Diversity and Perceptions of Safety Among Service Workers in the Quartier des Spectacles
by Anne-Sophie Ponsot and Marie-Lise Drapeau-Bisson
Abstract
Montreal is known around the world for its vibrant cultural life and great diversity. Whether diversity brings less or more safety, however, remains unclear. The Quartier des Spectacles is a great location to study the effect of diversity on people’s perception of safety. This neighbourhood has gone through many different transformative stages which have shaped its population and urban planning. This study will provide insight on how social and commercial diversity in the neighbourhood affect the perception of safety of the area’s service sector workers. We will first consider important guiding theories for our research followed by a sample description. Then, we will use evidence from our interviews to explore how diversity affects perceptions of safety in the Quartier des Spectacles. Three main themes will be discussed; namely the neighbourhood divide, diversity and safety. As a final note, we will consider some methodological issues.
GUIDING THEORIES
First, we relied on Jane Jacob’s book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, in which she argues that an area will be safe because of the way it’s built rather than because of who lives there. She establishes three conditions that increase the safety of a street: first, there must be a clear definition between public and private spaces; second, surveillance is provided in the form of the “eyes” of natural proprietors; and third, there ought to be many pedestrians walking on the street at any given time. She writes that a high commercial diversity allows for natural proprietors to be attentive to what goes on in the street and also attracts different kinds of people at all times of the day. Thus, greater commercial diversity should result in greater safety. In looking at the Quartier des Spectacles, this theory would imply that the already commercially diverse character of the area would contribute to increasing the safety of its residents and visitors.
A second theory that helped us in our research is conflict theory. One of its core assumptions is that diversity in a neighbourhood, especially with regard to individuals (i.e. ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, etc.), would decrease perceptions of safety (Putnam 2007). As articulated by Lancee and Dronkers, “the more we are brought into physical proximity to people that are different, the less we trust the ‘other’.” (2011: 600). In other words, when people cannot identify with one another, there is less trust between them; they don’t feel as safe with one another. Since there are many different kinds of people who constantly come into contact with one another in the Quartier des Spectacles (e.g. students, workers, homeless people, etc.) a conflict theory perspective might imply that people would feel unsafe.
Finally, we have also considered the Contact Hypothesis (Allport 1954) that stands in opposition to Conflict Theory. According to the Contact Hypothesis, people should feel safer in a more diverse neighbourhood. The assumption is that close contact and interactions between different groups allows these groups to reduce their prejudices against one another. Therefore, perhaps service sector workers of the Quartier des Spectacles feel safer in the neighbourhood as a result of interacting with customers from different groups.
SAMPLE DESCRIPTION
Our sample is summarized in the following table:
Participant
Code
Age
Gender
Employer
Matt
ASML_1
35
M
Non-profit organisation providing sterile injection material Anne
ASML_2
21
F
Coffee shop
Laura
ASML_3
22
F
Bar
Sophie
ASML_4
21
F
Coffee Shop
Our participants were four service sector workers from various businesses in the Quartier des Spectacles. In order to facilitate discussion, we will refer to them using the pseudonyms use above.
All participants are Caucasian and earn less than $40,000 a year.
Anne and Sophie are 21 years old and work part-time in coffee shops while attending university. They are both from Sherbrooke, Quebec and currently live in the Quartier des Spectacles.
Laura is 22 and works full-time as a barmaid and waitress at a sports bar. She is from Montreal and lives in the Atwater market area.
Matt is 28 years old and is responsible for communications and community organizing in a non-profit organisation providing sterile injection material. He also works full-time. He immigrated from France to Montreal and has been living in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighbourhood for five years.
Anne and Sophie travel to and from work by foot, while Matt and Laura typically travel by bus or metro, although Laura occasionally carpools with coworkers. All workers have both day and night work shifts.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that Matt is particularly sensitive to and aware of issues relating to marginalized groups (such as homeless people), as they represent an important proportion of his clientele. His insights and reflections were particularly helpful in our research.
RESULTS
Neighbourhood divide
The pervasiveness of this theme was an unexpected result of our research. We found that participants could easily describe the two sides of the divide, and that the two sides could be distinguished from each other both in terms of the socioeconomic make-up of the populations on either side of the divide, as well as in terms of the level of perceived safety experienced by service sector workers on either side. One of our participants explained why the two distinctions are related:
“P: If you were located elsewhere in the Quartier des Spectacles, do you think [it] would have an impact on your safety at work and getting to work?
