La dynamique spatiale des marchés locaux de l'emploi au sein du champ métropolitain de Québec, 1981–2001

Spatial Dynamics of Local Labour Markets in the Québec City Metropolitan Field, 1981–2001
This research analyzes the spatial dynamics (from 1981 to 2001) of local labour markets at an infra-regional scale, namely the Québec metropolitan field, with particular emphasis on interactions between the metropolitan region and its hinterland. It seeks to better understand the factors underlying this evolution. Centrographic analyses were performed to characterize the evolution of the spatial configuration of local labour markets (displacement of gravity centre, shape change, evolution of dispersion indices and of workforce preferential distribution axes). Between 1981 and 2001, almost all employment poles experienced an increase in the mean-distance tied to their recruitment area, that being particularly true for peri-metropolitan poles which employ an increasing part of their workforce inside the metropolitan labour basin, where a more qualified and diversified labour force is available; thus, giving rise to significant reverse commuting. In addition to the influence of distance to metropolitan area, a multiple regression model shows that factors such as manufacturing specialization and employment growth within job centres also play a crucial role in the spatial dynamics of local labour markets in the Québec City metropolitan field.     

Fluctuations in land values in a rural municipality in southern Québec, Canada

The agro-forested region of the Haut-St-Laurent, in southwestern Québec, in Canada, has served as a laboratory for several years to a multi-disciplinary research team seeking to understand the interplay of stakeholders and processes influencing the rural space of southern Québec. Following directly in the footsteps of previous research, this study was undertaken to analyze the hitherto neglected but important aspect of fluctuations in land values with respect to geomorphology and land use, during the 1958–1997 period. A geo-referenced database was built within an object-oriented geographic information system (GIS) that includes data from the sale of parcels of land within the study area, land registry maps, land use maps, and a geomorphological map. These data were analyzed and sorted through queries addressed to the database. Finally, a statistical analysis was performed to analyze the relationship between sale price, geomorphology and indirectly land use, for the entire study period and for each of its decades. The results show that land value has increased at different times during the past, according to its geomorphological type and land use. These relationships are explained by the important transformation phases that have affected southern Québec during the second half of the twentieth century.     

Reviews / Comptes rendus

Man, Location, and Behaviour: An Introduction to Human Geography, by K evin R. C ox , John Wiley and Sons, New York
The Spatial Organization of Society, 2nd ed., by R ichard L. M orrill , Duxbury Press, North Scituate, Mass.
Organisation, Location and Behaviour: Decision-Making in Economic Geography, by P eter T oyne , Macmillan Press Ltd, London
Death of a People - The lhalmiut, by F arley M owat , McClelland and Stewart Ltd., Toronto
Coastal Zone: Framework for Management in Atlantic Canada, by D ouglas M. J ohnston et al., Institute of Public Affairs, Dalhousie University, Halifax; Environment Canada, Ottawa
Les Villes du Saguenay: Étude géographique, par L ouis -M arie B ouchard , Editions Leméac Inc., Montréal; La Fondation de ľUniversité du Québec à Chicoutimi     

AMBIOSTASIE, AMBIOCONTRÔLE, AMBIOSYSTÈME: UN MODÈLE POUR ĽANALYSE DE LA RELATION SANTÉ-ENVIRONNEMENT - APPLICATION AU QUÉBEC

Des données de ľenquête Santé Québec de 7 987 sont utilisées dans cet article, ainsi qu'un nouveau modèle, intégrant les concepts ďambiosystème, ambiostasie et ambiocontrôle, dans ie but de mettre en lumière et ďexpliquer les disparités socio-spatiales de santé qui existent au Québec. Les résultats montrent qu'un faible niveau de contrôle environnemental (ambiocontrôle), conjugaison ďun environnement complexe et ďun faible statut socio-économique, caractérisent les milieux les plus pathogènes et semblent être un déterminant capital de problèmes de santé mentale et physique.
Data from the Santé Québec survey of 1987 are used in this article, together with a new model based upon the ambiosystem, ambiostasis, and ambiocontrol concepts; the objective is to uncover and explain the socio-spatial health disparities existing in Québec. Results show that a low level of environmental control (ambiocontrol), corresponding to the combination of a complex environment and a low socio-economic status, characterizes the most pathogenic milieu and seems to be a prime determinant of mental and physical health problems.     

