The volume of conventional street crime in society is influenced, to a considerable extent, by numerous community-level variables. These community properties exert an influence over the frequency of predatory criminal behaviour which is independent from that of individual-level characteristics. There are two broad categories of community variables which affect the volume of criminal conduct within an area--cultural and structural. The former refers to the relative balance between commitment to individualistic and communitarian values. Although neither cultural condition can be described as entirely emancipatory or destructive in nature, by virtue of encouraging the establishment of social networks which evoke duties and responsibilities towards others which strengthens the primary institutions of social integration and control, moderately communitarian societies are prone to experiencing lower levels of street crime than moderately individualistic societies. Community structure refers to the actual neighbourhood properties which are directly associated with criminal behaviour. These include residential mobility, unemployment, poverty, the physical condition of the local infrastructure and building stock, and crime itself. Both community culture and structure are highly sensitive to the pressures of broad political economic forces, including those of the modern welfare state. The institutionalization of welfare provision in the United States has undermined communitarianism and has encouraged residential mobility, the concentration of poverty, the concentration of unemployment, and to a lesser extent, the physical deterioration of neighbourhoods.

Ottawa's urban morphology has evolved according to the dominating functions of the city. Born from a military building site and shortly after transformed into an industrial center, it is since 1857 Canada's capital. We were interested in the official vocation of this seat of government and to the process that aims at recording its symbolic role into space. In fact, we attempted to see how Ottawa-Hull's political function had materialized, and if, in doing so, the city had become monumental. Rome, Paris and Washington were used as examples of cities where monumentality was expressed. The federal government's interest in planning the capital was revealed as early as the announcement of the Queen's Choice. The governmental intervention was discontinuous, but nevertheless ascending, and culminated with Greber's 1950 report. Noulan Cauchon's importance, an individual little known in Ottawa-Hull's planning history, was revealed in the course of this work. Following the regional authorities' intervention in the 1970's in the national capital region, the federal government has gradually retired its planning initiatives.

This research aims to define the role of a new communication technology, Internet, into the development of a locality. Will it be a tool for autonomy, gathering an, economic, community and social support? Will it increase the gap between the dynamic environment and the apathetic? Will it change the center periphery relations, the metropolis- intermediate city relations? Will Internet have a real impact on the development methods? Will it stimulate the interest of the political, economical, community and cultural leaders? Two methods have been used to define the appropriation and the deployment of Internet in the intermediate city of Drummondville: (1) making an inventory of Internet sites related to the city and analysing them; (2) meeting with 17 city contributors which use and develop the Internet. Those two distinct methods allowed to highlight the actual development of Internet in Drummondville and to learn about the future development. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

In this thesis, the complexity of immigrant's integration into Canadian society through the life experiences and perspectives of the members of the well established Portuguese community of Hull, is examined. The focus of this paper is on the impact of ethnic environments, whether they serve a residential, social or cultural purpose on Portuguese integration processes. Integration is difficult to measure since it occurs in various ways at different rate depending on individual immigrants and the successive generations. Nevertheless, the interviews with a group of Portuguese immigrants representative of their community, have revealed that once settled in Canada, their main concern is to achieve a level of "complete" and "absolute" integration into Canadian society. By analysing the role of ethnic neighbourhood, the involvement with ethnic institutions, the need to preserve the Portuguese culture and to maintain strong family ties, and by taking into account the Portugueses's feelings, an attempt was made to ascertain if Portuguese migrants were integrated into Canadian society. In order to reflect the diversity of behaviour and opinions among the Portuguese immigrants, a typology was subsequently established.

In 1985 Hull was declared the Capital of Crime. Hull had won Quebec's unenviable title of having the highest crime rate in the province for 1984. The two dailies in the region, Le Droit (French) and The Citizen (English) closely followed the search for what was happening in the otherwise peaceful "village." The reason was simple: the concentration of bars on la promenade du Portage. The Street had been completely remodelled in the seventies by the federal government; in order to re-launch Hull's downtown core, several bars had converged on the old Main Street. La promenade's criminality and its cleanup was the subject of a large amount of newspaper articles. In this thesis I compare the ways in which the two newspapers covered the Street and the events which surrounded it. I do this at different levels: as a careful reader, through quantitative content analysis and through discourse analysis. The results show that the newspaper use very different perspectives from which to write about the same place. These perspectives help us to understand the fundamental differences in the way each community thinks the bar Strip and what it represents. The representations of this contested street inform the way the communities understand each another as well as themselves. Cultural geography is preoccupied with representations; it is through these that we learn to recognize ourselves and to recognize our place within society as well as within place. The Strip was covered in such a way as to help configure the myth that surrounds it. By using stereotypes and recurrent images, the newspapers increased the mystique and the myth of the place. In this thesis, I explore the links between place, media and representation.

