History

The Town of Hampstead was founded in 1914. It was designed to be an exclusive garden city

Garden city movement

The garden city movement is a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by "greenbelts" , containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and...

. There are no retail shops within municipal boundaries. Houses were assigned relatively large lots to allow space for trees and shrubbery. The town's roads were designed with curves in order to slow down traffic and to create an interesting and intimate landscape. Despite its rather flat topography—much of the territory was once a golf course—the town was named after another garden city, the hilly London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 suburb of Hampstead Village

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

. Like its namesake, Hampstead is the home of many affluent citizens. It competes with a few other suburbs for first place in the rankings of highest average household incomes in Canada.

Merger and Demerger

On January 1, 2002 it joined with Côte Saint-Luc

Côte Saint-Luc, Quebec

Côte Saint-Luc is a mostly residential city in Quebec, Canada, located on the Island of Montreal. The English version of this toponym is "Saint Luke's Slope".-History:...

 and Montreal West

Montreal West, Quebec

Montreal West is a town in southwestern Quebec, Canada on the Island of Montreal. On January 1, 2002 it, along with its neighboring suburbs of Côte Saint-Luc and Hampstead, was merged into a borough of the City of Montreal to be known as Côte-Saint-Luc—Hampstead—Montréal-Ouest, though 97% of the...

 as the Côte-Saint-Luc—Hampstead—Montréal-Ouest borough of the City of Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. On June 20, 2004 it voted to demerge and was re-established as an independent municipality on January 1, 2006 as did Cote-Saint-Luc and Montreal West

Places of interest

A new public pool has recently been opened in Hampstead Park for the enjoyment of the town's citizens. The park also includes 2 basketball courts, 3 baseball fields, 10 tennis courts, soccer fields, a beach volleyball court and a play area for children. In the winter 2 ice rinks are built where the children play and skate.

Government

In the November 6, 2005 municipal elections, William Steinberg

William Steinberg (politician)

William Steinberg was born in Montreal in 1948 and grew up in the Town of Hampstead of which he has been the Mayor since 2006. Steinberg has a BSc from McGill, a Phd in psychology from Northwestern University and was a professor at Concordia University. He is the founder of , a survey and human...

 (of the Quebec Steinbergs

Steinberg's

Steinberg's was a Canadian grocery store chain that mainly operated in the province of Quebec. In addition to its flagship supermarket chain, the company operated several subsidiaries across the country...

) was elected mayor of Hampstead. Steinberg was the first new mayor after 4 years of civic control by Gerald Tremblay

Gérald Tremblay

Gérald Tremblay is a Canadian politician and businessman currently serving his third term as mayor of Montreal and as president of the Montreal Metropolitan Community...

, when Hampstead was part of Montreal. Until Hampstead merged with Montreal, Irving Adessky had been mayor for 27 years (1974-2001). In his honour, the community centre has been renamed after him. Steinberg was re-elected on November 1, 2009 defeating former town councillor David Sternthal with 61% of the vote.

There are six city councillors.

1. Abe Gonshor (Health & Sponsorships)
2. Bonnie Feigenbaum (Community Services, Communications & Marketing)
3. Harvey Shaffer (Legal & Traffic)
4. Jack Edery (Finance & Co-chair Environment)
5. Leon Elfassy (Urban Planning & Public Security)
6. Michael Goldwax (Public Works, Information Technology & Co-chair Environment)

Demographics

4% of the population are Protestant compared with a Canadian average of 38%, whereas 84% are Jewish compared with a Canadian average of 1.2%.

Languages

Almost 90% of the population uses English as their preferred official language.

In terms of mother tongue, the 2006 census

Canada 2006 Census

The Canada 2006 Census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population. Census day was May 16, 2006. The next census following will be the 2011 Census. Canada's total population enumerated by the 2006 census was 31,612,897...

 found that, including multiple responses, almost 63% of residents spoke English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, and about 16% of residents spoke French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

. The next most commonly reported first languages learned were Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

 and Romanian

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

.

Mother Tongue	Population	Percentage
English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...	4,260	60.9%
French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...	970	13.9%
English and French	45	0.6%
English and a non-official language	55	0.8%
French and a non-official language	85	1.2%
English, French and a non-official language	20	0.3%
Hebrew	240	3.4%
Yiddish	175	2.5%
Polish Polish language Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...	160	2.3%
Romanian Romanian language Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...	145	2.1%
Spanish Spanish language Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...	135	1.9%
Arabic	110	1.6%

Mother Tongue	Population	Percentage
Korean Korean language Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...	90	1.3%
Hungarian Hungarian language Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....	65	0.9%
Tagalog Tagalog language Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...	60	0.9%
Chinese	45	0.6%
Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...	40	0.6%
Russian Russian language Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...	40	0.6%
German German language German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....	35	0.5%
Persian Persian language Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...	35	0.5%
Vietnamese Vietnamese language Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...	35	0.5%
Bisayan	20	0.3%
Greek Greek language Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...	20	0.3%
Serbian Serbian language Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....	20	0.3%

Home language (2006

Canada 2006 Census

The Canada 2006 Census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population. Census day was May 16, 2006. The next census following will be the 2011 Census. Canada's total population enumerated by the 2006 census was 31,612,897...

)

Language	Population	Percentage (%)
English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...	5,440	77.77%
French French language French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...	890	12.72%
Both English and French	70	1.00%
Other languages	590	8.43%

Transportation

Two major thoroughfares exist in Hampstead. One is Queen Mary Road and the other is Fleet Road. While it is difficult to drive quickly down Queen Mary (because of all the stop signs), Fleet Road is geared for automobile traffic, with synchronized traffic lights.

Hampstead is accessible by STM bus lines:
51 Édouard-Montpetit (Queen-Mary) - Snowdon Metro
66 The Boulevard (Côte-Saint-Luc) - Guy Metro
161 Van Horne (Fleet) - Plamondon Metro
166 Queen Mary (Macdonald) - Snowdon Metro

There were various stages of development for Hampstead. The newer areas tend to be to the north and to the west. The city is almost completely composed of single family residences, except for the apartment buildings on Cote-St-Luc Road, and the duplexes and triplexes along MacDonald, Cleve, Dufferin, Heath, Holtham, Harrow and Aldred Roads. There are no commercial properties in the city. There is only one school in the city, the Hampstead Elementary School, which is public.

At the beginning of each summer is Hampstead Day, which features a small carnival and fireworks.

See also

• List of former boroughs
• Montreal Merger
  Montreal Merger
  As with other large cities like New York City and Toronto, the legal geographic boundaries of Montreal have been reorganized to incorporate adjacent communities which are integral to its social and economic life.-Merger and demerger:...
  
  
• Municipal reorganization in Quebec
  Municipal reorganization in Quebec
  The most recent episode of municipal reorganization in Quebec, Canada, was undertaken in 2002 by the Parti Québécois Government of Quebec, headed by Premier Lucien Bouchard and his successor Bernard Landry....