Most of the photos I posted in my previous post are from the former Cité de Jacques-Cartier which merged with Longueuil in 1969.
There are actually some quite nice areas in Longueuil. I will make a point of photographing them some time. They are vastly outnumbered by the ugly (and avg. suburb) areas, but they do exist.
What is now known as Longueuil is actually the product of a series of amalgamations of once independent cities. I broke them down below.
The original Longueuil as shown on the first map below. It is a nice area, today it is a neighbourhood known as Old Longueuil (not to be confused with its borough, Vieux-Longueuil which is everything in yellow on the map below). It has a lot of old buildings and an urban main street (Rue St-Charles). Old Longueuil, as its known by locals, was generally well off and had building standards.
Montréal-Sud merged into the original city of Longueuil in 1961. Montréal-Sud includes what is now the metro area (which was put up after the merger) as well as some neighbouring streets. The buildings are generally less attractive than those found in the original city of Longueuil. It had building standards as well, perhaps a little less rigourous than Longueuil's.
The Cité de Jacques-Cartier merged into Longueuil in 1969. It was known for being a rough area in the 1960s when its population exploded. The quote below (from Longueuil's historical society) summarizes what Jacques-Cartier was like prior to merging. Essentially its infrastructure couldn't keep up with demand (no sewers or paved roads) and wild dogs used to roam the streets. There wasn't really any building codes, and houses were built on an ongoing basis using whatever materials the owners could afford. It was a bit of a wild-west of Quebec. (not mentioned in the quote is that the post 1980s development in this area is more typically suburban)
Quote:
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Fondée en 1947, Jacques-Cartier devient rapidement une ville-champignon dont les infrastructures ne répondent pas au rythme affolant de sa croissance démographique. Il n'y a pas d'égouts, pas de rues pavées, mais une meute de chiens errants. Les maisons qu'on bâtit au jour le jour, quand on a les moyens de se procurer le matériel requis, sont parsemées de façon anarchique. Jacques-Cartier représente vraiment le Far West du Québec. La communauté se prend en main, relève le défi d'organiser ce vaste territoire, alors au moins quatre fois plus grand que celui du Vieux-Longueuil. Elle réussit. Au moment de sa fusion avec Longueuil, en 1969, Jacques-Cartier ne compte pas moins de douze paroisses contre seulement trois pour Longueuil. Le clergé catholique est en grande partie responsable de l'organisation sociale et éducative de cette communauté et de son succès.
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http://marigot.ca/Atlas/Ind_Pag/Cen_Pag/Haut_Pag/20_Pag/Balk_Bas.htm
Pre 1961 map of the Longueuil area:
http://marigot.ca/Atlas/Ind_Pag/Cen_Pag/Haut_Pag/20_Pag/Balk_Bas.htm
Those three cities (Longueuil, Montréal-Sud and Jacques-Cartier) comprised the pre-2001 version of Longueuil (which is today the borough of Vieux-Longueuil). In 2001, Longueuil merged with LeMoyne (which is a similar area to Jacques-Cartier), Greenfield Park (a traditionally anglo area more similar to Montréal-Sud) and Saint-Hubert (which is mostly a typical suburban area, but also includes rural areas, industrial parks, an airport, a trailer park, and the former city of Laflèche which resembles Jacques-Cartier - but perhaps even uglier)
Everything in the map below, that is in a colour, is part of the current city of Longueuil. Each colour represents a borough. Cities in white are part of the agglomeration (shared police/fire, etc with Longueuil)
(I modified this map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Longueuil_Quebec_location_diagram.PNG )
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