Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Free Public Transit And The Right To The City, Ari Vangeest

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In recent years there has been a surge in support for free public transit across Canada. This thesis tracks the rapid changes to the free public transit movement through content analysis and interviewing activists at the centre of the struggle. I find that people come to free public transit organizing to address poverty, reduce emissions, end police violence, and create a safer workspace. With the increase in support for free public transit, it has become a policy supported in one way or another by politicians across the political spectrum. I argue that in order for free public transit to address …

The General Artificial Intellect, Ramon S. Diab

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In passages of Marx’s Grundrisse known as the Fragment on Machines, Marx suggested that advanced capitalist development leads to the production of autonomous machines that replace labour-power in the direct production process. Autonomist Marxist interpretations of this text have emphasized that the proliferation of immaterial labour is the historical condition that is leading to a crisis in the measure of value based on labour-time and that will lead to a future communist mode of production. Further, Mario Tronti posited that as capitalist development unfolds, it subsumes both the state and society, a concept known as the ‘social factory thesis’. …

The Politics Of Where: The Federal Government And Canada's Urbanization, 1867-2017, Charles D. Crenna

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This dissertation responds to a single overarching research question: what is the nature and extent of the federal government’s influence on urbanization in Canada, both on its systems of cities and on their internal structure? Lessons learned regarding the federal role in Canada’s urbanization remain relevant and applicable to emerging conditions. They offer a sound, streetwise foundation for future urban policy development, based on understanding the vital politics of where.

Large, complex systems of cities are both self-organizing and responsive to strategic guidance by the federal government. Politically-difficult choices among competing urban locations can be made both by hiding …

Active And Safe Routes To School: Evaluating School Travel Planning To Support Children's Active Travel, Adrian Nicholas Buttazzoni

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Most Canadian children are not achieving their daily recommended physical activity (PA) levels despite the many emotional, psychological, and physical benefits of PA. Walking or wheeling to/from school, or active school travel (AST), is a viable method for improving children’s daily participation in PA. In Canada, the Active and Safe Routes to School initiative promotes AST through its comprehensive School Travel Planning (STP) program. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, broadly, this thesis investigates the i) implementation and ii) effectiveness of a regional, two-year STP program supporting AST. This thesis includes a systematic review of AST intervention models implemented in North America, …

Invisible Labour: Support-Service Workers In India’S Information Technology Industry, Indranil Chakraborty

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The dissertation investigates the life, working conditions and urban experience of support-service workers in the Information Technology (IT) sector of India: the janitors, security guards, fast food delivery service professionals and car pool drivers who work in and around technology parks that develop software applications for a world-market. The common experiences of these employees are migration from rural contexts to a radically modern employment setting, where they work long hours with minimal benefits in informal conditions that often violate basic labour laws. The thesis draws on quantitative and qualitative research, and in particular on analysis and interpretation of hundred and …

Imagining The Unimagined Metropolis: Privilege, Liminality, And Peripheral Communities In The Contemporary Urban Situation, Colton R. Sherman

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Various works of psychogeographic literature explore privileged and non-privileged communities and spaces through narrative and character development. Novels of this sort—specifically those by China Miéville, Neil Gaiman, and J.G. Ballard—feature narratives where their respective protagonists undergo a liminal metamorphosis and transform from a monotonous, albeit privileged urbanite into a free-associating inhabitant of the urban periphery: the unimagined, non-privileged space of urban detritus. By engaging with these authors’ novels alongside the works of the Situationists, Walter Benjamin, Rob Nixon and others, the goal of this thesis is to explore how the dominant urban epistemologies are subverted—whether or not they should be …

Examining The Food Networks Of Small Businesses In A Food District And The Potential For Fostering Local Economic Development, Michael Ar Clark

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Food systems are complex, interconnected webs which connect everything from small local businesses and farmers to large multinational corporations all over the world. The recent spike in food prices as the value of the Canadian dollar declines has highlighted how much of our food is grown in California and other international regions. Where do small food businesses source their food from and how do they make those decisions? To examine this, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 business owners in the Old East Village Food District, in London, Canada. Interview data were analyzed two ways: (1) foodshed analysis of business …

Environmental Health Effects Of Multiple Exposures: Systemic Risks And The Detroit River International Crossing Study, Tor H. Oiamo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines cumulative exposures to traffic noise and outdoor air pollution on environmental and health related quality of life in Windsor, Ontario, and provides a critical analysis of the environmental assessment process for the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) Study. The research utilizes a systemic risk framework to understand environmental health and stress effects of cumulative exposures. The significance of this research is based on a relative absence of literature on the systemic health risks of cumulative exposures and the need to elucidate environmental annoyance as a health outcome for risk assessment. The objectives of the research were to …

Comparison Of Housed And Homeless Patients With An Orthopedic Diagnosis, Susan M. Williams

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Studies on homelessness have shown that people who are homeless are admitted to hospital more frequently, for longer periods of time, and at a younger age than people who are housed. Once admitted to hospital, discharge planning is difficult and resource intensive, often leading to discharge back to the streets or a shelter. This puts this population at risk for complications and readmission. Although people who are homeless are prone to orthopedic injuries, there is no research on the outcomes of patients who are homeless with orthopedic injuries. This retrospective, case control study, based on the social determinants of health, …

