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This aerial photograph shows how farmland was rapidly losing ground to residential and commercial development in the post-war years. Taken in 1960, it shows Place Sainte-Foy, the oldest shopping centre in the Québec City area, which had opened three years earlier. All around, farms were giving way to suburbs. The first businesses in the mall included Steinberg, the Royal Bank of Canada and Simons.
1960 - 1981

The shopping mall boom in Québec City

Following the rapid development of American-style suburbs and the spread of the automobile, a number of shopping centres sprang up in the Québec City area in the late 1950s. Place Sainte-Foy was the first in 1957, followed by Galeries de la Canardière in 1958, Place Laurier in 1961 (then the largest shopping centre in Canada), Place Fleur-de-Lys in 1963 and Galeries de la Capitale in 1981. They symbolized Québec City’s entry into the world of North American mass consumption. Do you have memories of these shopping centres?

The countryside shrinks as commerce advances

W. B. Edwards Inc. This aerial photograph shows how farmland was rapidly losing ground to residential and commercial development in the post-war years. Taken in 1960, it shows Place Sainte-Foy, the oldest shopping centre in the Québec City area, which had opened three years earlier. All around, farms were giving way to suburbs. The first businesses in the mall included Steinberg, the Royal Bank of Canada and Simons.
Chronoscope What are your memories of rural life here? (unilingual French for a limited time) Source: Ville de Québec Document in the public domain (free of copyright) - W. B. Edwards Inc. Fonds - Date: 1960