School-Oriented Urban Planning: Lessons from the Province of Quebec, Canada

Juan Torres (Université de Montréal)

Contemporary schools can be seen as more than just local education amenities. They can play the role of community hubs, concentrating public facilities and serving children, their families and other citizens throughout their lives. An emerging literature reports on many of these inspiring cases, putting forward the need for coordination between urban planning and school development. However, achieving such coordination requires an understanding of local institutional frameworks. Our study explores the conditions for school-oriented urban planning in the province of Quebec, Canada, where urban planning and school development have been historically embodied by different government structures. What are the obstacles and opportunities for school-oriented urban planning?

Our exploratory study is based on data from: a) official documents (regulations, policies, etc.); b) 21 in-deep semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from municipal urban planning departments, school boards, community-based organizations, etc.; and c) a focus groups with 10 practitioners from different fields (urban planning, school management, real estate developers, etc.). We conducted qualitative analysis of our data (official documents, transcripts of the interviews and the focus group) using a thematic analysis strategy.

Our study shades light on a difficult situation in Quebec: on the one hand, school development during the last decades has been mainly reactive, struggling to follow recent urban transformations; on the other hand, lack of schools becomes a threat for the sustainability of community development. The development of joint-use facilities appears as a promising strategy in different territorial contexts. The institutional framework is seen as the main obstacle for the implementation of such strategy; however, emerging innovative initiatives (by different stakeholders) are taking place. These initiatives include the establishment of community-based school planning processes, sharing georeferenced databases between school and municipal authorities, and the development of new local and international partnerships. A research agenda on this topic will be proposed.