ANALYSE ET CARTOGRAPHIE DES DOMMAGES DU SÉISME SURVENU AU QUÉBEC LE 25 NOVEMBRE 1988

Dans le cadre d'un projet de recherche en cours portant sur l'évaluation de la vulnérabilité municipale aux catastrophes naturelles (Boivin 1990), un examen des dommages du séisme du 25 novembre 1988 a été mené afin de mieux documenter l'analyse du risque séismique au Québec. À partir de sources variées de rapports de dommages mais, plus spécifiquement, par l'étude des demandes liées au programme de dédommagement mis sur pied par le gouvernement du Québec, une analyse et une cartographie des dommages rapportés est fournie. Les résultats montrent que la majorité des dommages sont concentrés près de l'épicentre dans les régions du Saguenay/Lac Saint-Jean et de Québec. Les dégats répertoriés concernent principalement les ouvertures (portes et (enê tres) avec 11%, les murs intérieurs ou extérieurs (29%), l'apparition de fissures (72%), les fondations (44%) et les cheminées (29%). Au total, 1521 cas de dommages ont été rapportés et analysés dans ce projet de recherche.     

REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS

Book reviewed in this article:
Canada's Cold Environments edited by HUGH M. FRENCH and OLAV SLAYMAKER, McGill
Geography and the Human Spirit by ANNE BURIMER, with a Foreword by Yi-Fu Tuan
French America: Mobility, Identity, and Minority Experience across the Continent edited by DEAN R. LOUDER and ERIC WADDELL, translated by FRANKLIN PHILIP
Dictionnaire des entites géographiques au Couvernement du Québec dir. par ROBERT CHÉNIER, ANDRÉ GACNON, et JOCELYNE MALBOEUF
Tourism Research: Critiques and Challenges edited by DOUGLAS C. PEARCE and RICHARD W. BUTLER
St. Catharines: Canada's Canal City by JOHN N. JACKSON and SHEILA M. WILSON
Télédétection spatiale: Université d'été européenne, Toulouse 1990 dir. par MICHEL VAUZELLE
Remote Sensing for Monitoring the Changing Environment of Europe edited by PETER WINKLER, A.A. Balema
Landscape and Power edited by W.J.T. MITCHELL
Atlas historique de Montréal by JEAN-CLAUDE ROBERT
The Quest for the Other: Ethnic Tourism in San Cristobal, Mexico by PIERRE L. VAN DEN BERCHE
Continuities and Discontinuities: The Political Economy of Social Welfare and Labour Market Policy in Canada edited by ANDREW F. JOHNSON, STEPHEN MCBRIDE, and PATRICK J. SMITH     

L'EXODE URBAIN, ESSAIDE CLASSIFICATION DE LA POPULATION EXURBAINE DES CANTONS DE l'EST

A partir d'une enquěte auprès de 280 exurbains des Cantons de l'Est, on a trouvé que pour les Montréalais qui comptent pour le tiers des répondants, la distance ne semble pas étre un obstacle et qu'ils préfèrent des localités éloignées et isolées alors que les exurbains locaux sétablissent à proximité de leur ville d'origine. Cinq types d'exurbains ont été identifiés parmi deux courants principaux d'exurbanisation: le premier serait une phase tardive d'urbanisation, une continuation de l'étalement urbain; le deuxième en serait plutt un d'anti-urbanisation, relié au processus de changement dans les valeurs de notre société.
From a survey of 280 exurbanites in the Eastern Townships, Québec, it was found that Montrealers made up one-third of the sample. Distance from the city did not seem to be a hindrance to them, since they preferred isolated situations, whereas the local exurbanites were concentrated around their regional towns. Five types of exurbanites were identified among two main trends of exurbanization: the first is a late phase of urbanization, in which urban sprawl is continued; the second is part of a counter-urbanization process related to cultural change.     

Modélisation spatiale de la pauvretéà Montréal: apport méthodologique de la régression géographiquement pondérée

Spatial Modeling of Poverty in Montréal: Methodological Contribution of the Geographically Weighted Regression
The Island of Montréal is particularly concerned with the issue of poverty. In 2000, 29 percent of its inhabitants lived under the low income cut-offs as defined by Statistics Canada. However, poverty is not a homogeneous phenomenon at the intra-urban scale, and identifying and categorizing spaces of poverty has become a main concern for ongoing researches. According to this way of thinking, this paper proposes an analysis of the factors influencing the geographical distribution of poverty on the Island of Montréal. To be able to identify properly the various profiles of poverty, this analysis uses a specific methodology, the geographically weighted regression (GWR), and compares its results with the ones of a classical regression model. At the global level, the most important factors to explain poverty are in order: unemployment, lone-parent families, one person households, recent immigrants, part time or part year workers, school dropouts. At the local level,     

Resinous Paying Materials in the French Atlantic, AD 1500–1800. History, Technology, Substances.

