One of my favorite subjects is the city. I love to visit cities and learn about their development. I grew up in the city and have a definite penchant for cities. I have read a number of books by Jane Jacobs as well as books regarding the development of Los Angeles, the development of suburbs and edge cities and the decline of cities like St–Louis and others. I am a firm believer in the roles of cities, not the countryside, as the main engines of economic development—as does Jacobs as well.
With the end of the war and the development of suburbs like Levittown on Long Island, the development of our cities has fallen victim to the automobile. With the racial conflicts of the 1950s and 1960s, white flight served to only accelerate the exodus from the city center, leaving many cities with a hollow core of poverty and misery shared by minorities, while rings of prosperous—mostly white—suburbs thrived. In most cases, these suburbs were set up as separate towns in separate counties where they constituted separate tax bases that were spared from the demands of the inner city poor. Over time, these suburbs themselves fell victim to the cycle (black migration to the better areas; white flight resulting), and new suburbs were created, even further from the city centre.
While the worst cases can be found in the US, centering around cities like Atlanta, St. Louis, Phoenix and Los Angeles, the same basic problem can be found right here at home. Instead of white flight, the Montreal area got linguistic flight, with native English–speaking citizens heading for the western part of the island, where new ghettos took root, while native French speakers headed for the North and South shores, effectively abandoning residency of the largest French–speaking city in North America for fear of the "multicultural hordes".
On the Island of Montreal proper, there were incredibly prosperous cities and others that were somewhat poor, including Montreal itself, which had often mopped up other cities that had gone bankrupt in the past (Saint–Michel, Hochelaga, etc.). Wealthy cities like Westmount skimmed the cream of the crop, thriving off high property values thus enabling them to offer high–quality services to their citizens with a low tax base. Meanwhile, the core city of Montreal, working off of a weakened tax base, was asked to take care of the region's most unfortunate, leaving less funds for offering the kinds of services available in the richer cities which had no poor to take care of per se. Inequity was the by–word.
Up until a year ago, there were 28 cities on the Island of Montreal. In the greater Montreal region, there were 110 cities in all. As you can imagine coordinating activities like regional development were nigh impossible, with 110 different parties pulling the blanket in all directions. After 40 years worth of debate, the provincial government legislated the amalgamation of all of the cities on the Island of Montreal, and created a large city on the south shore. The resulting race to bulk up caused a number of other surrounding cities to merge as well, bringing the total down to 63 cities. Much better than before but still a lot of opinions and priorities to manage. In my opinion, this was the most significant thing the Parti Québecois government did during its reign, and one of the rare times I saw eye–to–eye with it. (The other is agreeing not to discuss the whole sovereignty, which is what Bouchard managed to do while in office.)
Alas, it was too good to be true. The provincial Liberal party, in one of the most illogical sops that I have ever seen, promised to allow the amalgamated cities to separate from the Mega–city. A sop because it basically bowed to the will of people who were going to vote for the party anyways. When I first began to write this article over a month ago, the government's initial plan was tantamount to a free ride whereby a minority of citizens would be able to cause amalgamated cities to be spun off. So much for the will of the majority. However in the last few weeks the Charest government appears to have some consideration the usual democratic principles which govern our city and the minority won't be given the free ride previously promised. At least that's what we have been told. Time will tell.
In the case of Montreal, it just so happens that the cities most anxious to leave are those that are the richest. And this in spite of an arrangement whereby tax levels were not harmonized across the whole city but pretty much kept at the levels they were before. (No rich cities are being over–penalized by the poor.) One of the illuminati arguing for the right to secede uses as and example the city of Boston to justify his rather self–serving arguments, pointing to the fact that there are over 100 cities in the Boston area and that Boston is doing relatively well. It would be interesting to see if the person living in Roxbury, one of the poorest cities in the greater Boston area, when comparing himself to his compatriot in Cambridge or in any given gated community, shares the opinion of our Montreal friend. I would be quite surprised if that were the case.
An example of a city that has managed to do well over the last 50 years in spite of the trend towards the suburbs is Calgary. This is because Calgary, through the cooperation of the provincial government, annexes or amalgamates any cities that grow up outside of of its borders. This means that as the city grows, Calgary's tax base not only stays intact, but grows as well, enabling the city to continue to offer services to all of its citizens, rich or poor.
This whole discussion of cities is not academic and the implications of the debate are far ranging. In fact it goes to the very core of our society: how we live together, work together, and get along; and how we share the burdens and benefits of everyday life. If we agree that some cities can be extremely rich, and others extremely poor, then we must also accept the consequences of this stratification: crime, poverty, welfare, conflict and more.
Unfortunately, most people don't understand this; they assume that they live in a vacuum where there is no cumulative impact of their actions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, the problem won't go away. (Cities in the Montreal area spent 40 years pulling the blanket in all directions, severely impacting the region's ability to deal with economic change and the challenge posed by Toronto.) We can deal with the problem now, while it is still manageable, or we can deal it with later, when it becomes intractable. While most American cities have given up on making this work, and are struggling with the consequences, Canadian cities still have a chance to set things right and the amalgamation of the cities on the Island of Montreal was a step in the right direction. 'Nuff said.
PS: The New York Times recently ran an article on this whole question; it has a major impact on the city's ability to deal with the current budget problems and additional responsibilities in light of 9–11.