretching from Sherbrooke Street to Notre Dame Street over a distance of 1.2 kilometres and from Drummond Street to St. Urbain Street over 1.5 kilometres for a total area of nearly two square kilometres (Montreal, Ville 1990). Toronto's Official Plan shows a Central Core Area (Figure 2) measuring four kilometres from the waterfront to Davenport Road (north of Bloor Street) and 1.4 kilometres from just west of University Avenue to Jarvis Street, comprising about six square kilometres (Toronto, City 1993). …
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