Resinous paying materials of the 16th−18th centuries are divided into pitch and tar products. In the 15th century a pitch industry developed in south-west France and a tar industry in the Baltic. The French Marine encouraged both industries in France and New France from the 1660s. Pitch products were derived from live pines, tar products from dead pinewood, both in a range of viscosity. To improve their paying quality, materials were often mixed before application. Archaeological examples from several wrecks, from the Landes, Normandy, Rochefort, Québec and the Basque Country, can provide evidence towards an identification scheme for paying materials.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

Speaking the land: exploring women's historical geographies in Northern Québec

This review article explores the significance of studying the historical geographies of Aboriginal women in Northern Québec and presents potential research avenues. The article's premise is that we cannot understand the historic and contemporary geographies of subsistence economies without more research about the roles that women played in them. Related to this issue is a broader reflection on how geographies of the past are reconstructed by historical geographers, both from an epistemological and methodological point of view. As a discipline, historical geography has been chiefly dedicated to the study of the encounter of migrant Europeans with new world lands and societies, with the result that Aboriginal and women's geographies have commanded less attention. This gap in knowledge should be addressed by emerging researchers. Taking an interdisciplinary approach and moving from the general to the particular, my inquiry evolves in three parts. First, I identify some key debates that are pertinent to a study of gender and Aboriginal women in a colonial context. Second, I review the existing ethnographic literature on Cree women in Eastern Canada and assess insights about their role in subsistence economies. Third, I outline specific avenues that help frame a research programme to study the historical geographies—by which I understand the places, placing, and place-making—of Aboriginal women in Northern Québec.     

La ségrégation économique comme un phénomène complexe : une analyse spatio-temporelle du cas montréalais

Economic segregation, or residential inequalities based on income, is a complex spatial process. It is associated with structures which arise at certain scales and which evolve in time. In this paper, we analyse the evolution of economic segregation in Montréal from 1980 to 2000. This analysis is based on household's income and on their distribution within the residential space from four scales: households, census tracts, municipalities and some radio-concentric zones. Results confirm that the spatial organisation of economic segregation is scale dependent. More precisely, local inequalities are growing more rapidly but this trend does not prevent the consolidation of metropolitan-sized clusters. Moreover, results confirm that Montréal's economic segregation follows North American trends like the growth of economic disparities (spatial or not) or the fact that the enrichment of central and ex-urban neighbourhoods is compensated by the impoverishment of inner-ring suburbs.     

Dimensions and dynamics of residential segregation by income in urban Canada, 1991–1996

This paper examines the trends in residential segregation by income (post-transfer, pretax income) in the thirty-nine largest Canadian urban areas between 1991 and 1996. The study is motivated by the relative lack of attention paid to residential segregation by income in the Canadian context and by conceptual arguments linking compromised life chances and increased social tensions for the populations of highly segregated cities. We investigated several dimensions of segregation using five different measures (we focus on three of these here given the correlation structure of the measures) to examine changes in segregation between 1991 and 1996, a period characterised by economic recession, cutbacks in social programs and a widening of inequality in market incomes at the national scale. Overall, income segregation increased in most urban areas across all dimensions of segregation during the time period, with particularly high degrees of segregation observed in prairie cities (Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Regina). Of the three largest metropolitan areas (Vancouver, Toronto and Montréal), Montréal was the most consistently segregated. We also find that increases in spatial separation and spatial concentration by income occurred despite the fact that at the national scale, the tax and transfer system appeared to be adequately redressing a rise in inequality in labour and market incomes (as demonstrated by the lack of change in post-transfer national income inequality measures during a period when inequality in market and labour incomes rose sharply). This implies that the lived experience of changes in income distribution are unlikely fully captured by aspatial, national-scale measures and that intra-urban measures with a spatial dimension are an important indicators of inequality in Canadian society.     

Space, place and innovation: a distance-based approach

Innovation is increasingly considered a prerequisite for regional development and it is commonly understood that certain regions are more conducive to innovation than others. Regions that do not possess the required institutional and cultural contexts are often encouraged to work on creating them. However, there is increasing evidence that innovation is also a spatial phenomenon: the propensity of establishments to innovate also varies with their location relative to major and minor metropolitan areas, independent of local context. This article investigates whether the geography of innovation is similar for three different types of manufacturing sectors ( high-tech (HT), medium-tech, first and second transformation) and across two different types of innovation (product, process). It is shown that, in Québec, to the extent that geography and innovation are connected, it is principally distance from a metropolitan area that plays a role. Our results lend support to   McCann's (2007)   recent spatial model of innovation and are also compatible with   Duranton and Puga's (2003)   theory of nursery cities. Our results also show that HT innovators behave differently from other manufacturers, with a tendency to internalize their innovation behaviour (perhaps out of necessity or for reasons of secrecy) in more distant locations.     

