Toronto's official intensification policy has directed increased density primarily through residential development over the last 20 years. Recently, new intensification efforts have focused on ...increasing density in existing residential neighborhoods through so-called “gentle density” and “missing middle” built form, as a new “frontier” of intensification. These efforts have included a focus on the production of garden suites on residential properties. In this short intervention, I suggest that Yes-In-My-Backyard narratives, that celebrate intensification, raise problematic arguments under the guise of sustainable urbanism and liberal progressive politics which foreclose important critiques of intensification. I argue that increased YIMBYism and new intensification efforts in Toronto are entwined with homeownership wealth-building and market-oriented property development.
Cities have been sites of some of the most visible manifestations of the evolution of processes of globalization and population expansion, and global cities are at the cutting edge of such changes. ...Critical Dialogues of Urban Governance, Development and Activism examines changes in governance, property development, urban politics and community activism, in two key global cities: London and Toronto. The analysis is inherently comparative, but not in the traditional sense – the volume does not seek to deliver a like-for-like comparison. Instead, taking these two cities as empirical cases, the chapters engage in constructive dialogues about the contested and variegated built forms, formal and informal governmental mechanisms and practices, and policy and community-based responses to contemporary urban concerns. The authors position a critical dialogue on three central issues in contemporary urban studies: governance, real estate and housing, and community activism and engagement. Their less traditional approach to comparative framing seeks to understand London and Toronto from a nuanced perspective, promoting critical reflection on the experiences and evaluative critiques of each urban context, providing insight into each city’s urban trajectory and engaging critically with wider phenomena and influences on the urban governance challenges beyond these two cities.
Community land trust (CLT) practices contribute to analyses of the commons in both conceptual and on‐the‐ground ways. As collective action organizations, CLTs emphasize common land stewardship and ...resist traditional land speculation and development practices through the mitigation or halting of land value inflation. This paper traces the activist efforts of the East London CLT organization, one of Britain's first urban CLTs, in securing common land in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets, and examines their navigation of political decisions and creation of alliances. Although this process has been challenging as a result of neoliberal governance and private development interests, the East London CLT's trajectory demonstrates the frustrations of activism within these contexts but also the small successes in the pursuit and establishment of urban commons.
Co-existence is an emergent emphasis within animal geographies and urban wildlife policy that recognizes urban animals as both co-habitants and co-creators in the production of shared urban space and ...seeks to balance the well-being of humans and animals in the complexity of more-than-human relations. This paper considers how a municipal strategy that seeks to foster co-existence between humans and coyotes in Toronto, and the actions and practices that policy encourages, can be understood as acts of commoning. The policy focuses on public education as a way to shift perceptions and increase knowledge of coyotes and to modify human behavior (regarding waste-disposal and property maintenance) to dissuade coyotes from habituating to human-provided food sources. We engage with urban commons literature to propose that these practices can be understood as acts of commoning and as part of the processual work of negotiating more-than-human community benefits and needs that seek to build towards a more socially and ecologically just city.
This paper considers the more‐than‐human implications of environmental gentrification in cities. Through a synthesis of existing environmental gentrification literature, we highlight gentrification ...scholarship that has emphasised natural ecologies, animals, or other non‐human actors in its processes. We propose the concept of (un)commons as a conceptual basis that offers generative pathways forward for centring a more‐than‐human politics in environmental gentrification scholarship as well as ways to interpret the everyday impacts of environmental gentrification on more‐than‐human beings and spaces in cities.
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This paper considers the more‐than‐human implications of environmental gentrification in cities. Through a synthesis of existing environmental gentrification literature, we highlight gentrification scholarship that has emphasised natural ecologies, animals, or other non‐human actors in its processes. We propose the concept of (un)commons as a conceptual basis that offers generative pathways forward for centring a more‐than‐human politics in environmental gentrification scholarship.
