Is Sprawl Good For Montreal?

"For various reasons, Montreal has been losing economic ground to Toronto and other North American urban areas over the last decades. But this could be changing. Politics and infrastructure are combining to substantially improve the competitiveness of the Montreal region.

In the Montreal area, as in all other urban areas in western Europe and North America, nearly all employment and population growth has occurred in the suburbs in recent decades and the automobile has become the dominant mode of transportation. Suburbanization (pejoratively called 'urban sprawl') has made it possible for unprecedented numbers of households to own their own homes and accumulate capital that otherwise would have simply enriched their landlords.

The automobile has greatly improved mobility and the ability of people to take jobs throughout urban areas. As a result, it has been a major factor in driving the post-Second World War economic growth that has created a widespread, 'democratized' prosperity."