Research Projects

SSHRC Major Collaborative Research Initiative 2010-2017

Global Suburbanisms: Governance, Land and Infrastructure in the 21st Century($2.5 m) Roger Keil (PI) + 43 researchers in 20 countries and 16 community partners in 12 countries.

 This international and interdisciplinary research project examines suburbanization as the key element of the 21st century urban development. It analyzes recent forms of sub/urbanizations as well as the challenges linked to various expressions of suburbanity. The project particularly focuses on the governance of suburbanization, land regulation and development, as well as large sub/urban infrastructure. The specific objectives of this mega-research project are to document various contexts of global suburbanisms and to examine the production and governance processes of global suburban spaces while moving our wide-ranging empirical findings to intervene in urban theory.

My contribution to the project as a member of the North American cluster is to examine suburbanism processes in the challenging Metropolitan Mexico City area. The focus of my research (in collaboration with Mexico City-based award-winning journalist Feike de Jong) has been on the processes and relations of informality and development. Our research was published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, and Mexico-based peer-reviewed journal Especialidades. A comparative article with Julie-Anne Boudreau and Danielle Labbé on similar suburbanization issues in Vietnam appeared in Environment and Planning A. An additional book chapter is forthcoming in North American Suburbanism edited by Jan Nijman (University of Toronto Press).  

SSHRC Standard Research Grant 2006-2009

Social Sustainability, Diversity, and Public Space in Three Canadian Cities ($103,861) Barbara Rahder (PI), Ranu Basu, Liette Gilbert, Susan L. McGrath, and Patricia K. Wood

This project involves diverse low-income communities in three Canadian cities (Montreal, Toronto and Calgary) in exploring their experiences and perceptions of public space, mapping the opportunities and barriers they encounter within the city, and articulating what needs to change in order to promote a more sustainable and equitable urban future. Findings show that immigrants’ concerns for social sustainability relate specifically to services and discrimination rather than access to physical and/or political spaces in the city.

My contribution was a co-authored article (with two former doctoral students) on the marginalization of the expertise of community organizations in the public debate of reasonable accommodation in Quebec. Our collective research was recently published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Urban Research (volume 22, no 1, Summer 2013).

SSHRC Standard Research Grant 2002-2006

Unlikely Allies: Citizen Planning and Environmentalism on the Oak Ridges Moraine ($112,977)with Gerda R. Wekerle (PI), Liette Gilbert and L. Anders Sandberg

This research project examines the politics of development and environmentalism on the Oak Ridges Moraine. A critical aspect of the environmental and political struggles to secure conservation legislation and to limit development on the Moraine has been the way in which citizen activists, local environmental groups, and national/international environmental organizations have mobilized, providing expert knowledge of environmental conditions and impacts of development, and formulating alternative visions based on their newly and reaffirmed bioregional consciousness. Particular issues of citizenship and belonging to a suburban and exurban region, and participation to the planning process were examined. The stories of how environmentalism and citizen planning has developed knowledge, forged coalitions, implemented proposals through bioregional activism and institutional politics provide precedents for environmental activism elsewhere.

The research project has produced numerous publications, notably our co-authored book, The Oak Ridges Moraine Battles: Development, Sprawl, and Nature Conservation in the Toronto Region(2013, University of Toronto Press), as well as numerous book chapters and refereed articles in English, French and Spanish languages.