MCRI researchers are featured in the most recent issue of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research:
The Politics of Post-Suburban Densification in Canada and France
Written by:
Eric Charmes and Roger Keil
Abstract
This debate specifically focuses on densification as a particular dimension of (post-) suburbanization. In the introduction, we discuss densification, along with ‘compactness’ and ‘intensification’, conceptual terms that have become buzzwords within urban planning. Objectives associated with these tend to be presented in the literature within a normative framework, structured by a critique of the negative effects attributed to sprawl. The perspective here is different. It is not normative but critical, and articulated around the analysis of political and social issues, related to the transformation of wider metropolitan space. Three main themes are developed: (1) the politics of densification (the environmental arguments favouring densification are highly plastic, and are thus often used to defend projects or initiatives which are actually determined by other agendas); (2) why morphology matters (a similar number of houses or square metres can be established in many different ways, and those different ways have political and social meaning); (3) the diversity of suburban densification regimes (it is not only the landscapes of the suburbs that are diverse, but also the local bodies governing them—between the small residential municipalities of the Paris periurbs and the large inner suburbs of Toronto lies a broad spectrum).
Hard and Soft Densification Policies in the Paris City‐Region
Written by:
Anastasia Touati‐Morel
Abstract
This essay is concerned with the planning and densification of suburbs, which present a huge challenge insofar as they form a large area of urbanized land that remains underexploited due to low residential density. Drawing on current research in the Paris city-region, the essay focuses specifically on the difficulty in implementing densification policies in low-rise suburban areas. It examines the varying degrees of densification fostered by these policies, and builds upon recent urban studies literature on suburban change to trace how suburban areas are being transformed through regulations, instruments and market dynamics associated with densification processes. What kinds of densification policy are being implemented and what are the socio-economic, political and cultural determinants of each type of regulatory approach? This essay will attempt to answer this question via an analysis of the densification policies being put in place in the municipalities of the Paris city-region. It will offer in turn a typology of these different policies. It shows that densification is an instrument that can be used to address local political concerns which vary greatly depending on the economic, social and geographical position of municipalities within larger urban areas.
Suburban Inertia: The Entrenchment of Dispersed Suburbanization
Written by:
Pierre Filion
Abstract
During the years following the second world war, an urban development model—dispersed suburbanism (DS)—came to predominate in North America. The low-density functional specialization and all-out automobile orientation of this new urban form were ideally suited to the circumstances of the time, thus accounting for its rapid adoption. DS also proved to be adaptable to changing societal circumstances, which explains its predominance as an urban development model under both Fordism and neoliberalism. The adaptability of this urban form also contributed to its spread across much of the world, including Europe. This essay contends that powerful path dependencies maintain DS in place, despite planning efforts to achieve more compact, public-transit oriented urban development. It also argues that the persistence of DS is a source of hardship for low-income households forced to live in suburban environments, and entrenches conservative political values.
The Politics of Place: Place‐making versus Densification in Toronto’s Tower Neighbourhoods
Written by:
Will Poppe and Douglas Young
Abstract
Toronto’s Tower Neighbourhood Renewal (TR) programme is a municipal government initiative tackling aging high-rise apartment building clusters in need of physical upgrades. One strategy for a more vibrant future for those clusters is densification or new infill housing. The main argument of the essay is that the unique urban structure of Toronto’s inner suburbs challenges the implementation of TR’s densification strategy. The proximity of many residents occupying privately owned single-family homes close to the tower neighbourhoods has implications for the governance of TR in Toronto. Having created place-frames firmly linked to their own identities as single-family homeowners, these residents reject an encroachment of the ‘urban’ (through higher residential densities) and of the ‘Other’ (through a potential increase in low-income, immigrant and visible minority tower renters). A 2011 design charrette in the Toronto neighbourhood of Weston serves as a case study, exemplifying the tensions between neighbourhood resident place-frames and the goals of the TR project. This essay is based on an analysis of public policy documents and public participation reports, as well as notes from direct observation during the Weston 2021 Design Charrette.
‘Many Rivers to Cross’: Suburban Densification and the Social Status Quo in Greater Lyon
Max Rousseau
Abstract
Urban research often considers densification from the perspective of sustainable development and social mix. This essay focuses instead on the social and political stakes involved in densification through the example of a large French metropolitan area. It shows that the densification policies put in place in the Lyon agglomeration cannot be said to succeed in breaking down the historical segregation between its residential and affluent western suburbs (banlieues) and its industrial and working-class eastern ones. The political manoeuvres executed by the institutions implementing densification, and the search for consensus characterizing France’s intercommunalities, block any possibility of redistributing functions and social classes at the metropolitan scale, and hence of ending the social specialization of Lyon’s suburbs. Moreover, municipalities subjected to pressure from suburban areas carefully assess the profile of residents selected to occupy new housing units—i.e. individuals already residing in the commune in the case of western suburbs, and middle-class individuals hailing from the eastern part of the agglomeration in the case of eastern suburbs. Densification does not foster social mix at the metropolitan scale, neither does it improve the housing conditions of disadvantaged populations.
