In this thesis, I undertake a study of rapid condominium growth occurring in the City of Toronto, Canada, and the emergence of an ultra-luxury condominium market during a time of global financial instability. This thesis examines the influence of rapid growth on Toronto as a world city during this time by asking the following research questions: 1. Why has Toronto become a place of safe investment for condominium buyers during a time of global economic uncertainty? 2. Why has the ultra-luxury market emerged in Toronto? What are the driving forces behind it, how does it contribute to Toronto’s standing as a world city, and what does the future hold for this niche market? 3. What is the current state of the condominium market in Toronto and what can we expect to see happen in the near future? To answer these questions, this thesis draws insights from urban, political, economic and social geographic literature, statistical and policy data, as well as twenty-five (25) semi- structured interviews with a variety of key industry stakeholders in the City of Toronto. The results of this study point to a changing demographic landscape in a city where fundamental elements have not only secured Toronto’s reputation as a place of safe investment, but also created an environment of pent up demand leading to the emergence of the ultra-luxury condominium market. The City of Toronto has garnered international attention for its rapid rate of high-rise growth, and continues to craft its reputation as a world city through the addition of four, 5-star hotel condominiums. Additionally, this thesis recognizes the pressing social, environmental and political issues that accompany this recent, rapid growth, and provides general recommendations for addressing these complex topics through the suggestion of future research on the topic. / Thesis (Master, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2013-04-29 12:28:08.426

Abstract This dissertation constructs an analytical history of gay theatre in Toronto from 1967 to 1985, a period that saw the radical reformation of the city’s gay community and its not-for-profit theatre industry. It undertakes this research using a cultural materialist theoretical frame that enables it to recover the history of gay theatre in Toronto and connect this history to the contemporary development of gay community and theatrical production in the city. By recovering the history of gay theatre in Toronto, this dissertation demonstrates its seminal importance to the history of gay culture in Canada, and to Canadian theatre history. To construct its narrative of gay theatre history in Toronto, this dissertation focuses on three pioneering gay playwrights, John Herbert, Robert Wallace, and Sky Gilbert, historically contextualizing these within three distinct eras of contemporary gay history and Toronto theatre history. Chapter one addresses the years prior to the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada in 1969, analyzing the theatrical development of John Herbert’s Fortune and Men’s Eyes, and the political significance of the New York production’s tour to Toronto’s Central Library Theatre in October 1967. Chapter two examines the rise of gay liberation and the Alternative theatre movements, 1969 to 1976, recovering the production history of Robert Wallace’s long-neglected play, No Deposit, No Return. Chapter three investigates the backlash against gay liberation, the consolidation of gay community as a political minority, and the emergence of AIDS, 1977-1985, focusing on the early career of Sky Gilbert, and the significance of his play, Drag Queens on Trial. Paying close attention to the politics of gay identity and community in Toronto, and providing a thick description of the biographical, social, cultural, and political discourses that shaped the lives of these playwrights and impacted the production and reception of their plays, this dissertation reveals the important part gay theatre played in the reformation of Toronto’s gay community and its not-for-profit theatre industry in this foundational period.

This research explores the impact of Toronto’s urban reform movement of the 1970s on the Toronto Public Library (TPL) system. The TPL is the largest public library system in Canada, with 98 branches located in neighbourhoods across the city. These highly visible, accessible, and dynamic local branches promote social inclusion and community engagement through the provision of a range of programs and services. Public participation in the library planning process through citizens’ advisory groups resulted in the “equalization” of library services across the city, a renewal of the local branch system, and the restructuring of programs and services to meet community needs as defined by communities themselves. This research also discusses the possibility of creating new opportunities for patron participation at the TPL in the context of the recent resurgence in civic engagement on library issues.

This research explores the impact of Toronto’s urban reform movement of the 1970s on the Toronto Public Library (TPL) system. The TPL is the largest public library system in Canada, with 98 branches located in neighbourhoods across the city. These highly visible, accessible, and dynamic local branches promote social inclusion and community engagement through the provision of a range of programs and services. Public participation in the library planning process through citizens’ advisory groups resulted in the “equalization” of library services across the city, a renewal of the local branch system, and the restructuring of programs and services to meet community needs as defined by communities themselves. This research also discusses the possibility of creating new opportunities for patron participation at the TPL in the context of the recent resurgence in civic engagement on library issues.