R: Well, yeah. If I make the parallel to Place des Arts, because that’s the other place I think we [business] could be, well I think it would be much safer. Because here, it’s like a small street, not really clean, and there are many homeless people and junkies around, and close to the [non-profit organisation providing sterile injection material] and the Emilie-Gamelin Park. So you know, it feels like Place-des-Arts is cleaner, more touristy, so it feels safer”. (ASML2)
The participant clearly established the difference between the two zones of the neighbourhood: the less safe eastern side and the safer western side. Also, and perhaps more importantly, she clearly explains why one side is safer than the other; on the eastern side there are “many homeless people and junkies”, whereas the Place-des-Arts area is “cleaner.” Thus, according to our participant, the presence of marginalized groups (specifically the presence of homeless people and individuals with drug addictions) makes this part of the neighbourhood unsafe; a sentiment expressed by other participants as well.
We witnessed this divide ourselves in our participant observation. As we walked from our fist location in the western part (Place-des-Arts) to the second in the eastern part (a trendy café[1]) there were some appealing architectural elements, fancy restaurants and cafés as well as high-end stores, but no residential buildings. However, as we walked further (closer to Saint-Laurent), the stores were more low-end, even though they were of the same nature. The type of people we encountered also changed as we walked passed Saint-Laurent: there were more homeless people, most of whom were white middle-aged men. We ourselves, felt differently in the two sectors; without feeling particularly unsafe, we were definitely less comfortable and more cautious. This neighbourhood divide thus offers support to the conflict theory argument. It seems that the presence of ‘outgroups’ prevents people from identifying with one another, which also prevents trust from being built between groups. This lack of trust could, in turn, lead to the perception that the area is unsafe. This divide also refutes the contact theory argument. As one of our participants mentioned, “[i]f contacts between different groups are based on prejudices, then it can’t be good, you know, a punch in the face is a contact, but it’s not really the right type of contact. So the nature of the social interaction is important in all this” (ASML1). This suggests that diversity by itself is not sufficient in order to provide a feeling of safety in a neighbourhood, and that mechanisms of integration must be put in place in order for positive interactions to take place between the different social groups.
Diversity
We soon came to the realization that there isn’t as much commercial diversity as we initially anticipated in the Quartier des Spectacles. As one of our participants noted, businesses other than a few coffee shops and restaurants have a hard time surviving in the area because of its location between two commercial zones: there’s the Village on one side, and the Sainte-Catherine commercial district on the other. The Quartier des Spectacles, on the other hand, consists more of an ‘in-between zone.’However, the previously mentioned neighbourhood divide creates a specific division in terms of social and commercial diversity within the Quartier des Spectacles. As our participants noted, Place-des-Arts is where major cultural events take place. These events are more expensive and tend to be unaffordable for most people living in the Quartier des Spectacles, (i.e. people in the public housing apartments at the Habitations Jeanne-Mance). We viewed this as a confirmation of the ongoing gentrification process in the neighbourhood; the entertainment offered isn’t as accessible as it used to be.
Besides festivals that aim to attract tourists during the summer, there isn’t much activity in the neighbourhood throughout the rest of the year. This creates an atmosphere of emptiness, which could maintain a feeling of unease for people in the neighbourhood. As Jane Jacobs (1961) states, greater activity in a neighbourhood leads to an ambience of safety; thus, the Quartier des Spectacles’ relative emptiness in fall, winter and spring, could create discomfort and unease for those living in, or passing through, the neighbourhood. Furthermore, homeless people that try to occupy the large space provided by Place-des-Arts are soon displaced by policemen. As a result, the homeless will either move further East towards Berri or into the surrounding residential zones. Thus, the Quartier des Spectacles is both socially and commercially divided; Place-des-Arts is frequented by workers and tourists during the summer and caters to this clientele with higher-end businesses. The lower-end part of the neighbourhood consists mostly of coffee shops and restaurants that the student population and the few tourists that pass by can afford, while its streets are also inhabited by a greater concentration of homeless people.
Safety
With regard to personal safety, we discovered some ambiguity in the responses of our participants. They consistently claimed that the neighbourhood was safe; they didn’t feel unsafe at work, but also emphasized the informal mechanisms of social control that were implemented in order to maintain safety in their respective establishments. One of the coffee shops gave discounts to policemen so they would come more often, as an incentive to keep “unwanted” people out. The participant working at the bar told us that a man was hired to simply stand outside at the entrance door. His ‘unofficial’ role was to prevent any ‘undesirable’ people from entering the bar. As a result, the clientele of our participants’ businesses cannot be said to be representative of the neighbourhood’s population. They get students or passers-by, but not people who actually live in the neighbourhood. When asked whether they felt safe when going to or coming back from work, one participant had a particularly interesting way to put it: she said she was not afraid, yet made sure to walk fast back home at night despite her apartment being two minutes away from work.
