
01 Jan 1971

City Limits
Author and activist Jane Jacobs talks about the problems and virtues of North American cities.
Exemplary in its town planning and administration, Bologna has been transformed into a city that is avant-garde, both socially and culturally, yet still preserves its historical roots.

01 Jan 1971

Author and activist Jane Jacobs talks about the problems and virtues of North American cities.


No overview found

01 Jan 1971

This feature documentary takes a look at how the Halifax/Dartmouth community in Nova Scotia was stimulated by a week-long session held by a panel of specialists from different fields who met with members of this urban community to consider the future of the area and the responsibility of the citizens and government in planning the future.

15 Dec 2022

A short documentary on the River Ouse, following it downstream from Lewes to Newhaven, meditating on the surrounding area.

01 Jan 2021

No overview found

01 Jan 1974

The human side of town planning, as exemplified in Baltimore, Maryland. The Coldspring Project concerned a proposed housing development for lower and upper income levels on a three hundred-acre site adjoining a wildlife sanctuary. The film records the differences aired in meetings of various interest groups that tried to modify the plan according to their views, and the compromise reached, based on plans drawn up by Montréal architect Moshe Safdie.

31 Dec 1957

Documentary devoted to the architectural and urban planning designs of Le Corbusier. The architect supports his in-depth reflection on the city and its necessary adaptation to modern life with plans, drawings and images, particularly Paris, whose revolutionary development dreamed of by Le Corbusier is exhibited here. Its first projects will remain at the stage of a model: the modernization plan for the city of Algiers. Some will be created by other architects: Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro, UN Palace in New York. From the post-war period in less than 10 years, Le Corbusier created large housing units in Marseille, Nantes, a chapel in Ronchamps, a factory in Saint-Dié, a town in Chandigarh in India. Through diagrams, the architect presents his theory of the "radiant city", the mathematical key modulor of his work as well as his project for reorganizing the countryside, industrial and urban cities into a grouping around a cooperative system.

27 Jun 2024

In the town of Xoco, the spirit of an old villager awakens in search of its lost home. Along its journey, the ghost discovers that the town still celebrates its most important festivities, but also learns that the construction of a new commercial complex called Mítikah will threaten the existence of both the traditions and the town itself.
01 Jan 2011
Just a stone’s throw from downtown Montreal is the largest social housing complex in Quebec. Built in 1959 where the red-light district used to be, Les Habitations Jeanne-Mance have retained something of the area’s seedy reputation for poverty, prostitution, drugs and violence. But who really knows the projects and the people who live there? Delving beneath the prejudices and stereotypes, director Isabelle Longtin ventured inside the buildings and met the residents.

16 Apr 1974

This full-length documentary from the Challenge for Change program addresses housing issues affecting Montreal in the mid-1970s. As the city is restoring older apartments through direct action and government subsidies, new, low-rent housing is being integrated into old neighborhoods.

16 Jun 2021

Amina, Sami and Jennyfer are high school students in the Paris suburbs, in 93. At the initiative of 3 of their teachers, they embark on an unexpected investigation into a gigantic leisure park project which involves concreting agricultural land near their homes. But can we have the power to act on a territory when we are 17 years old? Funny and intrepid, these new citizens take us to meet residents of their neighborhood, property developers, farmers and even elected officials of the National Assembly. A joyful quest that challenges conventional wisdom and revives our connection to the land!

24 Dec 2022

In 1959 New York City announced a "slum clearance plan" by Robert Moses that would displace 2,400 working class and immigrant families, and dozens of businesses, from the Cooper Square section of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Guided by the belief that urban renewal should benefit - not displace - residents, Frances Goldin and her neighbors formed the Cooper Square Committee and launched a campaign to save the neighborhood. Over five decades they fought politicians, developers, white flight, government abandonment, blight, violence, arson, drugs, and gentrification - cyclical forces that have destroyed so many working class neighborhoods across the US. Through tenacious organizing and hundreds of community meetings, they not only held their ground but also developed a vision of community control. Fifty three years later, they established the state's first community land trust - a diverse, permanently affordable neighborhood in the heart of the "real estate capital of the world."

01 Jan 2017

In this documentary, Marie-Claire Rubinstein reveals to us, through the testimonies of the inhabitants who live there, the architectural achievements of the French urban planner Fernand Pouillon in Algiers. In particular the vast complexes of hundreds of social housing units, including the most famous Diar E Saâd (1953), Diar El Mahçoul (1954) and Climat de France (1957). The historical context, during the war of independence is related by the historian Benjamin Stora and Nadir Boumaza. This documentary also evokes the personality of Fernand Pouillon in a post-colonial context.

01 Jan 1963

Documentary on the revitalization of a housing complex in a working class neighborhood of Montreal. Modern housing has now replaced the old, sagging and overcrowded houses. There is fresh air, light and hope. Habitations Jeanne-Mance, a bold way to renovate a city: a perfect example of the collaboration that can exist at the federal, provincial and municipal levels.
01 Jan 1973
Architect Stanley King involves the local Vancouver community in urban design.

01 Jan 1963

American historian Lewis Mumford looks at the city through history.
01 Jan 1974
This feature documentary zooms in on the city of Sapporo, on the Island of Hokkaïdo in southern Japan. In contrast to the unplanned sprawl of neighbouring industrialized cities, Sapporo appears to be one of the best-planned large cities in the world, combining growth and technology with town planning and the preservation of green spaces.
01 Jan 1974
In the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, an effective government policy of controlling land investment prevents speculation, keeps land prices down, and provides a good balance between commercial, residential and public areas.

01 Jan 1976

Bridgeview, British Columbia is less than 30 kilometres from downtown Vancouver. The residents were promised a sewer system in 1953, but more than 20 years later the sewer system has yet to be built.
01 Jan 1975
Canada is facing a housing crisis, and cooperative housing might be a part of the solution.