This thesis considers the condition of homelessness through its marginal position against society. Exteriority is often perceived as an abnormal state to be resolved through assimilation. To investigate it in its <em>relationship</em> with the inside, as opposites in a field of interaction, implies a constant state of reaction and change, instead of one that rests in a resolution. The thesis takes this form of continuous shifting between perspectives, media, scale of interaction, and locations, both physical and psychological. Its journey constitutes a search for a middle ground between absolute power and absolute freedom, interiority and exteriority, and an exploration into the possibilities for interaction in this strange and uncertain place. <br /><br /> Through this strategy, the thesis removes the issue of homelessness from the conventional framework of an economical problem, to understand it instead as an existential reality. Homelessness becomes an experience that involves real people and unseen identities; the shifts in the form of this work reflect the subtle idiosyncracies that arise from this subjective reading. In its exteriority, homelessness is related to the psychoanalytical notion of otherness: a quality that is emotional and uncontrolled, and exists outside of social laws. As a threat to public order, this quality is undesireable within society. Thus, the Other is an identity that becomes subjugated and hidden through the exercize of power. The thesis relies on established ideas, including Michel Foucault's exposure of this social repression, R. D. Laing's empathetic perception of ontological insecurity, and Julia Kristeva's essay on abjection, to give context to its ambiguous subject. Set against the tentative narration and notation of lived experiences, they seek to uncover the subjective identity of the Other, and to grasp the significance of his expulsion from the interior. The intention of this work is not to judge, or to implement solutions. Rather, it is passive and receptive, and exists largely in the mere <em>confrontation</em> of this estranged condition. <br /><br /> Out of this confrontation, the voices that were buried begin to emerge and assert themselves. Narrative, criticism, design, and visual essay become the vehicles that convey these voices and the multiplicity of their existential experiences, forming a reality from that which was previously invisible to the objective city. This mapping is a construction of displaced identities. The synthesis of these elements exposes the grounds for the possibility of new connections between individuals.

This thesis considers the condition of homelessness through its marginal position against society. Exteriority is often perceived as an abnormal state to be resolved through assimilation. To investigate it in its <em>relationship</em> with the inside, as opposites in a field of interaction, implies a constant state of reaction and change, instead of one that rests in a resolution. The thesis takes this form of continuous shifting between perspectives, media, scale of interaction, and locations, both physical and psychological. Its journey constitutes a search for a middle ground between absolute power and absolute freedom, interiority and exteriority, and an exploration into the possibilities for interaction in this strange and uncertain place. <br /><br /> Through this strategy, the thesis removes the issue of homelessness from the conventional framework of an economical problem, to understand it instead as an existential reality. Homelessness becomes an experience that involves real people and unseen identities; the shifts in the form of this work reflect the subtle idiosyncracies that arise from this subjective reading. In its exteriority, homelessness is related to the psychoanalytical notion of otherness: a quality that is emotional and uncontrolled, and exists outside of social laws. As a threat to public order, this quality is undesireable within society. Thus, the Other is an identity that becomes subjugated and hidden through the exercize of power. The thesis relies on established ideas, including Michel Foucault's exposure of this social repression, R. D. Laing's empathetic perception of ontological insecurity, and Julia Kristeva's essay on abjection, to give context to its ambiguous subject. Set against the tentative narration and notation of lived experiences, they seek to uncover the subjective identity of the Other, and to grasp the significance of his expulsion from the interior. The intention of this work is not to judge, or to implement solutions. Rather, it is passive and receptive, and exists largely in the mere <em>confrontation</em> of this estranged condition. <br /><br /> Out of this confrontation, the voices that were buried begin to emerge and assert themselves. Narrative, criticism, design, and visual essay become the vehicles that convey these voices and the multiplicity of their existential experiences, forming a reality from that which was previously invisible to the objective city. This mapping is a construction of displaced identities. The synthesis of these elements exposes the grounds for the possibility of new connections between individuals.