We tried to discover the different factors that might contribute to people, in particular workers of the service sector, feeling unsafe in the neighbourhood. As one of the participants mentioned, statistically speaking, there are not any crimes against the person in the Quartier des Spectacles. The infrequency of violent crimes in the Quartier des Spectacles is confirmed in the Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal’s annual report. We therefore ruled out any frequency of violent crimes as a contributing factor in the increased perception of risk associated with the less gentrified neighborhood.
We believe a parallel can be drawn between the way the neighbourhood is divided and the impact that this divide has on people’s perception of safety. There is a sense that Place-des-Arts is cleaner and safer (thanks in part to the neighbourhood’s revitalization). The cultural events appeal to a clientele who can afford such expenses, people who most likely live outside the neighbourhood. Also, homeless people are informally restricted to the lower-end part of the neighbourhood. Thus, this part of the neighbourhood combines several factors that could contribute to people feeling unsafe. First, there isn’t much economic activity that actually appeals to the people living in the neighbourhood, which means that most of the customers of its businesses are passers-by. They feel no need to involve themselves in the neighbourhood or to build a sense of community or cohesion. Thus, they seldom interact with one another. Combined with the higher concentration of marginalized people in the lower-end part, our study lends credibility to the conflict theory argument: the different groups are not interacting with one another, so people’s prejudices against marginalized groups are not confronted and they feel unsafe in their presence.
CONCLUSION
Given the small size of our sample, we would like to note that our findings are not conclusive. Rather, we would hope that they might provide some basis for further and more in-depth research in the Quartier des Spectacles. and lend themselves to the formulation of new hypotheses.
We believe that the neighbourhood might greatly benefit from the development of the economy of the eastern end. With greater development, instead of being a zone of transition, the area might pull in people interested in forming a more cohesive community, and become more active. This could lead to more interactions between differing social groups, so long as development does not take the form of gentrification. If policy makers can develop the area in such a way as to provide services for its current residents, they might help to foster a community in which workers feel safer and more connected to the people they serve. Further research is necessary in order to determine how best to develop the eastern end of the Quartier des Spectacles.
REFERENCES
Allport, Gordon W. 1954. The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing.
Cools, Marc et al. 2010. Governance of Security Research Paper (Vol. 3). Safety, Societal Problems and Citizens’ Perceptions: New Empirical Data, Theories and Analyses. Antwerpen: Maklu.
Demers, Sebastien. 2011. Quartier des spectacles: réponse adéquate aux attentes de Montréal et ses citoyens? Montréal : Université de Montréal
Jacobs, Jane. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House.
Lancee, Bram and Jaap Dronkers. 2011. “Ethnic, Religious and Economic Diversity in Dutch Neighbourhoods: Explaining Quality of Contact with Neighbours, Trust in the Neighbourhood and Inter-Ethnic Trust.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 37(4):597-618.
Lane, Jodi and James W. Meeker. 2000. “Subcultural diversity and fear of crime and gangs.” Crime and Delinquency, 46(4):497–522.
Putnam, Robert D. 2007. “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century.” Scandinavian Political Studies, 30(2):137–174.
Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes de Montréal (RAPSIM). 2011. “Profilage social et judiciarisation : Portrait de la situation dans l’espace public montréalais.” Montréal, QC. Retrieved September 29, 2011 (http://www.rapsim.org/docs/portrait_RAPSIM_profilage_social.pdf).
Rountree, Pamela W. and Kenneth C. Land. 1996. “Burglary Victimization, Perceptions of Crime Risk, and Routine Activities: A Multilevel Analysis Across Seattle Neighborhoods and Census Tracts.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 33(2):147– 180.
Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM). 2011. “Rapport annuel 2010.” Montréal, QC. Retrieved December 18, 2011. (http://www.spvm.qc.ca/upload/documentations/statistiques_FR.pdf).
Scott, John et al. 2005 "Gentrification." Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. London: Oxford University Press.
The Yellow Door. 2009. “The YMCA of McGill University (The Yellow Door) Annual Activities Report 2008-2009.” Montreal, QC. Retrieved September 29, 2011. (http://www.yellowdoor.org/reports/2008-2009/AnnualReportTheYellowDoor2008-2009.pdf).
Ville de Montréal. 2011. “Habiter Montréal.” Retrieved December 18, 2011. (http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=5097,16283561&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL).