Producing North and South: a political geography of hydro development in Québec

Since the 1970s, the tapping of James Bay's hydroelectric potential has been synonymous with the tapping of divergent national imaginaries for native and non-native people in Québec. Exploitation of natural resources in the region has activated different narratives of political identity for each community. I explore this evolving political context by examining how, for each group, water has emerged simultaneously as a physical entity possessing economic value and a social artefact supporting the consolidation of national boundaries. I do so by analysing three phases of changing relationships around resource management, namely: hydroelectric development on the La Grande river in the 1970s; the Cree opposition to Great Whale in the 1990s; and the recent agreement concerning a new relationship between the two parties. In each of these phases, nature has been both the symbolic and material tie that binds different national identities and materialises their boundaries. While these are not boundaries in the traditional geopolitical understanding of the term, the forging of an equitable framework of development in the region depends on the recognition of nature as a historical and political formation that answers to different sets of national preoccupations.     

Muddy shore to modern port: redimensioning the Montréal waterfront time-space

For Montréal in the nineteenth century, as for most port cities, the waterfront served as the primary interface between the city and the markets of the world. This paper examines how and why the primitive waterfront of Montréal as of 1830 was repeatedly adapted and transformed into a modern port district by 1914. Beyond a detailed examination of the set of physical changes on the waterfront, this paper draws theoretical insights from geographical interpretations of the rhythm of capital accumulation to explore the formative and adaptive processes underlying waterfront redevelopment. Global innovations in transport and cargo-handling technology are recognised as the preconditions for the periodic redimensioning of the port of Montréal, and it is established that these changes were driven by the perennial demands of local investors to accelerate circulation and thus reduce the turnover time of capital. This paper offers a new perspective on waterfront development by conceptualising the entire port as a comprehensive circulatory system and then exploring the redevelopment of various components in relation to others. The findings indicate that massive increases in traffic—the number and size of ships—through the port were correlated with the redimensioning of all of the connected components of the circulatory system; that is, the major arteries such as the St Lawrence River ship channel, as well as the smaller capillaries like finger piers.     

The changing landscapes of Southwest Montréal: a visual account

The Canadian inner city is currently marked by diversity and dynamism. One way to approach this diversity is through photography. A visual approach was used to capture the simultaneous upgrading, decline/revitalization, decline and stability within the changing landscapes of Southwest Montréal, Canada's original industrial heartland.     

ANALYSE GÉOGRAPHIQUE DE L'INCIDENCE DES CANCERS AU QUÉBEC EN FONCTION DE L'UTILISATION DES PESTICIDES EN AGRICULTURE, 1982–1983

