Land and People: Property Investment in Late Pre-Industrial Montreal

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Land and People: Property Investment in Late Pre-Industrial Montreal
Abstract
The author evaluates the historical significance of the value of real estate in Montreal in the 1840s. Data constructed from notarial deeds indicates that property values in all parts of the city were high over the decade. An analysis of the importance of real estate investment by the author reveals that it was substantially more important for both capital accumulation and class formation within the city than was international trade. Prior to industrialisation, few working class and lower middle class families could afford the purchase of either a home or a workshop. He argues that property values and housing costs were so high relative to wages, they were a major reason contributing to the high levels of transience among the city's immigrant families and in part explains the rapid development of tenement housing in the wake of the city's great fire of 1852.
Publication
Urban History Review/Revue d'histoire urbaine
Volume
Vol. 24
Issue
no. 1
Pages
42-51
Date
October 1995
Language
en
Citation
Sweeny, Robert C. H. “Land and People: Property Investment in Late Pre-Industrial Montreal.” Urban History Review/Revue d’histoire urbaine Vol. 24, no. 1 (October 1995): 42–51.
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