This research examines a contemporary planning case in Toronto where tensions between policy visions and planning practices contribute to our understanding of neoliberal urbanism. Media, policy and interview discourses contribute to developing the nexus between neoliberal urbanism, creative class theory and gentrification in the case of 629 Eastern Avenue. The amalgamation of Toronto’s municipalities in 1998 resulting from the “Common Sense Revolution”, and the ‘creative turn’ in the 2000s are identified as two key evolutionary stages in Toronto’s neoliberal urbanism. The City’s contradictory positions as “grassroots” organizers, market actors and market regulators reveals their interventionist role in this case. The analytical imperative presented by this case study to expose the contradictory and contingent nature of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ (Brenner & Theodore, 2002) leads to challenging our very understanding of neoliberalism in the context of contemporary urban planning practices.

This research examines a contemporary planning case in Toronto where tensions between policy visions and planning practices contribute to our understanding of neoliberal urbanism. Media, policy and interview discourses contribute to developing the nexus between neoliberal urbanism, creative class theory and gentrification in the case of 629 Eastern Avenue. The amalgamation of Toronto’s municipalities in 1998 resulting from the “Common Sense Revolution”, and the ‘creative turn’ in the 2000s are identified as two key evolutionary stages in Toronto’s neoliberal urbanism. The City’s contradictory positions as “grassroots” organizers, market actors and market regulators reveals their interventionist role in this case. The analytical imperative presented by this case study to expose the contradictory and contingent nature of ‘actually existing neoliberalism’ (Brenner & Theodore, 2002) leads to challenging our very understanding of neoliberalism in the context of contemporary urban planning practices.

Urban redevelopment in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, marginalizes low-income residents and threatens them with displacement. Site visits and an analysis of discourse suggest that gentrification and the establishment of new restaurants in the area have also contributed to a commodification of poverty. The impacts of restaurant gentrification provoke resistance, and the opening of a new restaurant accused of inviting voyeurism and objectifying neighbourhood residents has resulted in an indefinite picket out front. Interviews show that picketers are endeavouring both to stop gentrification and to win social housing and needed services for the area, while also attempting to create social, economic, and political change at a larger scale. The picket draws attention to the effects of restaurant gentrification on the neighbourhood and the disproportionate influence of the state apparatus on the Downtown Eastside, yet also seeks to preserve a heterotopic space as an alternative to a neoliberal urbanism. / Graduate / 0615 / burnettk@uvic.ca

Urban redevelopment is increasingly used as a policy tool for economic growth by local governments in Chinese cities, which is taking place amid rapid urbanization and in an expanding globalized economy. Along with the spatial transformation, urban redevelopment often entails socioeconomic change in the form of processes of gentrification, which is propelled by the dominance of neoliberal market-oriented policy and practice in the country. This thesis analyzes the spatial political economy of urban redevelopment in China through a case study on Baishizhou urban village in Shenzhen in south-eastern China. Setting out from the broad concern over urban inequality, socio-spatial segregation, ‘the right to the city’, and sustainability in contemporary critical urban theory, the thesis constructs a theoretical framework involving the concepts of neoliberal urbanism, gentrification, sustainable urban development, as well