R. Alan Walks

The Social Ecology of the Post-Fordist/Global City? Economic Restructuring and Socio-spatial Polarisation in the Toronto Urban Region

Numerous authors have asserted that globalisation and occupational changes associated with post-Fordist economic restructuring have led to a growth in intraurban social disparity and even polarisation. This hypothesis is most consistently articulated in the literature on global cities. However, the social effects of post-Fordist economic restructuring and the interplay between occupational changes and social and spatial factors within urban areas are not well understood. This paper seeks to provide an initial investigation into processes of socioeconomic change which may be presently ocurring within cities, and to model how such processes may be articulated within urban space. To gauge the impact of occupational restructuring on the social structure of the city, and to test the assertion that economic changes are related to increased polarisation, shifts in occupation, immigration and income variables in the urban region of Toronto, Canada, are examined. The patterns of social and spatial change occurring between 1971 ands 1991 are plottted and the possible tendencies towards increasing polarisation are analysed and discussed.

The Causes of City-Suburban Political Polarization? A Canadian Case Study

Recent research conducted in both the United States and Canada has found that residents of inner cities and suburbs are diverging in their voting behavior and political attitudes. The mechanisms producing such a divergence, however, have remained unclear. After identifying a set of distinct hypotheses for why one might expect residents of inner cities and suburbs to differ in their political views, this article draws on a survey undertaken by the author in one electoral district in the Toronto region to empirically test the relative contribution of each of the hypothesized mechanisms in explaining the geography of party preferences. This study suggests there is no single explanation for the city-suburban cleavage, and that the mechanisms producing it are complex. Spatial segregation (based on individual attributes such as race, ethnicity, and class) is clearly important; however neighborhood self-selection, local experience, and, to a lesser extent, mode of consumption all have significant independent effects. Particularly important is the self-selection of supporters of political parties on the left into the inner city, stemming either from a search for a “sense of community” or the desire to link their lifestyle choices to their political convictions, whereas supporters of parties farther to the right are more likely to choose postwar suburban neighborhoods out of a preference for private space. In contrast, there is little evidence that housing tenure or the sharing of political information between neighbors are factors independently producing city-suburban political differences within the study district.

Place of residence, party preferences, and political attitudes in Canadian cities and suburbs

ABSTRACT: This article examines the degree to which divergence in voting behavior and political attitudes between inner cities and suburbs in Canadian metropolitan areas can be explained by place of residence. As of yet, there has been very little research done on this topic in Canada. Logistic regression models derived from the 1965, 1984 and 2000 Canadian national election surveys confirm that Canadian inner cities and (particularly, outer) suburbs are diverging, and place of residence has become increasingly important in explaining this divergence. Over the study period, residents of inner cities in Canada became more likely to vote for parties of the left and to hold attitudes that would be considered on the left of the political spectrum, while suburban residents were increasingly likely to vote for parties of the right and to hold attitudes on the right of the political spectrum. The research suggests that in Canada, as in the US, the place and context of suburbia is a factor in the shift to the right. This has implications for the future direction of welfare state policy.

Mapping the Urban Debtscape: The Geography of Household Debt in Canadian Cities

Abstract Vulnerability resulting from debt is part and parcel of the risk society and a salient characteristic of current neoliberal times under financialized global capitalism. Rising indebtedness increases the susceptibility of homeowners to housing and labor market restructuring, and if the degree of leverage is very high, can threaten the solvency, living standards, and social stability of local communities. However, very little is understood regarding how levels of household indebtedness are spatially distributed within or across cities, and how private debt maps onto the geography of race, class, housing, urban form, and other social variables, especially outside of the United States. It remains unknown whether and how higher and unsustainable levels of indebtedness might be associated with urban growth, decline, suburbanization, gentrification, immigration, racialization, and/or greying. This article examines the spatial distribution of household debt in Canadian cities at multiple scales of analysis. It analyzes how levels of household debt relate to a number of key socio-demographic and housing variables from the census, including those related to changes occurring over the 2000s. It simultaneously models the geography of debt at the metropolitan and neighborhood scales using multi-level hierarchical linear modeling methods, and in doing so, it identifies some key drivers and correlates of household debt and the scales at which they operate. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the empirical findings for understanding the role of the emerging urban debtscape in the restructuring of the social geography of the city.

