“They didn't have to build that much”: A qualitative study on the emotional response to urban change in the Montreal context

Abstract

Cities are constantly changing, and the way people experience these changes shapes their future relation with urban space. While studies of urban change often seek to illuminate socio-political and economic impacts, they seldom focus on the emotional responses that people have to those changes. Yet, emotional responses are important as they condition the way we respond to change. To better understand people's experience of urban change and the emotional response associated with it, we led a descriptive qualitative study based on 32 semi-structured interviews and a directed content analysis with people living in Montreal, Canada, and its suburbs. Changes to the urban environment were linked to both positive and negative emotions. Among all the physical and social changes reported, condominiums (“condos”), emerged as a prominent theme that elicited a strong emotional response. Condos triggered feelings of disappointment, fear, irritation, pessimism, but also enthusiasm. We argue that these emotional responses stem from the impact condos may have on three aspects of people's lives: daily mobility, residential stability, and place attachment.