The Right to the City in Windsor, ON
Standing
Undergraduate
Type of Proposal
Oral Research Presentation
Challenges Theme
Open Challenge
Faculty Sponsor
Dr. Jamey Essex
Proposal
Cities are not merely economic networks and spaces for production. Being the sites of day-to-day experiences, affective interactions, and exchanges, cities constitute the basis of political and social relations. People rely on places to promote change and convey new meanings. Emotions experienced during encounters in the lived space afford individuals and groups the agency to challenge patterns and routine expressions of socio-spatial alienation and build sense of place, community, and belonging. By changing the built environment, people change the affective and physical landscapes of their cities and propose alternative relations of power. However, cities have also emerged as primary spaces for surplus accumulation subordinating development to the dictates of financial flows, considerations of competitiveness, and the logic of capitalist market relations. This neoliberal urbanism interferes with people’s collective capacity to negotiate their sense of belonging in the city and contest alienating conditions of everyday life. By privatizing public space for the needs of market, neoliberal urbanism challenges individuals’ right to define and transform their lived space. Using Windsor, ON as a case study, this research analyzes how neoliberal urbanism disrupts civic engagement through altering the built environment, changing people’s perceived ownership of the city, and affecting their ability to exercise informal powers over it. In exploring how the type of urbanization in the city influences social participation, this research also contributes existing democratization studies and expands the notion of citizenship rights. Canada’s democracy has been growing stronger, and attention to transformation in cities can become another element for advancing the country’s democratic development. A sustainable community that is representative of peoples of different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds can enhance participatory practices and further the democratic effort.
Grand Challenges
Viable, Healthy and Safe Communities
The Right to the City in Windsor, ON
Cities are not merely economic networks and spaces for production. Being the sites of day-to-day experiences, affective interactions, and exchanges, cities constitute the basis of political and social relations. People rely on places to promote change and convey new meanings. Emotions experienced during encounters in the lived space afford individuals and groups the agency to challenge patterns and routine expressions of socio-spatial alienation and build sense of place, community, and belonging. By changing the built environment, people change the affective and physical landscapes of their cities and propose alternative relations of power. However, cities have also emerged as primary spaces for surplus accumulation subordinating development to the dictates of financial flows, considerations of competitiveness, and the logic of capitalist market relations. This neoliberal urbanism interferes with people’s collective capacity to negotiate their sense of belonging in the city and contest alienating conditions of everyday life. By privatizing public space for the needs of market, neoliberal urbanism challenges individuals’ right to define and transform their lived space. Using Windsor, ON as a case study, this research analyzes how neoliberal urbanism disrupts civic engagement through altering the built environment, changing people’s perceived ownership of the city, and affecting their ability to exercise informal powers over it. In exploring how the type of urbanization in the city influences social participation, this research also contributes existing democratization studies and expands the notion of citizenship rights. Canada’s democracy has been growing stronger, and attention to transformation in cities can become another element for advancing the country’s democratic development. A sustainable community that is representative of peoples of different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds can enhance participatory practices and further the democratic effort.