A "three pillar" concept of sustainability guides the current publicly funded planning and redevelopment process on Toronto's waterfront. While this concept serves as a guiding framework, ...sustainability is largely defined in planning and redevelopment policy and practice by multi-level public sector urban intensification policy and a reliance on the private sector-led implementation of new sustainable communities. This study connects perspectives on "policy-led gentrification" and "third-wave gentrification" with an exploration of public plans and development strategies for the new West Don Lands waterfront neighbourhood. It traces how sustainability objectives are integrated into a gentrification process driven by public sector planning and development policies and private sector development interests. Components of the integration of sustainability into gentrification practices are the sale of publicly owned waterfront lands to private developers and public sector financial and educational incentives for private real estate development that meets Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design sustainability targets.
There has been a recent popularization of 'Smart Growth' planning in North American cities. Based upon the aim to decrease the impacts of sprawled regional development on the natural environment, a ...focus of Smart Growth planning is the intensification of both population and physical development in existing urban areas. Faced with the creation of a new Official Plan for the City of Toronto, municipal planners have chosen urban intensification as the vision for planning in Toronto over the next thirty years. This paper examines the nature of intensification planning in Toronto through an analysis of the language of urban intensification found in the Official Plan vision report. Within this report, emphasis is placed upon the role of intensified development and compact population growth as a solution to the environmental problems of urban sprawl. This paper argues that the environmental aspects of intensification provide a more acceptable public rationale for future intensification processes in Toronto; moreover, that the main rationale for intensification in Toronto is not to solve regional sprawl but to create compact urban districts in order to enhance the economic and physical revitalization of the city. The language of intensification in the Official Plan vision report suggests that urban intensification, particularly in Toronto's downtown core, is a strategy for the development of more 'livable' and vibrant residential and commercial areas. The emphasis on intensified development is geared towards the attraction and maintenance of private investment and skilled labour and is a central part of the City of Toronto's vision of economic growth.
This paper explores the mandates of non-government land trust organizations in Canada, the role of urban land in current land trust practices, and possibilities for the inclusion of land protection ...and stewardship in Canadian cities through a discussion of the community land trust (CLT) model. Through the creation of an inventory of Canadian non-governmental land trust organizations, we demonstrate that the majority of historical and contemporary land trust organizations focus on the protection and conservation of wilderness and rural lands, with limited focus on the protection and stewardship of existing urban lands. Additionally, we suggest that the CLT model, already in existence in several Canadian cities, offers a way to re-frame this emphasis and to encourage non-governmental and community-based urban land protection and stewardship in order to resist increasing land values and provide necessary community benefits that foster equitable access and affordability.
Ce document explore les mandats des organismes non gouvernementaux de fiducie foncière au Canada, le rôle de l'espace urbain dans les pratiques des fiducies foncières actuelles, et les possibilités de nouvelles formes de protection des terres et de l'intendance dans les villes canadiennes, par une discussion de la fiducie foncière communautaire ( CLT ) modèle. Grâce à la création d'un inventaire des organisations de la fiducie foncière non gouvernementales canadiennes, nous démontrons que la majorité des organisations historiques et contemporaines fiducie foncière se concentrer sur la protection et la conservation de la nature sauvage et les terres rurales, avec un accent limité sur la protection et l'intendance de urbain existant terres. En outre, nous suggérons que le modèle CLT, qui existent déjà dans plusieurs villes canadiennes, offre un moyen de recadrer cet accent et d'encourager les organisations non gouvernementales et communautaires de protection de l'espace urbain et de l'intendance afin de résister à l'augmentation des valeurs foncières et de fournir communautaire nécessaire avantages qui favorisent un accès équitable et abordable.
Cities play an increasingly crucial role in addressing the accelerating planetary biodiversity crisis. In this special issue, the authors offer generative tools grounded in an other-than-human ...standpoint inviting us to "think cities" differently. They re-examine the right to the city and a more-than-human commons; evaluate why and when species become "killable"; and rethink territoriality, attending to the ways other-than humans make and remake cities. They reconceptualize the urban as an ecological formation, entangling cultivated, feral and wild systems of governance. They explore policies that fix our views of other-than-humans, and enlist them in human conflicts, disavowing the fluidity of animal lives. They expose the ways other-than-humans suffer disastrous consequences of urban greening policies when not taken into account. Together they demonstrate why urban theorists, must take as starting point Levi-Strauss' (1971. Totenism. Beacon Press, p. 89) admonition that "animals are good to think with."
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