Examining The Influence Of Environmental Opportunities And Exposures On Children's Sleep Duration, Leanne B. Mcintosh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This research aims to fill a void in knowledge on how certain characteristics of the built and natural environments may impact children’s sleep duration. Data was collected on a sample of 614 children (aged 9-14 years) drawn from 22 elementary schools throughout the City of London, Ontario, Canada. Participants completed the STEAM (Spatial Temporal Environmental Activity Monitoring) protocol which involved completion of a survey, daily activity diary, and tracking the time they spent in different environments with a portable Global Position System. This thesis incorporates an innovative analytical approach which uses two Geographic Information System techniques to examine if and …

Examining Children's Perceptions And Use Of Their Neighbourhood Built Environments: A Novel Participatory Mapping Approach, Stephen Fitzpatrick

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis uses a mixed methods approach to contribute towards a more complete understanding of the relationship between the built environment and children’s active school travel. It is argued that active travel –human powered transportation – to and from school provides regular physical activity that can help reverse rising rates of overweight or obese Canadian children. The built environment of a child’s school neighbourhood has been shown to influence travel decisions. To achieve higher rates of children’s active travel, a comprehensive understanding of the built environment is required.

This study uses child-led perceptual mapping (CLPM) and GIS analysis in a …

Entre El Juego Y La Memoria: El Detective Y La Ciudad En La Narrativa Neo Policiaca De Paco Ignacio Taibo Ii Y Leonardo Padura Fuentes., Carlos Pardo

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This dissertation examines the development of the characters in the detective series of Paco Ignacio Taibo II (Mexico) and Leonardo Padura Fuentes (Cuba) and their relationship with their Hispanic-American cities: Mexico D.F. and Havana. To accomplish it, this dissertation initially deals with the connection between the “neo policiaco” and the narrative tradition that precedes it: the classical detective story or whodunit and the American hardboiled crime story, as well as its link with Spanish contemporary detective fiction. As a result, the Hispanic-American “neo policiaco” explores new possibilities of detective narratives in which complex characters and the Hispanic American city as …

Climate Change And Human Rights: A Case Study Of Vulnerability And Adaptation In Coastal Communities In Lagos, Nigeria., Idowu M. Ajibade

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Lagos, Nigeria is one the world’s megacities at risk from climate change. Communities along the coast have been hit hard by floods, storm surges, and rising seas, due to the city’s geographic location, inadequate infrastructures, and poor urban governance. These factors together with social inequality have been known to shape vulnerability to climatic hazards but less understood is the role of human rights.

The objective of this thesis is to develop a grounded understanding of the links between human rights and the vulnerability of people to climate change impacts (i.e. floods and storm surges). The study combined qualitative and quantitative …

Who Produces Urban Space?: Gentrification And Contestations Over Urban 'Authenticity', Daniel Kudla

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The main purpose of this work is to explain how urban authenticity has changed as a result of different social agents taking control of urban production. I will establish a framework of authenticity by combining the ideas of William Sewell’s theory of structure, Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism, Erich Fromm’s theory of freedom, Henri Lefebvre’s idea of the ‘total man’, and Herbert Marcuse’s theory of an advanced capitalist form of production. This framework of authenticity will allow me to argue that urban authenticity has been recently co-opted by multinational developers, real estate commodity, private corporations, and entrepreneurial municipal governments. The starting point …

Geographic Issues In Evaluating The Food System And Effective Interventions For Health And The Economy, Richard Casey Sadler

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Food is a basic element of life—yet for many the spatial and economic configuration of the conventional food system does not meet nutritional needs and creates issues of food insecurity. In turn, a poorly constituted diet contributes to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Researchers can play a role in evaluating these disparities and exploring relevant options for policy change. But the dominant ‘food desert’ discourse often focuses uncritically on conceptions of access which lack depth. Understanding the nuances of this concept is important for moving into meaningful policy action. Drawing on ideas from the ecological model of health and various …

City Limits: A Psychoanalysis Of Urbanism And Everyday Life, Mark F. Jull

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation begins with Lefebvre’s theoretical framework that space is a social product and provides a brief account of the plans and road networks established with John Graves Simcoe’s founding of York (now Toronto). Foucault’s arguments about gridded street systems and early forms of policing are introduced to explain the intentions and desires associated with the gridded street pattern of Toronto. Foucault’s theory of governmentality is argued to be the marking of a limit rather than a strict prohibition, and is a specifically urban practice. Lacan’s graph of desire and Lacanian concepts are then introduced to continue this discussion of …

“Winds Of Change”: Explaining Support For Wind Energy Developments In Ontario, Canada, Chad Jr Walker

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis addresses a major gap in the wind turbine and risk assessment literatures. It explains local support for wind energy in some areas in spite of vocal opposition in others. Findings from Port Burwell and Clear Creek, Ontario indicate that social and contextual forces may help explain much of the difference in opinion between the two communities. The case study was focused through 21 in-depth interviews. The interviews were analyzed verbatim using NVIVO 9 software. The findings were found to be consistent with Kasperson’s theory of the Social Amplification of Risk and seem to explain why Port Burwell is …

The Question Of Legacy And The 2008 Olympic Games: An Exploration Of Post-Games Utilization Of Olympic Sport Venues In Beijing, Xiaowei Yu

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The last two decades have seen more and more cities joining the competitions for hosting the Olympic Games, resulting in soaring investments, both public and private, in Olympic-related projects. The Olympic Games have become a two-week gigantic event with tremendous costs burdening host cities. Meanwhile, the last three decades have witnessed underused facilities and lack of financial support for maintenance of the Olympic venues after the Games.

Based on previous literature, the “white elephant” effect has happened in every Olympic city during the last twenty years. In terms of Beijing, scholars have yet to substantially investigate the post-Games utilization of …