Team and biography of the leader

Richard Bergeron

Biography of Richard Bergeron

Richard Bergeron was born in 1955 in Alma, in the Lac Saint-Jean region. He arrived in Montreal in 1975 to study architecture at l’Université de Montréal. For the four years of this program he drove a taxi part time. Covering at least 100,000 kilometres in Montreal, he came to know and love his adopted city.

After practicing architecture for two years, Richard Bergeron began work on a Master’s degree in Urbanism. A year later, he interrupted this to work in Guinée-Bissau as a Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO) volunteer. On his return, he completed his Master’s and worked for two years in a firm of urbanism consultants. In 1986, he returned to l’Université de Montréal to undertake a doctorate in Planning, focused on urban policies in developing countries, with a case study in Côte d’Ivoire. At the same time, he began to teach at l’Institut d’urbanisme. Associated with several research projects on urban policy, urban services management and the environment, he had occasion to visit several other countries, including Burkina Faso, Haïti and Marocco. In 1991, Richard Bergeron defended his doctoral thesis and published his first book, L’anti-développement : le prix du libéralisme, with L’Harmattan, in Paris.

From 1990 to 1992, Richard Bergeron was president of the Fédération des coopératives d’habitation de l’île de Montréal. In 1992-1993, he held the post of visiting professor at l’Université Laval, in the master’s program in Regional Planning and Regional Development. There followed two years of research on housing economics, at l’Université de Mlontréal, punctuated by several stints of teaching at l’Institut d’urbanisme as well as in the Master of Science program at l’Université du Québec à Montréal.

From 1996, Richard Bergeron became a consultant to the ministère de la Métropole, for which he conducted a dozen studies on the potential for redevelopment of vacant lots adjacent to Montreal metro stations. At the same time, he wrote Le livre noir de l’automobile, published at the beginning of 1999 by Éditions Hypothèse. He then served as analyst and editor for the transportation working group of the Mécanisme québécois de concertation sur les changements climatiques. Since January, 2000, he has been in charge of strategic analysis for the Agence métropolitaine de transport. In November, 2003, he published L’économie de l’automobile au Québec, again with Éditions Hypothèse.

As we can see, Richard Bergeron has worked on nearly all aspects of urban development, overall planning, real estate economics, services management, environment, transportation, etc. On many of these subjects, his publications, reports and lectures serve as references, for theoreticians as well as for practitioners.

Richard Bergeron is married to Amina, of Morrocan origin, and is the father of two children, Guillaume and Nadianie.