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VALUING LAND: WELFARE STATE DISINVESTMENT, INCLUSIONARY ZONING, AND JUSTICE by KATHLEEN PIOVESAN A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of Anthropology and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Anthropology June 2019 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Kathleen Piovesan Title: Valuing Land: Welfare State Disinvestment, Inclusionary Zoning, and Justice This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Anthropology degree in the Department of Anthropology by: Lynn Stephen Advisor Stephen Dueppen Core Member Bharat Venkat Core Member Raoul Lievanos Institutional Representative and Janet Woodruff-Borden Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2019 ii © 2019 Kathleen Piovesan This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs License. iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Kathleen Piovesan Doctor of Anthropology Department of Anthropology June 2019 Title: Valuing Land: Welfare State Disinvestment, Inclusionary Zoning, and Justice This research asks what happens when the measures that will provide needed housing to the poor are also those that will displace other precariously housed people and disrupt valued social relations in neighbourhoods. To answer this question, it examines political and economic shifts in the welfare state, urban scale, and urban land use, through the lens of an inclusionary zoning land use policy in Vancouver, Canada. This policy trades additional land development rights to real estate developers in exchange for funds for public amenities, increasingly social or low-income housing. Based on sixteen months of ethnographic research in three neighbourhoods in Vancouver, this project finds that the land use policy in question has contradictory results. The policy produces small amounts of new low-income housing units in a time of diminished public funding. Yet, it also produces large condominium developments that contribute to speculation in the land and housing market, rising land values and rent rates, displacement of homes and communities, urban inequality, and urban conflict. This project argues that disinvestment measures have resulted in a rescaling of the city as an arena of welfare state funding enacted by assembling land for investment and development. Further, it argues that while urban residents articulate alternative, often iv non-market, understandings of the value of land and place, the effect of these articulations is impeded by new state forms that rely on private capital. Throughout I examine the work of land use planning in assembling urban land into an investable commodity despite its existing uses. This work leads to conflicts between residents, real estate developers, non-profit housing agencies, and city government over competing conceptions of the value of land and place. As neighbourhoods change through new land investments, residents’ place making activities are overwhelmed, particularly those of residents who experience race and class inequality. In addition, since this policy implicates social housing providers in the gentrification of neighbourhoods, it also contributes to resident distrust of the remaining institutions of the welfare state, potentially undermining collective action toward more robust public services. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Kathleen Piovesan GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Simon Fraser University, Vancouver University of Victoria, Victoria DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, Anthropology, 2019, University of Oregon Master of Arts, Anthropology, 2008, Simon Fraser University Bachelor of Arts, Pacific and Asian Studies, 2002, University of Victoria GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Dissertation Research Fellowship, University of Oregon, 2017 Doctoral Award, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2012-2016 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express appreciation to my two advisors on this project. Dr. Sandra Morgen welcomed me to the University of Oregon campus, advocated for my admission, and supported me through the first phases. Dr. Lynn Stephen generously and without hesitation took over this advising role upon Sandi’s passing, providing guidance through the last phases of research, analysis, and writing. My two advisors both provided invaluable advice, criticism, and support without which this project would not have come to completion. Members of my committee have provided invaluable advice, not only in their responses to this research, but in moving forward into the professional world of research and teaching. Thank you to Dr. Stephen Dueppen, Dr. Bharat Venkat, and Dr. Raoul Lievanos. Of course, many people outside the university were involved in contributing to the success of this research. Specifically, the many people who offered me interviews and documents, who told me of their experiences, and who invited me in to their groups and meetings. Primarily, this gratitude goes to the members of the No Tower Coalition, who welcomed me immediately and were a fundamental source of understanding of the process and politics of fighting city hall. Finally, many people in my life supported me personally throughout this long PhD process. To my family and my friends, your encouragement bolstered my ego, provided comfort, gave me energy, and honed my capacities. Thank you. This research was supported in part by a University of Oregon Dissertation Research Fellowship and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of vii Canada. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION: VALUING LAND.................................................................... 1 Context, Significance and Key Arguments ............................................................ 1 Background Literature ........................................................................................... 6 Downloading, Condominiums, and The Boffo/Kettle Development Proposal ..... 14 Pushing Back Against Scaling Down: The No Tower Opposition Campaign ...... 20 Methods.................................................................................................................. 30 Contributions.......................................................................................................... 34 Limitations of the Study......................................................................................... 39 Chapter Outline ...................................................................................................... 41 II. COMMUNITY AMENITY CONTRIBUTIONS IN POLITICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT: NEOLIBERALIZATION, GLOBALIZATION, AND SCALE ........ 44 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 44 Overview of Policy and Practice of CACs Over Time .......................................... 47 Neoliberalization, Disinvestment, and Scale ......................................................... 54 Inequality and Polarization in Vancouver.............................................................. 69 Urban Growth and Uneven Impacts: Vancouver in Larger Context ..................... 74 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 81 III. CACS IN PRACTICE: NEGOTIATING AND DEBATING THE VALUE OF URBAN LAND ..................................................................................................... 83 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 83 CAC Negotiations: Practice and Context .............................................................. 85 ix Chapter Page Debate at Council ................................................................................................... 94 Breaking Even ........................................................................................................ 99 Alternative Versions of “Land Value” and “Breaking Even” ............................... 104 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 108 IV. RENDERING LAND INVESTABLE: THE ROLE OF CACS AND NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING IN ASSEMBLING THE INVESTMENT POTENTIAL OF LAND ....................................................................................... 110 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 110 The Grandview Woodland Neighbourhood Plan Process and Context ................. 113 Rendering Land Investable in Grandview Woodland ............................................ 122 Displacement Fears and Displacement Goals in the Neighbourhood Plan............ 134 Planning Processes at Joyce Station and in Chinatown ......................................... 145 Discourses of Obsolescence ................................................................................... 154 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 160 V. RECLAIMING PLACE: DISCOURSES OF NEIGHBOURHOOD CHARACTER AND VALUED NEIGHBOURHOOD RELATIONS ........................................... 163 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 163 No Tower

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