as ‘bottom-up urbanism’ approaches. Employing this framework, the case study conducts a macro-level city comprehensive plan analysis, a meso-level urban village redevelopment site plan analysis, and micro-level interview study and ethnographic observations of everyday life and space in the urban village. On the basis of this study, the thesis makes the arguments that: Neoliberal urbanism is certainly active in the spatial political economy of urban redevelopment in Shenzhen and China, and is markedly state-led under authoritarian governance structures that encourage increased marketization; The ongoing processes of gentrification in the urban village are intertwined with local and national political systems and social arrangements, and cause stress for the migrant tenants of the urban village, which clearly is not in line with the urban sustainability discourse of the UN’s New Urban Agenda; The tactic responses and individual coping-strategies found in the urban village reveals a condition of both precarity and agency in the everyday lives of the often marginalized poor that inhabit this urban space, which in turn point at emergent alternative urban (re)development trajectories. Moreover, the bottom-up urbanism approach sheds light on both discrepancy and compliance with the dominant top-down redevelopment policy, and is further suggested to inform the production of policy frameworks that can better facilitate local implementation of the New Urban Agenda in China. / Stadsomvandling och sanering används allt oftare som policyverktyg av kinesiska städers lokala regeringar för att uppnå ekonomisk tillväxt, vilket sker under en tid av hög urbaniseringstakt och en växande globaliserad ekonomi. Utöver den rumsliga omdaningen medför stadsomvandling även socioekonomiska förändringar i form av gentrifieringsprocesser, som i sin tur pådrivs av den i landet rådande neoliberala och marknadsorienterade politiska riktningen och dess praktiska tillämpning. Denna uppsats syftar till att analysera den rumsliga politiska ekonomin i stadsomvandling i Kina genom en fallstudie av ’stadsbyn’ (eng. ’urban village’) Baishizhou i Shenzhen i sydöstra Kina. Studien utformar ett teoretiskt ramverk som bygger på de analytiska koncepten neoliberal urbanism, gentrifiering, hållbar stadsutveckling, samt ’bottom-up urbanism’, och tar sitt avstamp i den samtida kritiska urbanteorins betonande av urban ojämlikhet, social och rumslig segregation, rätten till staden, och hållbarhet. Utifrån detta ramverk utför fallstudien en analys av stadens översiktsplan på makronivå, en analys av detaljplanen för saneringen av stadsbyn på mesonivå, samt en intervju- och etnografisk observationsstudie av stadsbyns vardagsliv och rum på mikronivå. På grundval av fallstudien drar uppsatsen följande slutsatser: Neoliberal urbanism är synnerligen tongivande i den rumsliga politiska ekonomin i stadsomvandling i Shenzhen och Kina, och har vidare en tydligt statsledd karaktär som tar sig i uttryck genom det auktoritära politiska styrets främjande av marknadskrafter; De pågående gentrifieringsprocesserna i stadsbyn är sammanflätade med lokala och nationella politiska system och sociala konstellationer, och förorsakar olika påfrestningar för de migrant-hyresgäster som befolkar stadsbyn. Detta ligger inte i linje med den hållbarhetsdiskurs för städer som presenteras i FN’s ’New Urban Agenda’; De praktiska och företagsamma reaktioner och handlingsstrategier som uppvisas i stadsbyn tyder på ett tillstånd av både sårbarhet och personlig agens i det dagliga livet hos de marginaliserade och fattiga som utgör befolkningen i detta stadsrum. Detta visar även på nya alternativa synsätt på stadsutveckling och stadsomvandling. Den analytiska ansatsen ’bottom-up urbanism’ synliggör dessutom både diskrepans och samstämmighet med den rådande toppstyrda (’top-down’) stadsomvandlings policyn, och anses således kunna ligga till grund för framtagandet av nya politiska ramverk som kan underlätta för implementeringen av New Urban Agenda i Kina.

