2. Context – Quartier des Spectacles
In 2003, a collection of key stakeholders in the city center – including the City of Montreal, private developers, and culture and tourism organizations – moved forward with the creation of the PQDS to attract residents, tourists, and economic activities into a one-square-kilometer area (Figure 1) as part of a “creative city” initiative (Kavaratzis 2004; Evans 2009; Ethier 2015). The QDS was meant to centralize the artistic life of Montreal through formally-programmed activities taking place in public and private spaces, which also led to street-level changes, including a cohesive visual identity with standardized street furniture and signage. This initiative attracted many investors, public and private, for residential and commercial projects (Bélanger 2000). These developments sought to ensure that the QDS would not become a ghost town once crowds left the shows but would continue to flourish as a residential neighborhood with many types of dwellings, including multi-story row housing, high-rise condos, and public housing (See “Quartier spearheads plan to repopulate downtown”). Unique among its peer “cultural neighborhoods” is the fact that the QDS includes the social housing project Habitations Jeanne-Mance (HJM), one of the largest in Quebec with around 1,700 residents, with which PQDS has maintained a close partnership (Ethier and Margier 2019).
Next to dwellings, the QDS contains a variety of educational and cultural institutions, including various university campuses and the Place des arts complex, which includes multiple concert halls and theatres. The neighborhood boasts 8 public spaces with cultural programming, with the largest, Place des Festivals, able to hold approximately 25,000 people. When not being used for festival stages, the Place des festivals houses year-round, non-concert activities, such as Montréal en Lumiere, or simply serves as a large public fountain with floor-level water jets. The Quartier Latin, also within the QDS, contains the HJM as well as numerous bars and smaller indoor and outdoor performance venues.
While only approximated data is available, estimates suggest that 12,000 residents live in the neighborhood, with 45,000 jobs available and around 50,000 students using the educational buildings (PQDS, Montreal 2019). Faubourg Saint-Laurent, the larger neighborhood that includes the QDS, compiled a report in 2018 based on the findings of the 2016 Canadian population census. This report highlighted a 12% increase in residents as compared to 2011, a high percentage of immigrants (around 35% of total population, many living in HJM), and a high percentage of residents with a university degree (51.5%). The same report articulated constant challenges that the neighborhood has been facing due to a large number of persons experiencing homelessness as well as drug addiction (Table de concertation du faubourg Saint-Laurent 2018). Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the PQDS implemented strict rules requiring all outdoor events to end by 11pm, and the “curfew” was well known throughout the city and neighborhood. Furthermore, the PQDS organizes periodic meetings in which the residents are invited to participate (informally named café-rencontre [coffee clubs]) and also communicates openly with residents with consolidated calendars and other relevant information.
The QDS is a complex neighborhood welcoming diverse urban dwellers, workers, and festivalgoers where tension is expected, as some projects have received public backlash and seeded a lack of trust in future adjacent developments (see for example “Pourquoi le développement urbain du Quartier latin ne décolle-t-il pas?”). In particular, tensions between City Hall, the future “urbanites” to whom the neighborhood aims to cater, and the inhabitants of HJM – who often feel excluded from the urban fabric and political decisions – have been documented (Ville de Montréal 2013). For example, in 2019, Ethier and Margier chronicled these tensions between stakeholders, yet highlighting the positive finding that various stakeholders exhibited cooperation around the topic of neighborhood beautification. These findings suggest a need for an empathy-centered approach to stakeholder conversations, an observation we will return to in the Discussion section of this article.
Adding to the conversation on tensions in the neighborhood are the intertwined aspects of nightlife and night noise; the 2019 Projet Mediation Nocturne (Nighttime Outreach Project), led by PQDS, aimed to investigate sources of conflict at night. The project revealed that sound poses a complex challenge that requires an integrated approach. Overall, participant responses indicated higher satisfaction with the management of festivals and outdoor events, which were perceived as safer, less noisy, and better organized than in the past. Festivalgoers were generally seen as part of the dynamics of the neighborhood soundscape, especially in the summer. However, issues concerning crowd management – crowds leaving QDS events both during the festival season and the rest of the year, resulting in large groups on quiet streets or back alleys (especially inebriated after-hours users) – remained.
