NEW ONLINE MAP SHOWS MONTREAL SPRAWL SINCE ’90S
A new interactive online map illustrates how development in Montreal has flowed over the edges of the island, spilling out over bridges in every direction.
Zoom in to the West Island or Vaudreuil-Soulanges and you can toggle a view back in time to the early 1990s. Fast forward a couple of decades and watch as our farmland, wetlands and forests disappear.
The map, which was published by the Institut de la statistique du Québec in May (stat.gouv.qc.ca/cartovista/comptes_ terres/index.html), is a visual representation of how land use has changed between the 1990s and the 2000s, based on Southern Québec land accounts data released in October 2017.
Artificial surfaces, including homes, condos, businesses, parking lots and roads, are shown in pink, wetlands in purple, agricultural land in yellow, waterways in blue and forests in green.
The map doesn’t just show development, although it is the most striking change. While you can see the last wetlands in Kirkland vanish and agricultural land swallowed up by strip malls in Vaudreuil-Dorion, you can also see where uncultivated farmland turned into forests in Ste-Annede-Bellevue and Notre-Damede-l’Île-Perrot. The map also shows how some forests have changed over time, with tree cover becoming more or less dense, or changing from predominantly hardwood to a more varied tree population as conifers creeped in (and vice versa).
The loss of forests, wetlands and agricultural areas to development is no surprise. But I found it striking to see just how few of these natural spaces are left in the West Island, and just how quickly the developed area has expanded Off-Island.
Given that the data set it’s based on only goes to about 2009 or so, you can bet the colour-coded map would show even more areas swallowed up by the pink wave of sprawl today.
It should be something of a wake-up call.
We can’t keep building out at the same pace. We can’t pave over all our farmland. We can’t lose the remaining wetlands and forests that are so essential to replenishing our aquifers and cleansing the air we breathe. Montreal needs to defend its natural spaces and build up, not out, to house our growing population.
Yes, that means condos, even in neighbourhoods that have traditionally been filled with only single-family homes.
But as I’ll explain in the coming weeks, with careful planning, increasing density in specific areas of the West Island and Off-Island could be the key to preserving more of the precious natural landscapes that remain.