{"id":1374,"date":"2008-09-06T14:31:34","date_gmt":"2008-09-06T18:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/2008\/09\/06\/is-expo-driven-development-what-montreal-needs\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:37:01","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:37:01","slug":"is-expo-driven-development-what-montreal-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/09\/06\/is-expo-driven-development-what-montreal-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Expo-Driven Development what Montreal Needs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"moulin<\/a><\/p>\n

Moulin \u00e0 Images by Robert Lepage, Sept 1st, 2008. Sorry for the poor image quality – I was standing on a fire hydrant…<\/em><\/p>\n

I was in Quebec City last weekend and got a taste of the 400th anniversary frenzy. Its impressive what a city can create (or what kind of creativity the city will let flourish) when it goes into official celebration mode.<\/p>\n

Robert Lepage’s Moulin \u00e0 Images<\/a> is remarkable for its shear grandeur: The entire old port of Quebec is transformed into a movie theatre every evening, featuring a 40-minute filmed blitz through Quebec’s history, all projected on a 30 x 600 meter silo complex (the technical challenge projecting a high-quality image onto a “screen” consisting of 81 silos is fairly mind-boggling). Public transit also got a face-lift for the festivities and free, electric buses shuttle tourists around the historical parts of town.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Montreal City Opposition Leader, Benoit Labont\u00e9, announced this week<\/a> that he wants to get Montreal’s groove back by the year 2020 with another Expo-67 style World Fair.<\/p>\n

Labont\u00e9 says that Expo-67 and the 350th anniversary celebrations in 1992 were golden occasions in which Montrealers were able to participate in the development of their city, and that these events imparted citizens with a great sense of collective pride. Since this last celebration, he claims, Montreal has slipped into ordinariness, and our pride eroded by quarrels and divisiveness.<\/p>\n

According to Labont\u00e9, a massive influx of tourists 12 years down the line is exactly Montreal needs to focus our creative energy on reanimating our parks, public spaces, public art, design and architecture, transportation system and sustainability objectives. But is the international spotlight really what it takes to rekindle local pride? For that matter, is Montrealer’s pride truly as down-in-the-dumps as Labont\u00e9 presumes? How sustainable are bursts of development with short-term objectives in mind?<\/p>\n

I was relieved by City Hall’s level-headed response: “We already have projects that are far more beneficial, we have projects that are in the process of being realized today, not in 12 years’ time,” Alan DeSouza, executive committee member responsible for economic development,told the Gazette.<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, I wonder whether Labont\u00e9’s plan has some merit after all. Perhaps Expo-driven development is<\/em> what city hall needs to keep public infrastructure, public space, and public art afloat against a rising tide of private development in Montreal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moulin \u00e0 Images by Robert Lepage, Sept 1st, 2008. Sorry for the poor image quality – I was standing on a fire hydrant… I was in Quebec City last weekend and got a taste of the 400th anniversary frenzy. Its impressive what a city can create (or what kind of creativity the city will letContinue reading “Is Expo-Driven Development what Montreal Needs?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7840,7842],"tags":[3001,649,8,2999,9,2119,125,275,3002,5,3003,2174,292,273,3000,1626],"class_list":["post-1374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-urban-design","tag-alan-desouza","tag-benoit-labonte","tag-city-hall","tag-creative-energy","tag-development","tag-executive","tag-montreal","tag-montreal-city","tag-opposition-leader","tag-planning","tag-port-of-quebec","tag-public-infrastructure","tag-quebec","tag-quebec-city","tag-robert-lepage","tag-transportation-system"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs Expo-Driven Development what Montreal Needs? - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/09\/06\/is-expo-driven-development-what-montreal-needs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Expo-Driven Development what Montreal Needs? - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Moulin \u00e0 Images by Robert Lepage, Sept 1st, 2008. 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