{"id":7510,"date":"2010-07-10T00:20:32","date_gmt":"2010-07-10T05:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=7510"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:48:12","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:48:12","slug":"building-community-in-downtown-montreal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2010\/07\/10\/building-community-in-downtown-montreal\/","title":{"rendered":"Building community in Downtown Montreal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/network\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2010\/07\/pierce.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7509\" title=\"pierce\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/network\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2010\/07\/pierce.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"364\" \/><\/a><em>The corner of Pierce and Ste-Catherine, in Shaughnessy Village.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Unlike many North-American &#8220;central business districts&#8221;, Downtown Montreal is a lively place with constant activity. It is a part of town where there are many Montreal-wide institutions, major retail streets, three universities, as well as numerous cultural attractions. As a result, it is a destination for people from across the metropolitan region: hundreds of thousands of people pass through the area on a daily basis to work, study, shop, and access institutions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It is also a living neighbourhood, with over 27,000 residents.\u00a0The majority of these residents are located in the dense apartment blocks and stately victorian mansions of Shaughnessy Village, between Atwater and Guy. Many are students, but there are also over 2,400 households with children.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">It is a neighbourhood of extremes. It includes the heritage mansions of the Golden Square Mile and many new, expensive high-rise condominium developments. Yet over a third of the neighbourhood\u2019s housing stock need repairs and he median household income in around $30,000, making it 10,000 less than the Montreal-wide average. Over 40% of the residents are immigrants.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The streets are filled with action, but you don\u2019t see children playing in the laneways and there aren\u2019t block parties or neighbourhood Saint-Jean celebrations.\u00a0There are few local services and community spaces. There are no neighbourhood public schools in the area, nor is there a city library. While it is next door to Mount-Royal there are only a handful of small, local parks. It is a neighbourhood that lacks the spirit and cohesion of many others in Montreal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This summer, local community groups from the neighbourhood are getting together to try to change this with the Quartier en mouvement street festival. Hosting this block party is Pierce Street (Guy Concordia metro), which will be closed down on the 10th, 17th, 24th and 31st of July. The idea of the festival is to give local residents a place to relax, reclaim public space, and get to know one another. Every week there will be a children\u2019s corner with hands-on activities, face painting, sidewalk chalk and puppet shows offered, as well as yoga classes, information booths, urban gardening workshops, food tables, and countless performances by local artists. Activities will be happening from 2pm on, and each day will finish up with a movie projection by Cinema Politica at nightfall.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">While this kind of event would be commonplace in much of the city, it&#8217;s a rarity in this part of town. These kind of events won&#8217;t single-handedly change the face of downtown, but they are a key part in the long process of building community. Organizing such events is a great way to encourage people to stay and socially invest in the neighbourhood. Bringing people together, even for just an afternoon, is a catalyst for sparking citizen mobilization. And that is a necessary feature of any authentic neighbourhood revitalisation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Quartier en mouvement is organised by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eco-quartierpm.org\/\">\u00c9co-quartier Peter McGill<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.innovationjeunes.ca\/\">Innovation Jeunes<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandemvme.org\/\">Tandem Ville-Marie <\/a>and the <a href=\"http:\/\/ville.montreal.qc.ca\/portal\/page?_pageid=87,37619&amp;_dad=portal&amp;_schema=PORTAL\">Ville-Marie Borough<\/a>. The full schedule of Quartier en mouvement activities can be found at <a href=\"http:\/\/quartierenmouvement.wordpress.com\/\">quartierenmouvement.wordpress.com<\/a>, and all events are free of charge. Devin Alfaro is a member of the organising committee of the festival. <\/em><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"border-collapse: collapse; line-height: normal; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: arial, sans-serif;\"><span style=\"border-collapse: collapse; line-height: normal; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The corner of Pierce and Ste-Catherine, in Shaughnessy Village. Unlike many North-American &#8220;central business districts&#8221;, Downtown Montreal is a lively place with constant activity. It is a part of town where there are many Montreal-wide institutions, major retail streets, three universities, as well as numerous cultural attractions. As a result, it is a destination for<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2010\/07\/10\/building-community-in-downtown-montreal\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Building community in Downtown Montreal&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"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":[11,7835,7839,102,7842],"tags":[5423,4835,48,43,5427,5426,5424,125,5425,1590,45,154,28,605,302,2030],"class_list":["post-7510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-green-space","category-neighbourhoods","category-spacing","category-urban-design","tag-atwater","tag-devin-alfaro","tag-downtown","tag-ecoquartier","tag-few-local-services","tag-food-tables","tag-guy-concordia","tag-montreal","tag-montreal-wide","tag-retail-streets","tag-revitalisation","tag-shaughnessy-village","tag-spacing-montreal","tag-the-heritage","tag-usd","tag-ville-marie-borough"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Building community in Downtown Montreal - 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\/2010\/07\/10\/building-community-in-downtown-montreal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Building community in Downtown Montreal - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The corner of Pierce and Ste-Catherine, in Shaughnessy Village. Unlike many North-American &#8220;central business districts&#8221;, Downtown Montreal is a lively place with constant activity. It is a part of town where there are many Montreal-wide institutions, major retail streets, three universities, as well as numerous cultural attractions. 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