The mobility of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem is usually understood in terms of exclusion, reflecting their lack of access to urban services more broadly as well as the restrictive mobility regime at work across the Palestinian territories. Yet after fifty years of Israeli occupation, a more complex and contradictory situation has emerged in the city. This dissertation uses mobility as a vehicle to arrive at a more integrated understanding of the paradoxical manner in which Palestinian Jerusalemites are simultaneously excluded from and incorporated into the city and to analyse how they negotiate their interstitial and often contradictory position. The thesis approaches the question of Palestinian quotidian movement by engaging with theoretical work on mobility and embodied movement as well as from empirical study including eight months of on-site research. In its three core sections, the work examines in detail several manifestations of the restriction, facilitation, and contested nature of mobility. In the first section, a discussion of Palestinian exclaves and enclaves of the city shows the continuities of mobility’s exclusionary effects on both sides of the Separation Wall. This limitation of movement leads to a restriction of spatio-political possibilities – but at the same time, Palestinians expand the horizon of what is possible through everyday and leisure practices. The second section employs two case studies of recent public transport developments in East Jerusalem to examine how incorporation is operationalised through everyday movements across urban space. The third section analyses the paradoxical role of mobility as the result of a tension between the settler colonial and the neoliberal logics concurrently at work in the city. On the one hand, the restriction of movement gradually renders the Palestinians as external to their city. On the other, the facilitation and regulation of mobility in East Jerusalem also serves to normalise Israeli rule and constitute Palestinians as incorporated urban residents, thereby undermining long-term aspirations for autonomy in the east of the city. The examination of the manner in which mobilities are contested in Jerusalem shows that movement, although often associated with freedom and independence, is essential for negotiating the terms of interdependence in the city.

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo compreender os processos de construção e gestão de uma cidade-marca e seus vínculos com o conceito de cidade criativa, bem como seus consequentes impactos nas políticas urbanas. Para tanto, tomou-se como estudo de caso a cidade de Londres, capital do país pioneiro na adoção do discurso da criatividade em suas políticas públicas e tida, na década de 90, como um dos principais centros de poder e controle global no capitalismo contemporâneo. Buscou-se construir um panorama histórico que mostra como Londres veio a ser promovida como uma cidade criativa, tendo a cultura no cerne das políticas de desenvolvimento econômico e urbano. Neste sentido, o trabalho procurou analisar o processo de construção, gestão e exportação da marca Londres, desenvolvida na virada do século XXI, evidenciando as tensões e aproximações entre as diferentes gestões do governo central britânico e as administrações municipais de Londres. Procurou-se explicitar o quanto tal processo culminou na realização dos Jogos Olímpicos de 2012, utilizados como ferramenta para direcionar recursos e a atenção midiática para o megaprojeto de regeneração do East End da cidade. A partir da análise dos novos arranjos institucionais e das estratégias discursivas adotadas para legitimar a realização de tal projeto, buscou-se, então, compreender qual o rebatimento urbano do processo de branding da cidade, tendo como foco os impactos no East End e mais especificamente na região de Hackney Wick promovida como o mais novo hub criativo de Londres - exemplificando as tensões entre a \"marca Londres\" e a \"Londres realmente existente\". / This work aimed to understand the processes of building and managing a city brand and its links to the creative city concept, as well as its consequent impact in the urban policies. Here London was taken as a case study, as the capital of the country that first adopted the discourse of creativity in its public policies in the 1990s and as one of the main concentrations of global economic power in contemporary capitalism. It sought to explore how London came to be promoted as a creative city, with culture at the heart of economic and urban development policies. In this sense, this work analysed the process of creation, management and export of the London brand, developed at the turn of the 21st century, showing the tensions and approximations between the different administrations of the British central government and the municipal administrations of London. It also sought to explain how this process culminated in the hosting of the 2012 Olympic Games, used as a tool to direct resources and the media attention towards the mega regeneration project of Londons East End. From the analysis of the new institutional arrangements and the discursive strategies adopted to legitimize the realisation of such a project, this work finally sought to understand the urban implications of the branding process, focusing on the impacts in the East End and more specifically in Hackney Wick promoted as the newest creative hub in London - exploring the tensions between the \'London brand\' and the \'really existing London\'.