Comme ailleurs dans le monde, on se préoccupe de plus en plus au Québec de l'utilisation massive des pesticides en agriculture. Des données sur l'utilisation de ces produits et sur l'incidence du cancer du cerveau, des tissur lymphatiques et de la leucémie en 1982–83, ont été cornpilées à I'échelle de 34 bassins hydrographiques situés dans la partie méridionale du Québec. Le calcul des indices comparatifs de morbidité (ICM) a permis d'évaluer l'incidence des cancers dans les bassins oÙ I'utilisation des pesticides en agriculture est la plus importante depuis plus de 15 ans. Pour la leucémie, un excès statistiquement significatif d'incidence chez les hommes (ICM = 1,69, p ≤ 0.05) a été calculé dans la population rurale agricole du bassin de la rivière Yamaska, ce dernier figurant parmi les bassins très exposés aux pesticides. Le calcul des risques relatifs (RR) à l'échelle des municipalités du bassin de la Yamaska a montré un excès statistiquement significatif de risque (p ≤ 0,05) pour la leucémie chez les hommes dans les municipalités rurales agricoles IRK = 2,27) par rapport aux municipalités urbaines. Il existe également un excès statistiquement significatif (p ≤ 0,05) chez les hornmes dans les municipalités yur s alimentent en eau potable dans des puits (RR = 2.07) par rapport à celles qui s'alirnentent aux rivières, mais le rôle de la source d'alimentation en eau est difficile à isoler. puisque la plupart des municipalités qui s'ali mentent dans des puits sont également des rnunicipalités rurales agricoles. Les résultats globaux de cette étude exploratoire au niveau du bassin de la Yamaska permet-rent de soulever l'hypothese d'une relation entre la leucémie et l'utilisation massive des pesticides en agriculture dans cette région du Québec. Cette hypothèse mériterait d'être vérifiée par des études de type épidémiologique au niveau individuel. As elsewhere in the world, researchers in Quebec are becoming increasingly concerned about the extensive use of pesticides in agriculture. Data for 1982–83 concerning the use of these products and the incidence of leukemia and of cancer of the brain and the lymphatic tissues have been tabulated for 34 drainage basins located in southern Quebec. The calculation of the standard morbidity ratio (SMR) allowed us to evaluate the incidence of cancers in these drainage basins where agricultural pesticides have been used at high levels for more than 15 years. For leukemia, a statistically significant higher SMR (1.69 p ≤ 0.05) was shown to exist among men in the rural farm population in the basin of the Yamaska River. This basin was one of the areas most exposed to agricultural pesticides. The calculation of the relative risks (RR) for men at the level of municipalities within the Yamaska River basin showed a statistically significant excess (p ≤ 0.05) for leukemia in the rural farm municipalities (RR =2.27) as compared to urban municipalities. There was also a statistically significant excess (p ≤ 0.05) for men in municipalities that draw their drinking water from wells (RR =2.07) as compared to those where water is drawn from rivers. However, the role of the source of drinking water is difficult to isolate because most municipalities that draw their water from wells are also agricultural and rural. The overall results of this exploratory study from the basin of the Yamaska River suggest that there may be a relationship between leukemia and the extensive use of agricultural pesticides in this region of Quebec. This hypothesis could be verified in epidemiological studies at the individual level.     

The prevalence of,and the relationship between some spinal diseases in a human skeletal population from London

The prevalence of osteoarthritis, osteophytosis, intervertebral disc disease and diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) was determined in a group of skeletons excavated from the crypt of Christ Church, Spitalfields. Age-specific prevalence rates were calculated from the group of skeletons for which age at death was known from intact coffin plates. Osteoarthritis of the facet joints occurred most frequently in the cervical and upper thoracic regions and was also common in the lower lumbar spine. The disease was more frequently bilateral in the lumbar spine than in upper regions. Osteophytes were common in the thoracic and lumbar spines, whereas intervertebral disc disease was confined almost completely to the cervical region. Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis seemed to be underrepresented in this group, but was more common in males than in females. Age correlated significantly with all the conditions except DISH. Multiple regression analysis was carried out using each of the conditions as the dependent variable in turn. Age accounted for more of the variance than any of the other conditions added as independent variables.     

REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS

Book reviewed in this article:
The Mega-Urban Regions of Southeast Asia edited by T.G. Mcgee and I.M. Robinson
The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America, ca. A.D. 1000–1500 by Kirsten A. Seaver
Montréal: une société multiculturelle par Claire Mcnicoll
Montréal en évolution: historique du développement de ('architecture et de I'environnement urbain montréalais, 3^eédition par Jean-Claude Marsan
Postmodern Semiotics: Material Culture and the Forms of Postmodern Life by M. Gottdiener
The Global Commons: A Regime Analysis by John Vocler
Le dragon et la mer: stratégies géopolitiques chinoises en mer de Chine du Sud par Frédéric Lasserre     

THE GEOGRAPHIC IMPLICATIONS OF SCHOOL BOARD REFORM IN QUEBEC

This paper is based on a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that will allow the Province of Quebec to restructure the system of education, from one based on religious affiliation to one based on language of instruction. The paper sets forth a number of geographic implications of such a reform, including the historic, demographic, linguistic, political, and territorial aspects of the Education Act of Quebec, known as Bill 107. While the change to linguistic-based boards is applauded, there is no clear understanding of what the new map of school board territories will look like, yet the implications of this decision are far-reaching.
Cet article est basé sur une récente décision prise par la Cour suprême du Canada qui permettra au Gouvernement du Québec de restructurer le système d'éducation, c'est-à-dire de passer d'un système fondé^- sur l'appartenance religieuse à un système fondé sur la langue d'enseignement. L'article démontre quelques une des répercussions géographiques d'une telle réforme, en plus des aspects historiques, démographiques, linguistiques, politiques et territoriaux de la Loi sur l'instruction publique du Québec ou Loi 107. Même si la mise sur pied de commissions administratives à caractère linguistique est approuvée, l'élaboration de la nouvelle carte des territoires desservis par chacune des commissions scolaires demeure ambigue, mais le retentissement de cette décision est d'une portée considérable.