Aestheticization and the cultural contradictions of neoliberal (sub)urbanism

Landscapes of privilege: the politics of the aesthetic in an American suburb. By James S. Duncan and Nancy G. Duncan. London and New York: Routledge. 2004. 261 pp. £65 cloth; £15.99 Paper. ISBN 0 41594687 5 cloth; 0 41594688 3 paper. Behind the gates: life, security, and the pursuit of happiness in fortress America. By Setha Low. London and New York: Routledge. 2004. 275 pp. £12.99 paper. ISBN 0 41594438 4 cloth; 0 415 95041 4 paper. Brave new neighbourhoods: the privatization of public space. By Margaret Kohn. London and New York: Routledge. 2004. 232 pp. £70 cloth; £16.99 paper. ISBN 0 41594462 7 cloth; 0 41594463 5 paper.

City Politics, Canada

City Politics, Canada , James Lightbody, Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006, pp. 576. Scholarly research on Canadian urban politics has never been extensive, and the few who teach in the field have had to make do with a limited range of textbooks, mostly focused on the institutions of local government. Those wanting to extend their coverage to deal with such issues as the importance of globalization, social movements, race and ethnicity, social inequality, urban political culture, regional governance, the media, and federal policy, have been forced to rely on an assemblage of diverse materials. As well, the politics of, and role played by, the suburbs is often marginal to most texts, focused as they are on the politics of the largest central cities.

New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood

His ethical framework needs more fine-tuning for at least two reasons. First, this ethical framework seems to be disconnected from the issues discussed in the book. Instead of showing how the ethical framework can guide us to better cope with issues such as authenticity, privacy, surveillance, and digital divide, the author indulges in a rather abstract philosophical discussion for its own sake in the final chapter. And second, although the pleasure of mapping cannot be denied, it is a stretch to elevate ‘‘pleasure’’ to be a guiding ethical principle directing our mapping practices in the real world. In weaving his argument about the pleasure principle applied to mapping, Crampton draws heavily on McWhorter’s (1999) work on societal pressure for sexual normalization. The political parallel between mapping versus sexual practices is tenuous at best, or may not even exist. If our future mapping effort is indeed guided by the pleasure principle, those with power and privilege may well indulge themselves to meet their own idiosyncratic psychological needs for the sake of pleasures, which will result in the perpetuation of inequity and divide what the framework aims to eradicate. Therefore, the proposed ethical framework has perhaps created a new set of problematics (if I can borrow from the Foucauldian vocabulary). However, we are reminded by Crampton that ‘‘as long as cyberspace is a problem, we will always have something to do’’ (p. 15), which is indeed a comforting thought for all of us in academia.

Metropolitanization, Urban Governance, and Place (In)equality in Canadian Metropolitan Areas

This chapter examines how different provincial regimes of municipal governance and different municipal government structures affect levels of inequality in municipal revenues and expenditures across a number of different categories. It begins by discussing the concept of place (in)equality in the Canadian urban context, and reviews the state of municipal governance structures across Canadian provinces. Then, it discusses the restructuring of urban governance across Canadian cities and the various modes of (partial) equalization that exist among the different provinces. The empirical section examines the relationship between fiscal disparities and place (in)equalities, via OLS regression modeling of a large dataset for the three largest metropolitan areas in the country (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver). The results demonstrate that the geography of most forms of municipal spending and revenue generation has little to do with municipal governance structures and more to do with provincial welfare state regimes. Thus, high levels of fiscal disparities at the municipal level do not correlate with more unequal outcomes, mainly because the important revenue and expenditure decisions are made at the provincial level.

Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places

Sharon Zukin’s latest book serves as an extended opinion piece (or ‘panoramic survey’, according to the liner notes) of the evolution of New York City between the 1960s and the present, with pointed reference to particular case studies, events, and social struggles within a number of its different neighbourhoods. The main argument of the book is that much of what counts for, and drives, social change within New York’s neighbourhoods is the result of struggles over ‘authenticity’ on behalf of different groups of urban residents, and thus claims to ownership of – and rights to – the city. While I wholeheartedly agree with Zukin’s argument on this main point, and sincerely appreciate Zukin’s knowledge and love for New York, I find the book unsatisfying, atheoretical, and insufficiently scholarly. In this review, I outline the book’s organization and Zukin’s arguments, and discuss both the positive aspects and the problems with the book. Zukin organizes the book around the concepts of space and ‘terroir’, breaking the chapters into those that deal with ‘uncommon spaces’ and those that concern ‘common spaces’. The former contains three chapters dealing with what are essentially different stages of gentrification in Williamsburg, Harlem, and Red Hook. Zukin seems strangely reticent to commit to the concept of gentrification, though, in places arguing against it on the grounds that it ‘is too narrow a term’ (p. 58) to describe the changes reshaping New York neighbourhoods and that it ‘minimizes and simplifies the collective investment that is at stake’ (p. 221). Zukin often uses substitute terms such as ‘renewal’, ‘revitalization’, and ‘ethnic secession in reverse’ (for example, pp. 58 and 221), even though some of the historical details in the book clearly document the violence of displacement that has resulted, which she freely admits. Three chapters then make up the second section dealing with ‘common spaces’. These chapters discuss the evolution of the meaning of public space in Union Square, struggles over food vending in Red Hook, and the politics of land use in conflicts over community gardening and corporate advertising. In each of these six chapters, Zukin presents much detailed historical and qualitative information about her case studies, and uses this to argue that the changes she highlights, both the social transformations and the political land-use conflicts, are the result of a search for an authentic urban life and struggles over how different places are perceived, valued, and aestheticized by different social groups. Knitting the chapters together is her discussion of how, in the context of the shift from the production city to the consumption city, the search for authenticity within urban space produces a new ‘destination culture’ and ‘new urban terroirs’, which she defines as ‘localities with a specific cultural product and character that can be marketed around the world, drawing tourists and investors . . .’ (p. 4). On these points Zukin is largely convincing, and she has assembled much qualitative evidence. The Introduction and Conclusion are used to tie together the main arguments and spell out Zukin’s ideas. One element of Naked City that I appreciate is Zukin’s engagement with JANE JACOBS’s first book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), which she presents as a fascinating foil to contemporary urban processes operating in New York City. Zukin rightly points to one of the largest flaws in Jacobs’s original reasoning regarding how to preserve the city. Namely, the benefits of the neighbourhood improvements and planning reforms that Jacobs advocated rarely flow to the original low-income residents of old inner-city neighbourhoods. Instead, in the context of a capitalist land market, Jacobs’s reforms work to prime the area for gentrification and it is the wealthy gentrifiers who displace or replace the poor who reap most of the benefits. Jacobs’s eye for what was valuable in the city was the same as that of the (white) new middle-class gentrifiers who followed her into neighbourhoods such as Greenwich Village or Boston’s North End, not the ethnic and working-class residents who inhabited these neighbourhoods at the time she was writing. Zukin rightly faults Jacobs for being blind to the displacement of the poor that would follow as a result of the political and social practices she advocated in their name. Saying this, I find her portrayal of the battle between Jacobs and Robert Moses as one between the corporate city of mobility (Moses) and the rooted people-based urban village ( Jacobs) overly Regional Studies, Vol. 44.5, pp. 659–661, June 2010