Rethinking Toronto's Middle Landscape: Spaces of Planning, Contestation, and Negotiation Robert Scott Fiedler a Dissertation S
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RETHINKING TORONTO’S MIDDLE LANDSCAPE: SPACES OF PLANNING, CONTESTATION, AND NEGOTIATION ROBERT SCOTT FIEDLER A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN GEOGRAPHY YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO May 2017 © Robert Scott Fiedler, 2017 Abstract This dissertation weaves together an examination of the concept and meanings of suburb and suburban, historical geographies of suburbs and suburbanization, and a detailed focus on Scarborough as a suburban space within Toronto in order to better understand postwar suburbanization and suburban change as it played out in a specific metropolitan context and locale. With Canada and the United States now thought to be suburban nations, critical suburban histories and studies of suburban problems are an important contribution to urbanistic discourse and human geographical scholarship. Though suburbanization is a global phenomenon and suburbs have a much longer history, the vast scale and explosive pace of suburban development after the Second World War has a powerful influence on how “suburb” and “suburban” are represented and understood. One powerful socio-spatial imaginary is evident in discourses on planning and politics in Toronto: the city-suburb or urban-suburban divide. An important contribution of this dissertation is to trace out how the city-suburban divide and meanings attached to “city” and “suburb” have been integral to the planning and politics that have shaped and continue to shape Scarborough and Toronto. The research employs an investigative approach influenced by Michel Foucault’s critical and effective histories and Bent Flyvbjerg’s methodological guidelines for phronetic social science. To do this, the analysis provided draws principally from archival materials, newspapers, plans and policy documents, and interviews to reveal how socio- ii spatial landscapes were made and remade both in thought and practice. In this regard, Henri Lefebvre’s theoretical ruminations on the production of space are also important. Even where not made explicit, the making and remaking of the spaces discussed reveal the near constant work of “the conceived” to intervene in and reorder “the lived”. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of how we might ask new and different questions about past and current rounds of city-building, so that good and just places to live are made more possible. iii Dedication To my parents, whose choice to move to the outer edge of Metro Vancouver in the 1970s in search of housing they liked and could afford resulted in me being a child of the suburbs. They made a life for us “out there”. For better or worse. iv Acknowledgements This dissertation was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSRHC) doctoral fellowship and an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, as well as by scholarships and teaching work over the course of my studies in the Department of Geography at York University. In other ways many people have contributed to the research contained in this dissertation and to the scholarly endeavor it represents. First and foremost, I must acknowledge a profound debt of gratitude to my PhD supervisor Professor Ranu Basu. She listened, discussed, advised, cajoled, and most importantly never doubted that I was going somewhere interesting and worthwhile with my work. When I was stuck she knew that a trip to Scarborough for food and conversation was the solution. This dissertation “got done” as much because of her encouragement and insistence that it was worth completing as my tenacity and inability to stop. I must also thank Professors Valerie Preston and Doug Young who kindly agreed to serve on my supervisory committee early in my PhD studies. They offered strategic feedback and advice when this project was in its formative stages and reviewed the dissertation in its later stages. Each in their own way contributed to the final product being a stronger and more readable document. v Timing and circumstance allowed me to work at the City Institute as a research assistant during its formative years. Professor Roger Keil, who served as its director at that time, is a generous scholar and someone I feel very fortunate to have crossed-paths with during my time at York. While pursuing your studies and research (if you are lucky) you gain some good friends along the way. You know who you are, and I am grateful we met. Keep in touch and continue being who you are. I would be remiss not to thank Ron and Verna Watson for their interest and assistance. They were kind enough to invite me to their home in Wishing Well on a number of occasions to visit and access Ron’s vast archive of Scarborough documents and memorabilia, much of it related to his multi-decade involvement in local politics, first as a school trustee, and then as an alderman/councillor. My conversations with Ron, including periodic phone calls over the years, helped me fill in blanks and begin to grasp what can only really be known by someone who was there. I am sure that I have missed many things Ron (and Verna) would consider vital to what really happened. I hope my work meets with their approval anyway. A special thank you is also owed to all the people who agreed to be interviewed as part of this research. They had no particular reason to agree to take time out of their lives to meet with me and share their recollections, insights, and thoughts. The end result is much stronger because they did. vi Finally, a dissertation is a long haul for the author, but at the end their name is affixed to the front. The same is only half-true for those nearest to them. My deepest thanks are reserved for Andrea. She has been my partner for the whole ride. She enabled, though did not always enjoy, my meanderings and bouts of absent mindedness as this project went from conception to completion. Along the way, Aly was born. Her life thus far has unfolded against the constant backdrop of her father’s “thesising”. Occasionally she lets that be known, including that a PhD takes a long time to finish. She is truly her mother’s daughter and the apple of my eye. And I see in her glimmers of her namesake now long departed, but not forgotten. My work is very much their work. It would not be the same without them. vii Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. ii Dedication ......................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... viii List of Tables ................................................................................................................... xii List of Figures ................................................................................................................. xiii List of Images ................................................................................................................. xiv Foreword .......................................................................................................................... xv Chapter 1: Introducing Toronto’s New Urban Middle ................................................. 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 The Research Problematic I ............................................................................................ 3 The Research Problematic II ........................................................................................... 6 The Suburban Question ................................................................................................. 10 Defining Suburbs .......................................................................................................... 15 Divvying Up Metropolitan Space ................................................................................. 18 Plan of Dissertation ....................................................................................................... 22 Outline of Chapters ....................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 2: Learning from Historical Geographies of North American Suburbs and Suburbanization .............................................................................................................. 27 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 27 Locating the Postwar Suburb in History ....................................................................... 33 Suburbia for the “Favored Minority” ........................................................................ 34 The Suburban Cliché................................................................................................. 36 Making Social and Economic “Diversity” on the Fringe ............................................. 39 Industrial Suburbanization ........................................................................................ 40 Modest Suburbia: Streetcar Suburbs, Self-Built Suburbs, Sitcom Suburbs ............. 44 viii Suburbs at the Intersection of Race and Class .............................................................