Healthy neighbourhoods are places where everyone can find a home, regardless of age, household structure, or income. Perhaps unlike many other cities in North America, Montréal enjoys a unique position—with many families with children opting to live in its central neighbourhoods, where they have easy proximity to services, employment, and amenities (Germain 2015, Reid et al. 2025). This continues to be true, since access to the rest of the metropolitan region is excellent, with all the city’s public transport converging in the downtown. Socially and culturally, living in the urban core is preferred by many households, enabling children to grow up as engaged citizens who appreciate all the joys and benefits of city living without having to drive all the time (Bartram & Brown-Saracino 2025, Jansen 2021, Jean 2014).

Cultural narratives and practical realities can challenge the idea of raising children in the central city, even if it has been a normal aspect of urban life for centuries. In the last 20 years, rising housing costs have converged with the resurgence of downtown as a place for play (tourism, entertainment, etc.). Shifts in ‘where work happens’ in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic have also affected how services get deployed (notably schools and daycare centres). In response, local civil-society organisations and the municipal government have called for focused efforts to improve downtown neighbourhoods as family-friendly milieux de vie, embodied in the city’s Policy on Children (Politique de l’enfant), on which CIRM researchers recently completed a study.

CIRM has now partnered with local Tables de quartier to explore how to enhance the Ville-Marie borough, and particularly the Peter-ɬÀï·¬ district, as a family-friendly residential environment. We are working with local community organisations and stakeholders to analyse the conditions, organisational mechanisms, and collaborative opportunities to develop local practices and strategies for families in the city. Among our enduring preoccupations are housing (affordability, quality), childcare services, and schools, but also the everyday realities of navigating the city—especially for first-generation Canadians and households with modest incomes. In the short-term, we are focusing on how different organisations can work in concert to ensure that families are well supported in the hypercentre of the metropolitan region so that they are inclined to stay and able to do so (financially, socially, and in terms of access to key services). The aim is a co-produced framework for guiding future actions and improving the quality of life for families in Montréal’s central-city neighbourhoods. Our project uses Participatory Action-Research (PAR) based on an egalitarian partnership where researchers and community members from diverse publics all share decisions, responsibilities, and knowledge at each stage of the process. Integrating many kinds of knowledge—theoretical, practical, and lived—our approach places community actors as experts who can drive the research, rather than ‘objects of study’. Students involved in this research will have opportunities to work with civil-society organisations on comparative analysis of several neighbourhood roundtables and Integrated University Health and Social Services Centres (CIUSSS) in the Ville-Marie borough. In addition to documenting the services they offer to families, we are especially interested in how these organisations are adapting their approach to reaching and engaging stakeholders to face new challenges. The students will join an interdisciplinary team bringing diverse perspectives to bear on collective decision-making, design, and management. Part of the work will be done with local civil-society organisations (, , etc.).

Codirectors: Nik Luka and Leila Ghaffari

Scientific coordinator: Stéphan Gervais

In partnership with the

References

Bartram, R., & Brown-Saracino, J. (2025). Sociology, housing, and gender. Annual Review of Sociology, 51, 335–555.

Germain, A. (2015). La famille contre la ville ou la ville contre la famille ? In J.-P. Meloche & J. Torres (Eds.), Vivre en famille au cœur de la ville (pp. 37–53). Presses de l’Université de Montréal.

Jansen, S. J. T. (2020). Urban, suburban or rural? Understanding preferences for the residential environment. Journal of Urbanism, 13(2), 213–235.

Jean, S. (2014). Ville ou banlieue ? Les choix résidentiels des jeunes familles de classe moyenne dans la grande région de Montréal. Recherches sociographiques, 55(1), 105–134.

Reid, M. B., Fritsch, M., Tittler, R., Townsend, C., Bukowski, W., Persram, R., & Jaeger, J. A. G. (2025). Sharing cities with the future : How concerned are young Montrealers today about the implications of their residential choices for future generations? Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes, 69(1), item e70006.