Should Greater Montreal have a green belt?
A new study suggests that Greater Montreal should have a green belt to limit sprawl.
Maybe this blog has made me a cynic, because I can foresee that no sooner will the belt be named and declared, than exceptions will be made. Notably, the TGV will have to cut right through.
Nicholas 14:42 on 2026-02-27 Permalink
The feds can generally ignore provincial zoning and protection law. But also no definition of a greenbelt means literally zero development. We’re not turning ourselves into an island (you know), where no new power lines, transportation links etc. can go.
Canada loves its greenbelts, but the problem in the past has been not enough building in the centre, meaning instead the sprawl just pops out the other side of the greenbelt and people drive even farther. You need to pair it with strong housing construction closer in, and that often means tearing down single family homes to build more densely. I hope the inner couronne is ready.
Tim 16:43 on 2026-02-27 Permalink
Building more density is not the silver bullet that we need in this country, where too much economic might is centralized in too few cities. I tend to agree with CD Howe: we need more large cities. The feds need to incentivize long term plans to build up other cities in Canada.
https://cdhowe.org/publication/making-housing-more-affordable-in-canada-the-need-for-more-large-cities/
Kate 22:11 on 2026-02-27 Permalink
Can you do that? I know that some countries have just plunked a marker on a random spot on the map and ordained that their new capital city should exist there, but I’ve never gone to look at them. Wikipedia even has a list.
Cities tend to grow organically where they’re needed and have resources nearby to support them. Montreal, and other cities we know in Quebec and eastern Ontario, grew up as ports on major rivers and lakes, in a part of Canada where you can readily grow food and cut timber. Makes logical sense. Maritime cities grow up in sheltered bays where you can harbour ships. And so on. The form of the resulting city relates to the reason it exists.
But if you just make a street grid in a place, what do you get? A suburb on a grand scale.
Nicholas 23:31 on 2026-02-27 Permalink
Canada seems to have a similar number of million+ cities compared to other countries its size, and similarly proportional number to larger and smaller countries. Many people just want to live in larger cities with more amenities, and you have to do a lot of work to beat the first-mover advantages of already big cities. Even if you build elsewhere, people will still want to move to the big cities, and there’s not much you can do about that, unless you institute something like a hukou.
Tim 01:02 on 2026-02-28 Permalink
Which countries are you using for your comparison Nicholas? Do any of them have a land mass approaching ours?
I am not suggesting that building up other large cities would be easy. Far from it. But overall, this country would be better off being more diversified and economically decentralized.
Kate 11:17 on 2026-02-28 Permalink
In North America, often a new town got started because someone put an industrial facility in some random spot, attracting related businesses and bringing people in with offers of work. A railway line also helped.
Does industry even work like this any more? Do jobs?
Nicholas 13:24 on 2026-02-28 Permalink
Tim, Canada has six cities (measured by metro area population) of at least a million. Spain, France and Poland also have six. Italy has just four. Australia has five. UK and Germany have more but have more people. Countries of similar population with more such cities tend to be less developed than Canada, and developed countries with more such cities tend to be much more populated. All the countries with a land mass approaching ours are much, much more populous (also they don’t have a huge portion where nearly no one lives).
We could certainly try to grow our mid-sized cities, like Winnipeg or Halifax. Whether the people want that, both locally and nationally, and whether it should be a national government priority, seems less certain.
DeWolf 13:27 on 2026-02-28 Permalink
It’s already happening, Tim. Immigrants are increasingly moving to smaller cities, many of which are growing quickly. The second fastest growing city in Canada last year was Moncton, which grew by 2.9%.
Winnipeg, Kitchener-Waterloo, Quebec City and Halifax are all growing faster than the big three cities. Toronto saw no population growth last year, for instance.
That said, the big cities are still growing — Montreal grew by 0.3% and Vancouver grew by 0.93%. The scale is so much bigger that even small growth in the big cities means a lot more people, and you need to manage that growth in a sustainable way.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260114/dq260114a-eng.htm