Cities, Neighbourhoods, Boroughs, Mayors and Logistics

Photo by: Geoff Livingston

I spend a fair bit of time looking at maps. I like seeing all the little neighbourhoods and historic districts and all the arbitrary borders. Many of which overlap with each other. Where I live (Montreal), the entire map got revamped as of 2004 with the failed One Island One City movement.

While you may be on the Island of Montreal when you visit, may you actually be in the municipal zone known as Westmount, which is technically not Montreal. Since Westmount is surrounded by Montreal, and the citizens of Westmount use a bunch of Montreal infrastructure, and vice verca, there are some shared responsibilities. 

Westmount does not deal with water supply. That is handled by the Agglomeration of Montreal Council. Anyway I wanted to Google more about how our city was divided so here we are.

What is an “Agglomeration of Montreal Council” anyway?

First we will start with the Montreal Executive Committee. This is like the Cabinet in Ottawa. Basically a bunch of the elected officials get to have additional responsibilities (and additional pay). Like currently Ericka Alneus (City Councillor representing Rosemont) is also on the committee and is responsible for culture & heritage. 

Basically someone on the committee, which could be the mayor of Montreal, ends up heading the Agglomeration of Montreal Committee. The rest of the committee consists of all the mayors (currently Valerie Plante & the 14 other city mayors). There are also 15 city councillors, picked by the mayor.

This council meets and talks about the bigger urban issues that connect Montreal as a whole. This includes:

• Public transportation

• Arterial road planning (stuff that connects boroughs and other major things like hospitals)

• Public Safety (PoPos, Firefighters and paramedics)

• Public housing

• Etc (other big big issues that make no sense for a Westmount to deal with on their own in a giant Montreal).

The council will work together to better the city, in theory. What really is worth noting is that 13% of the votes go to the independent city mayors and 87% of the votes go to Montreal.

Anyway, let’s discuss something else.

Boroughs vs Neighbourhoods

The main difference between a borough and a neighbourhood is politics. In principle they are the same thing. In reality, neighbourhoods are organically built by people and boroughs are political lines on a map that help politicians politic. 

A neighbourhood is an area that serves as a localized community. It’s different from a city or a town, because it likely doesn’t have everything you need. Your neighbourhood may not have a hospital, or it may not have something else central to city-life baked into it. However it has enough essentials that you can spend the majority of your life in that neighbourhood, and it will serve as a central hub for people to meet, network and socialize. 

Wiki has a really detailed list of Montreal neighbourhoods. Well detailed if you care about the English parts of the city. This page needs a lot of work TBH. 

Sometimes a neighbourhood can get real big. So you’ll have majour neighbourhoods like NDG and smaller sub-hoods like the Monkland Village within the bigger ones. This is where politicians come in. They drew a bunch of lines on a map and made officialized boroughs. These are just majour neighbourhoods as far as the city, and all of its logistics are concerned. Due to things like gerrymandering and other political maneuvering, neighbourhoods as they play out in real life, may not match the borough districts. 

Within boroughs, you will find residential districts. These are just subdivisions to make managing the borough easier. They end up as more lines on the map. Your city councillor represents your residential district and the mayor represents the borough. 

It all changes over time

As I drive all over and see the different parts of Montreal I am fascinated by how each part of the city has its own unique feel. Cities evolve, it is in their nature. All you need to do is head to whatever part of town you grew up in. Literally the deli where my aunt met her husband turned into a police station. 

There are so many condos. Safe areas get gutted and former hoods are full of university kids. Businesses die and new ones replace them. The demographics shift and as a result the neighbourhoods evolve.

There is this old camera store, somewhere below downtown. It had this proud, we’ve been around since the 1930s, sign on it. Meanwhile it’s boarded up and closed off and it looks like a part of town where there’s probably a lot of homelessness now. It once must have been a thriving locale. Or at least it had this one successful camera store there once upon a time.

The decarie express way’s construction literally annihilated a street, the homes and everyone who lived there. It also arguably severs the Cote-Des-Neiges & Notre-Dame-Des-Grace connection. 

Whatever the map looks like today, it’s just a snapshot of the now. Over time, things you love will disappear and new things will be built. It’s wild to think about how much history is just lost over majour construction projects, relegated to the memories of those who still can remember. Until they only exist as fragmented articles scattered across the internet.

I’m not sure where else to go with this, so have a lovely day.

Live Long and Prosper Everyone