A Stake in the System: Domestic Property Ownership and Social Class in Montreal, 1847-1881

The author examines the social and spatial distribution of home ownership in Montreal between 1847 and 1881. He concludes that differential class access to home ownership was becoming more unequal as the industrialization of the city advanced. The relatively low rate of owner-occupation in Montreal, compared to other North American cities of this period, is explained in terms of the absence of institutionalized sources of mortgage credit and the predominance of low wage, labour-intensive industries in the city. The author did find that French Canadians participated to a higher degree in the real estate sector. They made up the absolute majority of home owners, but their investment was more confined to properties of inferior value than was that of the lesser-number of English-speaking Montreal owners. The duplex is also explored as a residential habitat typical of Montreal, with important socio-economic distinctions being founed between duplex owners and tenants and other types of property owners and tenants.

Master's Thesis

McGill University

Montreal

1984

vii-183p.

en