As an increasing proportion of the world’s population travels ever-longer distances between their home and place of work, urban mobility networks have had to cope with this dramatic increase in movement. These networks not only occupy escalating amounts of undeveloped land, but also work to re-shape the public spaces and landscapes of the urban realm. The City of Toronto’s mobility (or increasing lack thereof) has an enormous influence on its culture and urban development; the car and its attendant infrastructures heavily govern the city’s growth by supporting urban sprawl. In order to redevelop public space, equalize access to mobility, and improve the way we move through the city, a new system of infrastructure is required; one that can negotiate through an asphalt-dominated landscape while creating a sustainable transport alternative. This thesis proposes new mobility networks as strategies of intensification through a repositioning of the bicycle and by prioritizing its supporting infrastructure along existing underutilized service lands in the City of Toronto. By further developing both the rail and hydro corridors as a city-wide network of mobility paths, and eventually phasing them into a series of linear parkways, distant parts of the city would become accessible for long-haul trips. The second design component is a series of bicycle hubs located at, and tailored to, strategic locations throughout the city’s existing corridors and transit lines. These new civic amenities have the potential to enrich urban placemaking, while acting as social centres that anchor newly connected communities.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, 2001. Graduate Programme in Sociology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 348-365). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/yorku/fullcit?pNQ67937.

In this thesis I use the case study of Portuguese construction workers in Toronto to provide an assessment of how Canada’s skill-based immigrant selection policies treat workers with low human capital. Government rhetoric and much academic writing has presented skill-based immigration programs as responding effectively to the needs of the labour market, and as a progressive move away from the racist and particularistic exclusions present in previous policies. However, the case study presented in this thesis provides a less optimistic reading of the situation. A persistent labour shortage in manual trades, and a selection system that excludes ‘blue collar’ workers from permanent membership, suggest an immigration policy that is neither in synch with the needs of the labour market nor justly administered. Through a discursive policy analysis, I critique Canadian citizenship and immigration policy in two areas. First, policies have been built on flawed assumptions about how certain segments of the labour market function, leading them to place too high a premium on human capital. Second, workers with low human capital tend to be denied permanent membership and held on precarious legal statuses. The result is a differential access to key social, civic and economic rights depending on a migrant’s skill category. An image of ‘fragmented citizenship’ therefore appears more realistic than writings proclaiming an expansion of universal rights and the emergence of a postnational mode of belonging. The new exclusions of skill-based selection systems have not gone unchallenged. In the case of Toronto’s Portuguese community, protests in 2006 surrounding the deportation of undocumented construction workers served to visibly challenge the state’s definition of what constitutes a ‘desirable citizen’. The protests generated wide public support by engaging a traditional logic of national citizenship, arguing that the Portuguese fit the bill as ‘good Canadians’, though this came at the cost of reinforcing the barriers to entry for other groups of migrants.

During the last decade, Japanese cuisine has become firmly rooted in Canada. The once unusual sounding dishes such as sushi, tempura, and edamame are now familiar to most Canadians. Indeed, Japanese restaurants make up a substantial portion of Toronto’s diverse foodscape, yet little is known about how this culinary culture is understood, how the constructed image is created, and the identities that are produced through its production and consumption. This dissertation aims to unpack the constructed identities of the cosmopolitan and the “Oriental Other” contained within Japanese culinary circuits in Toronto, while also examining the connections, constructions, and negotiations concealed within the Japanese restaurants’ cultural landscape. It seeks to highlight the processes of racialization, Whiteness, and the articulation of difference that are interconnected and interdependent on the production and consumption of Japanese food in Toronto’s restaurants. Through this process, cultural differences are mapped out, allowing Japanese cuisine to become an accessible and readily available place to search for cosmopolitan identity making and the performance of Otherness. To this aim, in-depth interviews were conducted with residents of Toronto and chefs of Japanese ethnic origin. Both groups emphasize the relations between food providers and consumers, authenticity strategies, and their imaginative geographies of Japanese culinary culture but had remarkably different interpretations on how these constructions are practiced, articulated, and ultimately understood. / Thesis (Ph.D, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2008-03-24 15:40:29.811