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No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Ana Carolina Carvalho Farias - 2018.pdf: 29542893 bytes, checksum: 53b0284234a19e601a1df1bf59490dc0 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-11 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Cities are formed by a set of official practices supported by their normative institutions, and also by unofficial practices, that escape the norms and that bring other possibilities, other urgencies. The term tactical urbanism began to be used in the first decade of the 21st century to designate such practices in urbanism, referring generally to temporary, informal and somewhat contentious urban interventions in official practices and contemporary cities. However, the theoretical, artistic and political references of the practitioners of Tactical Urbanism refer to a much broader and complex role of practices that are often presented as an alternative to the Neoliberal Urbanism, currently hegemonic in the production of cities. However, there is still a certain theoretical and methodological gap regarding the tactical movements of urban production, which make it difficult to understand their capabilities and analyze their effects. In this sense, this research tried to construct a conceptual panorama on the Tactical Urbanism, exemplified with several practitioners and practices, sometimes called as such, sometimes indifferent to the term but within it. For this, a Taxonomy of Tactical Urbanism was elaborated, which brings eleven categories of analysis, elaborated in eighty-four subcategories, with the purpose of providing a reading for such practices and facilitating the articulation between their ideas, agents and objectives. For the elaboration of the Taxonomy, forty practices were charted and cataloged, exemplifying the various narratives that compose the discourse of urban tactics, representative of the work of great exponents of this discourse and also of the urban realities of the five continents. The Taxonomy is available on online platform, which allows the processing of complex data and collaborative data feeding. In this study, we demonstrate several ways of using the Taxonomy of Tactical Urbanism, among them, the triangulation between specific categories with the objective of verifying how Tactical Urbanism contributes in the fight for the right to the city, in the constitution of urban commons and in the confrontation with Neoliberal Urbanism. This articulation allowed us to conclude that the tactical self-denominated practices, closer to what was popularized with the label of Tactical Urbanism, present generally fragile arrangements as alternative possibilities to the neoliberal city, while the practices that are better able to promote the right to the city and to experience the constitution of commons, are those that take the tactic beyond the tactic, combining it in strategic movements, more aligned with the traditional struggles for urban justice. Such a conclusion reveals the need for critical thinking to better subsidize such actions, helping to circumvent the pitfalls and enhance the capacities of collaboration, participation and empowerment of multitude, which Tactical Urbanism can bring as contributions to the construction of more just cities. / As cidades são formadas por um conjunto de práticas oficiais sustentadas por suas instituições normativas e, também, por práticas não oficiais, que escapam às normas e que trazem outras possibilidades, outras urgências. O termo Urbanismo Tático passou a ser utilizado na primeira década do Século XXI para designar tais práticas em urbanismo, referindo-se, geralmente, a intervenções urbanas temporárias, informais e de certa forma contestadoras às práticas oficiais e às cidades contemporâneas. Porém, as referências teóricas, artísticas e políticas dos praticantes do Urbanismo Tático remetem a um rol muito mais amplo e complexo de práticas que se colocam, frequentemente, como alternativa ao Urbanismo Neoliberal, atualmente hegemônico na produção das cidades. No entanto, há ainda um certo vazio teórico e metodológico no que diz respeito aos movimentos táticos da produção urbana, que dificultam compreender suas capacidades e analisar seus efeitos. Nesse sentido, esta pesquisa buscou construir um panorama conceitual sobre o Urbanismo Tático, exemplificado com diversos praticantes e práticas, ora autodenominadas como tal, ora indiferentes ao termo mas enquadráveis a ele. Para tanto, foi elaborada uma Taxonomia do Urbanismo Tático, que traz onze categorias de análise, esmiuçadas em oitenta e quatro subcategorias, com o objetivo de fornecer uma leitura para tais práticas e facilitar a articulação entre suas ideias, seus agentes e objetivos. Para a elaboração da Taxonomia foram cartografadas e catalogadas quarenta práticas, exemplificativas das várias narrativas que compõem o discurso das táticas urbanas, representativas do trabalho de grandes expoentes desse discurso e, também, das realidades urbanas dos cinco continentes. A Taxonomia encontra-se disponível em plataforma on line, que permite o tratamento de dados complexos e a alimentação colaborativa de dados. Neste estudo, são demonstradas várias formas de utilização da Taxonomia do Urbanismo Tático, dentre elas, a triangulação entre categorias específicas com o objetivo de verificar como o Urbanismo Tático contribui na luta pelo direito à cidade, na constituição de comuns urbanos e no enfrentamento ao Urbanismo Neoliberal. Tal articulação permitiu concluir que as práticas autodenominadas táticas, mais próximas daquilo que se popularizou com a etiqueta do Urbanismo Tático, apresentam arranjos geralmente frágeis como possibilidades alternativas à cidade neoliberal, enquanto as práticas que reúnem maiores condições de promoverem o direito à cidade e de experimentarem a constituição de comuns, são aquelas que levam a tática para além da tática, combinando-a em movimentos estratégicos, mais alinhados com as tradicionais lutas por justiça urbana. Tal conclusão revela a necessidade de o pensamento crítico melhor subsidiar tais ações, ajudando a contornar as ciladas e a potencializar as capacidades de colaboração, participação e empoderamento da multidão, que o Urbanismo Tático pode trazer como contribuições para a construção de cidades mais justas.

