Special report by Steve Charters. On Tuesday May 1, the Plateau borough held an open house in the Mile End to launch their redevelopment plan Secteur Saint-Viateur Est, the enclaved industrial buildings located between rues Saint-Laurent, MacGuire and Henri-Julien, abutting the railroad tracks.  Plans for redeveloping this area have been in the works since 2005, and are publically available on the City website (PDF). Several Borough representatives and members of the design team were on hand to discuss their proposals for the next phase of construction with ...

Three years ago, I lamented that Place d'Armes was just a pretty picture: The public space that had been the heart of  Montreal for over 300 years had become nothing but a spot for tour-buses to dump snap-happy tourists. After nearly 3 years of construction, a redesigned Place d'Armes was unveiled this Spring, and I happened upon it last Sunday. So how does it compare? Well, there ares still lots of cameras out (including my own!), but it also feels like people are lingering more in this space, even on a ...

Last week I wrote about how, after three years of volunteering with Dans la Rue, I came to see Berri Square as one of the few places where Montreal's homeless and marginalized people find common ground with more fortunate Montrealers. I concluded by saying I believe that people who are visible will tend to be better citizens. From Gotham City to Metropolis? Yet it seems that many Montrealers want nothing more than to put the homeless out of sight and out of mind. Earlier this month, the mayor recommended shortening the Ste-Catherine pedestrian zone to exclude Berri Square from the seasonal festivities, citing police concerns ...

The images and some of the content of this post has been adapted from Montréalités Urbaines with the author's permission. Can the City sell a park? That's the question that question raised by the decision earlier this week to put the Dow Planetarium up for sale. Projet Montréal leader Richard Bergeron fears that the sale of the lot, which is zoned as a park, will set a dangerous precedent for the privatization of public space. The Tremblay administration has replied that only the area covered by the planetarium and it's parking lot are for sale, not the little park bordering the Planetarium ...

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="525" caption="Photo par Watchara Phomicinda"][/caption]   Fish and chips, satay, curry, Laksa, Mee rebus, burritos, marrons chauds, poutine; tous des plats que j’aimerais bien déguster dans la rue avec vous. Cette pratique nous semble peut-être exotique, mais on dit que 2.5 milliards de personnes mangent de la cuisine de rue à travers le monde. Une personne sur quatre. Dans les pays en développement, le street food constitue parfois même jusqu'à 40 % de la diète hebdomadaire des habitants et est profondément ancré dans l'identité. Ce pan oublié de notre gastronomie gagne en popularité partout sur la planète. Et dans les villes où c’est interdit, les choses changent tranquillement: pressions et contournements à Chicago, projet pilote à Toronto et à Vancouver (où l’administration a littéralement cédé sous la pression populaire)... et pendant ce temps à Montréal? Quelques petites initiatives, mais rien d’officiel. Il y a certaines raisons connues pour cette stagnation, mais si on regarde la situation d’un angle plus constructif, je crois qu’il y en a une autre qu’on oublie : un ralliement désorganisé. Ce que j’entends par «approche systémique»? Une méthode revendicatrice plus globale qui permettrait d'aborder ce sujet complexe et ses ramifications de manière plus complète et convaincante.