THE CITY AND THE SPECTACLE: SOCIAL HOUSING, HOMELESSNESS, AND THE 2010 WINTER OLYMPIC GAMES by CAITLIN PENTIFALLO B.A., Middlebury College, 2009 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Kinesiology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) June 2015 © Caitlin Pentifallo, 2015 Abstract This dissertation consists of a critical examination of the City of Vancouver’s urban policies during a significant era of urban governance: the lead up to the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. To do so, I will create two embedded case studies: one, featuring the creation of a social housing legacy to be left in the Athletes’ Village in Southeast False Creek, and the other on the enforcement of policies affecting or alleviating homelessness in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. How social housing and homelessness came to be incorporated into the event’s objectives, how the discussions and deliberations around these issues proceeded, and how the 2010 Winter Olympic Games impacted the City of Vancouver’s policy making process in the years leading up to the start of the 2010 Games will all be explored in the chapters to follow. The methodological approach I applied provides insights on how policies, operationalized under the guise of preparing to host a sport mega-event, were able to alter the political and social trajectory of the City of Vancouver. Guided by the overarching theoretical framework offered by critical urban theory, I relied on critical policy studies and critical discourse analysis. By carefully tracing the origins, nature, and intent of these policies as they unfolded in various iterations between 2000 and 2013, it was my ambition to contribute to a broader understanding of how sport mega-events influence urban policies and social outcomes. The 2010 Games, once marketed as a socially inclusive event, instead brought an intense wave of punitive urban measures that functioned to criminalize homelessness. Instead of filling the rooms once occupied by Olympians with those in need of housing, the number of social housing units made available shrunk gradually over time, eventually dwindling to but a handful of units actually constituting social housing. In critically disassembling the policies that bore direct influence on social housing and homelessness, my findings demonstrate the ways in which policy-making processes are altered, abandoned, or exacerbated as the mega-event drew near. ii Preface A version of sections 5.1.1 – 5.2.3 has been published as Pentifallo, C. & VanWynsberge, R. (2015, in press). Mega-Event Impact Assessment and Policy Attribution: Embedded Case Study, Social Housing, and the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events. This work is based on findings that are published as Pentifallo, C. (2014). A case study approach to indicator-based impact assessment: The Olympic Games Impact (OGI) Study and the Vancouver Athletes’ Village in Contextual Perspective. Discussion Paper, IOC Postgraduate Research Grant. Olympic Studies Centre, Lausanne, Switzerland. Retrieved from http://doc.rero.ch/record/209525. In both works I was responsible for document collection, analysis, and findings. A version of sections 7.1 and 7.2 has been published. Pentifallo, C., & VanWynsberghe, R. (2014). ‘Leaving Las Megas’ or Can Sustainability Ever Be Social? Vancouver 2010 in Post-Political Perspective. In J. Grix (Ed.) Leveraging Legacies from Sports Mega-Events: Concepts and Cases, (pp. 73-86). London: Palgrave. I researched, drafted, and edited these portions of the published manuscript. iii Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................... ii Preface .................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures ....................................................................................................................... vii List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................................... viii Glossary of Housing Definitions .......................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. xii Dedication ............................................................................................................................. xiii 1 INTRODUCTION: THE CITY AND THE SPECTACLE ........................................................ 1 1.1 Research Questions ..................................................................................................................... 10 1.2 Theoretical Framework: Critical Urban Theory ......................................................................... 10 1.3 Dissertation Outline .................................................................................................................... 13 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................................... 23 2.1 Defining the Sport Mega-event in Contemporary Scholarship .................................................. 24 2.1.1 The Spectacularization of the Sport Mega-event .............................................................. 27 2.2 The Urban Politics of the Olympic Games ................................................................................. 32 2.2.1 Neoliberal Policy-Making and Sport Mega-Events .......................................................... 40 2.3 The Olympic Games and Urban (re)Development: Regeneration, Renewal, and Reconfiguration .......................................................................................................................... 46 2.3.1 Sport Mega-Events and Urban Development Policy ........................................................ 48 2.3.2 Urban Clearance: Mega-Event Policy and Social Control ................................................ 55 2.4 Sport Mega-Events and the Advent of the Postpolitical ............................................................. 66 3 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................... 71 3.1 On Case Study and Methodology ............................................................................................... 72 3.1.1 Critical Policy Studies ....................................................................................................... 78 3.1.2 Critical Discourse Analysis ............................................................................................... 80 3.2 On Method .................................................................................................................................. 87 3.2.1 Notes from the ‘Field’ ....................................................................................................... 87 3.2.2 Data Collection and Analysis: Process and Policies ......................................................... 90 iv 4 THE CITY AND THE SPECTACLE ................................................................................. 105 4.1 The City .................................................................................................................................... 105 4.1.1 Site, Space, and Social Intervention: An Empirical Introduction ................................... 105 4.1.2 Vancouver’s Affordable Housing and Mega-Event History ........................................... 109 4.2 The Spectacle ............................................................................................................................ 112 4.2.1 Legacy: The Empty Signifier .......................................................................................... 112 4.2.2 Sustainability: Language Games and Rhetorical Celebration ......................................... 117 5 SOCIAL HOUSING .......................................................................................................... 122 5.1 South East False Creek and the Demise of a Social Housing Legacy: Urban Planning Under Crisis ......................................................................................................................................... 122 5.1.1 Marketing a Promise: Vancouver 2010’s Bid Books ...................................................... 123 5.2 The Demise of a Social Housing Legacy: Policy and Practice ................................................. 127 5.2.1 Negotiating and Negating Social Housing: The Housing Table and Government Relations .......................................................................................................................... 128 5.2.2 Single Room Occupancy: Protecting Affordable Housing as Legacy ............................ 132 5.2.3 Financing Exceptionalism: Miscalculations and Missed Targets ................................... 136 6 HOMELESSNESS ...........................................................................................................