Core Redevelopment, Neighbourhood Revitalization and Municipal Government Motivation: Twenty Years of Urban Renewal in Quebec City

Abstract

AbstractThis article investigates the motives behind policy-making at the municipal level. More specifically, it argues that local governments are guided in the formulation of their policies by a need to reconcile fiscal and electoral considerations. On the one hand, by focussing on urban renewal initiatives it shows that an important proportion of municipal policies are primarily devoted to the maintenance or the bolstering of the taxation base. On the other hand, a description of the different guises taken by urban renewal over a 20-year period highlights the influence electoral circumstances have on the configuration of renewal strategies. Urban renewal efforts undertaken by Québec City's municipal administration provides the case study for this article. It identifies the impetus for launching these efforts and identifies the economic and electoral factors that produced a transition from a form of urban renewal involving a redevelopment of the core area, to one assuring the preservation of the built environment of central neighbourhoods.