The urban history of Canada: Space, city-dwellers and governors

This paper reviews recent developments in the field of urban history in Canada. In the last decade, scholars have examined different aspects of city life: housing, work, culture, ethnicity, etc. Despite the fragmentation of the field, we can gather together the research questions around four leading subject matters: the study of the suburbanization process, the issues of ethnicity and social classes, the redefinition of gender relations and its impact on the uses of urban space, and the question of local power and urban governance. These subject matters are similar to those selected by other scholars in the field or urban studies where cultural, feminist, and ethnic studies are utilized to understand the Canadian past and present urban experience.