La notion de mixité sociale est devenue un thème itératif des débats portant sur les enjeux du renouvèlement urbain, sur les politiques d’accès au logement et, plus généralement, sur la gentrification (Germain et Rose, 2010 ; Bridge, Butler, Lees, 2012). La mixité sociale est tour à tour utilisée, à différentes fins, par des acteurs aussi divers que les politiques, la société civile, les universitaires, les planificateurs urbains et les producteurs urbains, comme les promoteurs immobiliers (Charmes et Bacqué, 2016). Pour les uns, la mixité est un idéal juste à atteindre ; pour les autres, elle participe à rendre invisible la complexité des rapports de pouvoir qui se jouent entre les acteurs de la fabrique urbaine et les dynamiques d’exclusion qu’ils sous-tendent.Nous verrons comment la notion de mixité sociale accompagne la transformation actuelle du quartier d’Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. L’objectif vise à analyser les motivations, modalités d’action et intérêts des acteurs publics, privés et de la société civile qui défendent la notion de mixité sociale, et qui s’appuient sur elle pour justifier ou participer à la transformation du quartier d’Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Nous nous demanderons si la notion de mixité sociale, en tant que telle, fait l’objet de politiques et de projets spécifiques. Réduit-elle les impacts négatifs de la gentrification, ou au contraire, sert-elle à mieux les justifier et à les retirer du débat politique ? Pour expliquer notre propos, nous allons présenter un film documentaire, ainsi qu’une dissertation écrite. Pendant ce projet, nous avons interviewé 28 personnes, choisi seulement 13 pour le montage final, parlé avec plus de 100 personnes habitant le quartier. La durée du film documentaire sera de 60 minutes et il a été filmé pendant une période d’une année, à travers plusieurs saisons. / The notion of social mix has become an iterative theme reflecting the ongoing discourse surrounding the high stakes of urban redevelopment, the policies of housing, and the impact of gentrification. Diverse actors such as politicians, socialites, academics, urban planners, and real estate developers frequently employ social mix. For some, social mix is an ideal to strive for, while for others, this notion is just another way to render invisible the complex relationship that exist between the actors of the urban fabric and the implied dynamics of exclusion. We will investigate how the notion of social mix accompanies the present transformations of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, a working-class neighbourhood of Montreal. The purpose herein is to analyse the motivations, the modalities, and the interests of both public and private actors, in order to defend the notion of social mix and to justify the participants in the transformation of this neighbourhood. We examine if social mix, as part of a political agenda promoting specific urban projects, is really reducing the negative impacts of gentrification, or, on the contrary, is it helping to justify urban policies? In order to show our research results, we will present a documentary film and a short thesis. For the purpose of this project, we originally filmed 28 participants, yet chose only 13 for the final editing. Moreover, we interviewed over 100 individuals residing in the neighbourhood. The film lasts 60 minutes and was shot during different seasons for a period of one year.