Ville de Montréal. 2011. “About the Quartier des Spectacles.” Retrieved December 18, 2011. (http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=7917,86203586&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL).
Ville de Montréal. 2011. “Centre d’histoire de Montréal - QuartierLatin.” Retrieved December 18, 2011. (http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=2497,3090436&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL).
APPENDIX I
Methodology and Neighbourhood profile
The newly defined Quartier des Spectacles is the 1-km2 area located between Bleury street and St-Denis street (east-west), and between Maisonneuve boulevard and René-Lévesque boulevard (north-south). The neighbourhood is home to 6,000 residents, hosts 47,000 students, 80% of Montreal’s theatres as well as yearly festivals such as Les Francopholies, The Montreal Jazz Festival, and Le Festival Juste Pour Rire.
Anyone who has ventured into the neighbourhood will have noticed the massive amount of construction and street renovation currently taking place. An estimated $147 million will be spent over a four-year period (from 2008 to 2012) in order to rejuvenate and “transform the neighbourhood into an artistic, cultural and entertainment destination” (Ville de Montréal, 2011).
The neighbourhood we chose is characterized by a high degree of diversity, both socio-economic and commercial, partly due to its ongoing gentrification. Socio-economic diversity in a neighbourhood can be defined as a resident’s chances of meeting other residents of a different economic status within the neighbourhood (Lancee and Dronkers, 2010). Such a scenario is very likely in the Quartier des Spectacles. For instance, public housing Habitations Jeanne-Mance, home to lower-income residents, is located next to the Complexe Desjardins where workers of various sectors travel to every day. Also, as mentioned above, a high proportion of students live and/or spend time in the area due to its proximity to Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Many residents live under the poverty line (Yellow Door, 2008-2009) and several social problems (homelessness, prostitution, drug-trafficking) are pervasive (RAPSIM, 2011). These elements show the great socio-economic diversity of the Quartier des Spectacles. As for the commercial diversity, little numbers are available, but different types of businesses co-exist along the main street of the neighbourhood. Along Sainte-Catherine’s street, one can find restaurants, coffee shops, retail stores, convenience stores, theatres and show venues.
Given the high concentration of stores on Sainte-Catherine’s street, that is where we decided to select our participants. Our first objective was to get a high diversity of respondents, in other words each working in a particular type of business (i.e. coffee shop, community organisation, bar and sex shop). However, it turned out to be harder than we expected since two of the first three people who had agreed for an interview did not reply to our e-mail confirmation. Therefore, we went back in the field to find new participants, who fortunately answered our e-mail confirmation and whom we later met for an interview.
As for our sample, some representativeness issues must be addressed. First of all, we have a small sample (4 interviewees) which only allows us to make suggestions as to what factors affect the relationship between diversity and safety. Then, given the problems met during the first selection of participants, we ended up with two participants from coffee shops and three young women out of four participants. We however believe that this sample is representative of the neighbourhood given the predominance of coffee shops in the area. A final problem is that our respondents all work in one sector of the Quartier des Spectacles (the eastern part). Given that the different sectors in the neighbourhood turned out to be important in the analysis of diversity and safety, it is somewhat problematic not to have any perspectives from workers of the higher-end sector. However, this allows us to be more conclusive about the lower-end sector.
As for our participant observations, we picked one location in an outdoor public space and one inside a coffee shop in order to see both dimensions of the situation of service sector workers; that is, going to work and in the workplace. Our two locations were situated in the two different sectors of the Quartier des spectacles (see map above). This element compensates for the lack of respondents from the higher-end sector of the neighbourhood.
Marie-Lise Drapeau-Bisson
Originally from Québec city, Marie-Lise moved to Montreal to pursue an undergraduate degree in sociology at McGill University. She is also doing a minor in Quebec studies within the Programme d’études sur le Québec. Her domains of interest are Quebec sociology, politics and history as well as social movements more generally. Marie-Lise is also involved in the Commission des affaires francophones (CAF) and has been an intern at Equitas, a Montreal-based non-governmental organization, for three years.
Anne-Sophie Ponsot
Anne-Sophie came to McGill University from Sherbrooke, QC with the firm belief she would become an imminent psychologist; that is, until she realized the appeal of sociology was too strong for her to ignore. Now a U3 student motivated to develop her sociological lens, she is particularly drawn to issues of sex and gender, deviance and culture. She is currently involved with Project 10, a Montreal organization working to promote the wellbeing of LGBT youth, and enjoys training with the McGill Olympic Track and Field Club.
[1] ‘Trendy Café’ is a pseudonym for the coffee shop in which we did our participant observation. For more details about its location, see the map in Appendix I.