City or suburb?
Year after year, about 20,000 people leave the City of Montreal to settle in the suburbs. In light of the competition facing communities to attract young families, we examine the residential choices of middle class families for either the city or the suburbs. Some 51 interviews were conducted between 2011 and 2012 in two districts of the Montreal metropolitan area, one representing the suburbs – Vimont-Auteuil – and the other representing the city – Ahuntsic. Beyond housing prices, residential choices of families are determined by their notions of the city and suburbs, to uses made of a neighbourhood and home, to their daily mobility patterns, their identity, and their overall lifestyle. Negative images of family life in the city held by those living in the suburbs as well as a stereotyped view of the suburbs on the part of urban dwellers suggest that the city/suburb dichotomy is far from obsolete, at least in the representations held by today’s young middle class families.