Our Urban Futures: Montreal Scenario Set

Unlocking Our Urban Futures: A Practical Toolkit for Infrastructure Planning

With a need to build on available data sets, the project explored scenarios of the future in three Canadian regions: Calgary-Edmonton, the Greater Toronto Area, and Metro-Montréal. These scenarios explore how trends might shape our urban regions, and how we expect our infrastructure to mitigate or support our preferred futures.

The Process

The following scenarios were developed with the input captured in a virtual workshop on February 18, 2021, with an expert group with representatives from the Montréal municipal government, architectural firms, academia, and community organizations. We’ve also collected input from experts through this questionnaire. The contents of the scenarios are informed by the input of these experts and their interpretations of a set of 47 trends researched over the last eight months.

The scenarios are as follows:

1. A Corporate Community: Continuation and growth (see page 5)

2. Alone in this Together: Decline and collapse (see page 10)

3. #UN@YMQ Limits and discipline (see page 15)

4. A.I.N’T it Swell: Transformation (see page 20)

These scenarios can stimulate new thinking, future-proof long-term decision-making, and help to test emergent strategies. Ultimately, this approach can help in identifying a preferred vision for regional urban development and consequent opportunities and risks in the way we plan and invest in infrastructure.