Plateau Mont-Royal
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The Plateau Mont-Royal is a borough of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, just north of downtown and east of Mount Royal; pop. 99,575 (Statistics Canada, 1996). The Plateau is the most densely populated neighbourhood in Canada, with nearly 100,000 people living in a 7.75 square kilometre area.
The Plateau was formerly a working-class neighbourhood, with the Eastern part being largely French-Canadian, and the Western part largely Jewish. The neighbourhood was the childhood home of Quebec writers Michel Tremblay and Mordecai Richler and both have set many stories in the Plateau of the 1950s and 60s.
In the 1980s its bohemian persona attracted gentrification. Rents increased, and many of its traditional residents dispersed to other parts of the city. It now hosts many upscale resturants and nightclubs. In 1997, Utne Reader judged it one of the 15 "hippest" neighbourhoods in North America.
It is also the location of some famous attractions on boulevard Saint-Laurent, including Schwartz's Deli (famous for its smoked meat sandwiches), and a weekend street fair during the summer that sees extremely crowded streets.
The neighborhood is in the midst of gentrification. An historic local grocer, Warshaw, has recently been replaced by a Pharmaprix retail outlet.