Glenda Laws

Embodiment and emplacement: identities, representation and landscape in Sun City retirement communities.

This article focuses on the embodiment, emplacement and representation of aged identities and suggests that more attention be paid to the spatiality of age relations. Identities are both externally imposed and self nominated. Using the example of retirees I explored the ways in which particular places are involved in the creation of identities. Sun City retirement communities are shown to 1) have a material form that serves the retiree identity, 2) be represented in particular ways that contribute to that identity and 3) simultaneously act as a representation. The article asks whether or not these communities are indicative of a shift to postmodernism, characterized by increased emphasis on surveillance, security, simulations, consumerism, and fragmentation of identities, in both life courses and landscapes.

Oppression, knowledge and the built environment

Abstract Urban places are not neutral in their impacts on peoples lives. Some environments are oppressive and in certain cases this oppression is contested as people struggle to improve their day-to-day lives. These contests are implicated in the changing forms of our cities. The multiple forms that oppression might take are examined and then the potential responses we see to oppressive situations are outlined. In doing so, the question is asked: whose visions, or knowledges, are being used to map urban form? How do urban landscapes reflect the responses of the oppressed to the hegemonic power structures in which they are socialized? How is the welfare state involved in the production, reproduction and transformation of oppressive and/or just urban landscapes? The example of womens struggles to make cities less threatening illustrates the ways in which the efforts of the oppressed might transform cityscapes

Globalization, Immigration, and Changing Social Relations in U.S. Cities

The current process of globalization, with deep historical roots, has had a significant impact on social problems in U.S. cities. My focus is the links between globalization, immigration, and urban social relations. At the heart of this linkage is an economic restructuring across societies and in the U.S. city that has potent social consequences for immigrant populations. Such people, induced to migrate by changing economic circumstances, find growing ghettoization, isolation, and cultural antipathies in their new settings. In the new globality, immigrant populations are commonly fingered as the other, the invading and ominous people threatening time-tested social norms and economic principles.

“A shot of economic adrenalin”: Reconstructing “The elderly” in the retiree-based economic development literature

Abstract This article considers the reconstruction of elderly identities in the retiree-based economic development literature made up of academic and popular sources. Drawing from post-structuralist theories of representation and the body, I ask how elderly bodies are represented and what they are used to represent in this literature. Identities are shown to be both embodied and emplaced and the politics surrounding identity formation is shown to be spatialized. The transformations in elderly identities are situated within a transition between modernity and postmodernity.

EMERGENCY SHELTER NETWORKS IN AN URBAN AREA: SERVING THE HOMELESS IN METROPOLITAN TORONTO

A framework for analyzing the structure of urban emergency shelter networks is proposed. The shelter and service network consists of clients, shelters, support services, and a political context shaped by state policies and community attitudes. The example of Metropolitan Toronto shows that, while it might be true that there is a need for more permanent housing, there also exists a real need for emergency shelters. A problem exists for certain groups who might seek temporary shelter in suburban areas because of the unequal spatial distribution of shelters and support services between the inner City of Toronto and suburban municipalities. The recent suburbanization of some shelters has been dominated by shelters for women and children. Patterns of repeat usage of the shelter network suggest that certain client groups might not have access to all the support services they need. The conclusions argue that urban shelter networks offer an opportunity for geographers to consider more closely the links between ho...

Implications of demographic changes for urban policy and planning.

The author examines ways in which demographic change shapes urban planning and policy in the United States. She focuses on changing family and household structure immigration and demographic aging. (ANNOTATION)