This article is about building metropolitan governance capacity. Based on the case study of the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (the Montreal Metropolitan Community), the authors seek to understand how this new metropolitan institution develops its capacity to manage metropolitan issues. What factors influence metropolitan governance capacity? What are the impacts of actor behaviour, incentive structures, and political leadership on that capacity? Specifically, results focus on two of the CMM's areas of responsibility: land‐use planning, and social and affordable housing. Based on the analysis of official documents of the CMM (its act of incorporation, activity reports, budget, etc.) and thirteen interviews with elected municipal officials and public servants, the authors show that the building of metropolitan governance capacity is influenced by the interactions between those three factors, as well as by other elements specific to each context.

The purpose of this article is to simultaneously examine two types of mobility by developing a model of metropolitan organization that emphasizes the axis structure of mobility. The model is based on the realities of daily mobility and longterm residential mobility. Origin−Destination study results validated the axis representation of the metropolitan structure. Furthermore, building on data from a telephone survey, we considered the interactions between the two types of mobility along the Center-North axis of Montréal's Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). The ensuing discussion on various models of metropolitan structure and their relevance today is framed in terms of the axes of mobility defined as territorial practices that are established within the patterns of daily life and are a significant factor in residential location decisions. The study raises broader issues concerning the relevance of drawing on standard models such as Burgess's concentric zone model, Hoyt's sector theory, Adam's directional bias, or recent findings from the literature to understand urban form dynamics in the CMA.Kathryn Jastremski is a PhD candidate in the program of social and ecological sustainability in the Department of Environment and Resource Studies of the University of Waterloo.Marie-Ève Lafortune is a PhD candidate in the School of Planning of the University of Waterloo.