Redeveloping the Distillery District, Toronto
Place Differentiation: Redeveloping the Distillery District, Toronto by Vanessa Kirsty Mathews A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Geography University of Toronto © Copyright by Vanessa Kirsty Mathews 2010 Place Differentiation: Redeveloping the Distillery District, Toronto Doctor of Philosophy Vanessa Kirsty Mathews, 2010 Department of Geography University of Toronto Abstract What role does place differentiation play in contemporary urban redevelopment processes, and how is it constructed, practiced, and governed? Under heightened forms of interurban competition fueled by processes of globalization, there is a desire by place- makers to construct and market a unique sense of place. While there is consensus that place promotion plays a role in reconstructing landscapes, how place differentiation operates – and can be operationalized – in processes of urban redevelopment is under- theorized in the literature. In this thesis, I produce a typology of four strategies of differentiation – negation, coherence, residue, multiplicity – which reside within capital transformations and which require activation by a set of social actors. I situate these ideas via an examination of the redevelopment of the Gooderham and Worts distillery, renamed the Distillery District, which opened to the public in 2003. Under the direction of the private sector, the site was transformed from a space of alcohol production to a space of cultural consumption. The developers used a two pronged approach for the site‟s redevelopment: historic preservation and arts-led regeneration. Using a mixed method approach including textual analysis, in-depth interviews, visual analysis, and site observation, I examine the strategies used to market the Distillery as a distinct place, and the effects of this marketing strategy on the valuation of art, history, and space.
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