"Ethnic" Dilemmas? Religion, Diversity and Multicultural Planning in Montreal

ABSTRACT/RESUME This paper examines the challenges ethno-religious diversity poses to urban planning practices and the role of local governments in managing diversity at the neighborhood level. In the province of Quebec, municipalities are responsible for all matters relating to urban planning, including the production of an urban plan and the adoption of legal tools (bylaws) to implement its orientations. Within this general framework, how are changing cultural and religious needs and demands accommodated? How do local social dynamics contribute to shaping municipal responses to diversity? Two case studies involving the expansion and remodeling of Hassidic synagogues in a Montreal inner city area serve to illustrate the roles of local dynamics and social players as well as municipal responses to culturally specific requests pertaining to urban planning. Cet article vise a explorer les defis que pose la diversite ethno-religieuse du point de vue des pratiques urbanistiques et du role des administrations locales dans la gestion de cette diversite a l'echelle locale. Dans la province de Quebec, les municipalites sont responsables des questions d'urbanisme, y compris pour la production de plans d'amenagenaent et d'outils reglementaires perinettant la mise en oeuvre de leurs orientations. Dans ce contexte, comment les municipalites tiennent-elles compte des changements dans la demande et les besoins refletant des transformations dans le profil ethno-religieux de leur population? Quel est le role des dynamiques sociales locales dans la formation de cette reponse municipale a la diversite? Deux etudes de cas impliquant l'amenagement de synagogues hassidiques dans deux secteurs centraux de Montreal serviront a illustrer le role des dynamiques locales et des acteurs sociaux ainsi que celles des autorites nmnicipales dans le traitement de demandes d'amenagement provenant de groupes ethno-religieux. INTRODUCTION In recent years, the increasingly critical role of cities, and especially large cities, in defining broad economic, social, cultural, and political trends has drawn attention to the urban milieu as a testing ground for innovation and change. From a sociological perspective, the study of urban areas reveals the complexity and richness of human settlement patterns and the intricate web of interactions that shape the social fabric of the metropolis. International migration is certainly an essential feature of the contemporary city, and the coexistence of increasingly diverse populations at the local level poses a number of challenges to both city residents and the local governments who must manage this diversity. One of the core challenges in modern multiethnic cities is the spatial expression of cultural and religious differences, that is, the ways in which various social, cultural, and religious groups perceive, use, claim, and appropriate urban space (Sandercock 1998). The contemporary liberal model assumes clear boundaries between the public and private spheres of existence, with cultural and religious differences seen as belonging to the latter. By extension, public space should be value-free to guarantee equality for all in the eyes of the state. Here, already, there is ambiguity: the confusion between public space as a space for democratic political debate and a space in the physical sense, made public by the fact that it is accessible to all, or at least not the exclusive property of any particular person or group. A second ambiguity comes from the fact that culture--including in its religious dimension has always left a strong imprint on public space (monuments and places of worship, for example), an imprint frequently shaped by the state, notably through government regulation and funding. Religion, then, is clearly not separate from the state, as the secular ideology of modernism would have us believe. Yet the return of religion to public space is often attributed to the increasing presence (both in terms of numbers and symbols) of foreigners in the city. …

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