Regional development has long been an important function of governments. Throughout the years, Canada has followed many different policy directions aimed at reducing or eliminating regional disparities. In 1988, the Liberals under Frank McKenna were elected in New Brunswick and introduced regional development policies based on technology provision and infrastructure which was installed in all of the province's regions. This technology-based infrastructure was an important change in direction for a province that relied heavily on the primary and manufacturing sectors. Furthermore, it promised economic growth in both the north and south of the province. This thesis analyses the growth in industrial sectors, the socio-economic changes, and the effects on regional disparities between 1986 and 1996 in New Brunswick's fifteen counties. The widespread use of technology and the attempts to transform the province's labour force to compete in the knowledge-based economy prompted numerous changes in the industrial structure of the counties. The concentration of economic growth in the southern counties and in the services sector was a direct result of the north's dependence on primary and secondary industries. This resulted in investments in New Brunswick that were mainly in the highly urbanised and economically diversified south. The province's economic situation during this time period is a good example of core-periphery relationship between the south and the north, as the later remains dependent on the former. A number of different indicators, analysed in chapter three, were considered when determining the rate and degree of change in the province's regional disparities. Furthermore, the shift-share analysis examines the changes in the industrial sectors of the counties to determine why the changes in the economic indicators occurred.

In recent years, within the fields of urban geography and urban studies, increasing attention has been paid to the multidimensional concept of urban deprivation. The majority of work on this topic has focused on British and U.S. urban areas with less research directed at Canadian cities. This project made a contribution to the Canadian literature by examining the nature and changing geography of urban deprivation in East Montreal (a section of the central city) and the Montreal Urban Community (MUC) between 1986 and 1996. Essentially, Montreal was selected as a study area because of the significant problems and changes that have occurred in the city over the past several decades. East Montreal contains a number of the city's poorest and most disadvantaged neighbourhoods and as an industrial area was particularly hard hit by the effects of de-industrialization, economic restructuring and recessions during the 1980s and 1990s. The project proposed a model of urban deprivation change, which was applied to the study area to examine its complex and changing social and economic geography. Fourteen indicators of urban deprivation were analyzed at the neighbourhood level (census tracts) in East Montreal and the MUC for three census years---1986, 1991, and 1996. A survey was also conducted in three selected neighbourhoods. The study identified several key trends and findings. There was a significant spreading of urban deprivation and decline during the study period from East Montreal to the remainder of the central city and to several inner suburban municipalities. However, deprivation and decline persisted within East Montreal in the troubled corridor south of Sherbrooke Street. Overall, worsening conditions were more evident during the 1991 to 1996 period compared to the previous five years (1986 to 1991). There was an increase in the level of deprivation among males, particularly with respect to unemployment and poverty. The survey revealed that the majority of respondents were satisfied with their neighbourhoods as a place to live. It also pointed to disparities between census and survey results and suggested that urban deprivation should be considered as more of a relative phenomenon.

This research offer a new perspective on the life and works of Patrick Straram in light of situationism. The association of Straram with the Quebec counter-cultural movement has overshadowed the profound influence of situationism on his life and works. Having participated to the foundation of the Internationale lettriste and introduce situationism in Quebec, he will pursue the situationist project throughout his existence. The situationist project correspond to a way of life base on the transformation of daily life and the urban environment in order to liberate the individual from the society of spectacle of modern capitalism. The situations urban vision differ from other architectural avant-garde due to it's cultural and artistic aspects inherited from the avant-garde movement of the 20th century (dadaism, futurism and surrealism). The cultural activities and the works of Straram are characterized by a critic of daily life, the integration of art and the transformation/appropriation of urban spaces necessary to the construction of situations. This research demonstrate that these various aspects correspond to the urban vision of the Internationale situationniste in regard to cultural and political actions. The analysis Straram's urban vision is base on the concept of unitary urbanism and its various components (detournement, derive, psychogeographie and construction of situations). Straram life and cultural productions constitutes a living critic of the rational city and represent a rare form of expression of the situationist urban utopia in North America. This thesis also demonstrate that many aspects of the urban and architectural theories of the Internationale situationniste continues to be incorporate in the contemporary urban and virtual environment.

This doctoral dissertation explores the concept of community, a common subject of analysis for Sociologists, but equally important for Geographers interested in its spatial aspect. Our project strives to understand the role of place and socio-spatial networks in the creation of a community in an urban environment. First, this dissertation demonstrates the pertinence of applying a socio-geographic approach to study the sociospatial dynamics of a community. Secondly, we examine how scholars have conceptualized community in recent years, and flesh out their divergence of opinions. This discussion also assesses R. J. Johnston's opinion (1993) that Anne Buttimer's concept of social space is closely linked to the concept of community. In the second half of this dissertation, our reflection on the concept of community is applied to a case study. We propose to examine the space of French-Canadians in the Miami area, also known as 'Floribec'. Drawing on fieldwork research from an outsider perspective, the following questions were raised: What are the structuring places of Floribec? What role do they play in everyday life? How is Floribec spatially organized? To better understand the dynamics of this community from an insider perspective, a survey was conducted of Floribecois business owners. The results of this survey are discussed and analyzed in response to our hypothesis. Conclusions from this case study allow us to reveal the spatial organization of Floribec, and to suggest that a community is structured from institutions and places that not only provide its coherence, but from where a community draws its identity.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the different types of atmospheric pollution management programs, specifically related to the problem of ozone emissions management by the federal government. Ozone pollution is of considerable concern, especially its impact on the health of the population. Transportation represents an important source of ozone pollutants and the fight against it is becoming more and more inevitable with the increasing volume of traffic and number of vehicles. In Canada, pollution management has been undertaken since the early 70's. Despite the fact that environmental concerns are of provincial jurisdiction, this study will show the increasingly crucial role of the federal government as a guide and leader in air pollution management. This research is undertaken to point out which are the preferred approaches of the Canadian government to solve this problem and to discuss on the dichotomy between possible and real actions.