Point Saint-Charles, a historically white working-class neighbourhood with a strong Irish and French presence, and Little Burgundy, a multiracial neighbourhood that is home to the city's English-speaking Black community, face each other across Montreal's Lachine Canal, once an artery around which work and industry in Montreal were clustered and by which these two communities were formed and divided.

Deindustrializing Montreal challenges the deepening divergence of class and race analysis by recognizing the intimate relationship between capitalism, class struggles, and racial inequality. Fundamentally, deindustrialization is a process of physical and social ruination as well as part of a wider political project that leaves working-class communities impoverished and demoralized. The structural violence of capitalism occurs gradually and out of sight, but it doesn't play out the same for everyone. Point Saint-Charles was left to rot until it was revalorized by gentrification, whereas Little Burgundy was torn apart by urban renewal and highway construction. This historical divergence had profound consequences in how urban change has been experienced, understood, and remembered. Drawing extensive interviews, a massive and varied archive of imagery, and original photography by David Lewis into a complex chorus, Steven High brings these communities to life, tracing their history from their earliest years to their decline and their current reality. He extends the analysis of deindustrialization, often focused on single-industry towns, to cities that have seemingly made the post-industrial transition.

The urban neighbourhood has never been a settled concept, and its apparent innocence masks considerable contestation, divergence, and change over time. Deindustrializing Montreal thinks critically about locality, revealing how heritage becomes an agent of gentrification, investigating how places like Little Burgundy and the Point acquire race and class identities, and questioning what is preserved and for whom.

The intimate relationship between capitalism, class struggles, and racial inequality in two working-class Montreal neighbourhoods.

About the Author

Steven High is professor of history at Concordia University's Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling and the editor of Occupied St John's: A Social History of a City at War, 1939-1945.

Reviews

"Deindustrializing Montreal is an excellent book animated by a rich and rigorous use of oral history and careful attention to race and language. High combines a mastery of international literature with a serious engagement with place. The result is a fascinating study of neighbourhood in the context of capitalism, community, politics, and economic change." Steve Penfold, University of Toronto

"There is no way to ignore the stunning presentation of Deindustrializing Montreal. With its large format, glossy pages, and dozens of photographs (many in color), it occupies a place between densely argued academic monograph and lavish coffee table book. High has succeeded in the difficult task of producing a volume that will be of interest to a wide variety of readers, from specialist scholars in urban and labor history to members of the general public interested in the evolution of Montreal's Southwest or, more generally, the story of the twentieth-century North American city." H-Sci-Med-Tech

"A deluxe love letter to two neighbourhoods and their residents. The book is filled with colour photographs, and the extensive interviews and archival detail testify to High's diligence ... . High is known locally as a public- facing scholar, who conducts walking tours, writes op-eds, and organizes off- campus events. His work is the kind of deeply humanist tribute that all neighbourhoods deserve but that few receive." Literary Review of Canada

"Il est impossible de rendre justice, en quelques mots, au contenu de cet ouvrage exceptionnel. Il constitue un apport remarquable a l'histoire ouvriere, urbaine et politique de Montreal et de sa communaute noire. Enfin, soulignons les qualites esthetiques de ce livre dont la facture soignee reconnait et rend hommage aux acteurs de cette histoire." Le jury du Prix Lionel-Groulx

Awards
Recipiendaire du Prix du livre politique 2023 des Prix de la presidence de l'Assemblee nationale and Canadian Historical Association 2023 Clio Prize, Quebec region 2023 (Canada) and Prix Lionel-Groulx Institut d'histoire de l'Amerique francaise 2023 (Canada). Finalist for the Canadian Historical Society 2023 Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History Prize.



Book Information
ISBN 9780228010753
Author Steven High
Format Hardback
Page Count 440
Imprint McGill-Queen's University Press
Publisher McGill-Queen's University Press