View of downtown Montreal at night from a skyscraper
SURP students look over the City of Montreal at the Chateau de Mont Royal.

City of Montréal: Planning Challenges and Issues

Montréal is Canada’s second-largest metropolitan region (2011 population 3.8 million). It is an important hub for the aerospace, finance, biomedical, high-tech, and cultural industries. Montréal is a multicultural francophone city and host to many international agencies.

SURP‘s Montréal field trips often include visits to Benny Farm (housing project revitalization) and walking tours of Downtown, Quartier des Spectacles, and Quartier International. We study landscape design in Frederick Law Olmsted’s Parc Mont-Royal and heritage preservation in Vieux Montréal.

At the suburban scale, we compare Frederick Todd’s Town of Mount Royal to St. Laurent’s Bois Franc, an airport redevelopment with new urbanist design features.

And SURP students always seem to be able to find time to explore Montreal’s vibrant nightlife during their visits.

Professors Skaburskis, Gordon, and Viswanathan have lived in Montréal and conducted research in the region.