CiTR -- The City

Has it been a lack of neighbourhood consultation or simply a case of the NIMBY syndrome in Vancouver?s eastside? Or perhaps a bit of both? Is fear and misinformation framing the conversation about supportive housing? On the program, we look at the concerns and politics around the planned 95 units of transitional housing in Mount Pleasant?s former Biltmore Hotel. How significant are the locational conflicts over low-income housing and harm reduction for Vancouver and the region more generally? And how does this help or harm efforts to build more socially inclusive neighbourhoods and socially just cities?

We hear about the homelessness and harm reduction situation in Abbotsford, BC and an alternative housing model in Portland, Oregon. In 2005, the City of Abbotsford passed a bylaw effectively banning harm reduction services, and in summer of 2013, the City dumped manure on a homeless encampment in an attempt to force them out of the area. Pivot Legal Society's DJ Larkin speaks about legal challenges against the City of Abbotsford that are currently in the courts. Finally, we from Lisa Larson about Dignity Village -- an alternative housing model for homeless people in Portland, Oregon.

On the podcast, we look back at the year of critical urban discussions on topics including transportation, neighbourhood change, the environment, social movements, feminism, and labour.

On the podcast, we look back at the year of critical urban discussions on topics including transportation, neighbourhood change, the environment, social movements, feminism, and labour.

On the podcast, we look back at the year of critical urban discussions on topics including transportation, neighbourhood change, the environment, and labour.

Using the storied San Francisco waterfront as a case study, Jasper Rubin (San Francisco State University) examines the reflexive relationship that gentrification creates between the waterfront and the city.

Recorded in November 2013 as part of the SFU Urban Studies Gentrification and the City Speaker Series.

What does it mean to say that cities like Vancouver have taken a ?neoliberal? turn, embracing market-oriented policies while paying little more than lip service to questions of social welfare, affordability, and environmental sustainability? Does the embrace of ?creativity? really hold the promise of an alternative path, or does it threaten more of the same? Exploring these questions, Jamie Peck will chart the rise of the neoliberal city, calling attention to its mutations, its limits, and to its alternatives.

Jamie Peck is Canada Research Chair in Urban & Regional Political Economy and Professor of Geography at UBC. An economic geographer with interests in labour studies, urban theory, and the politics of globalization, his publications include Constructions of Neoliberal Reason and the co-edited collection, Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers.

This talk is part of the Spaces of Contestation: Art, Activism and the City Speaker Series, part of the project Collective Walks ? Spaces of Contestation, curated by Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte, and was recorded on November 12, 2013 in Vancouver.

Failed efforts at the international, national and sub-national levels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have prompted some city governments to set their own greenhouse gas targets and implement policies in pursuit of these. But how can we determine the effectiveness of these policies? Are urban climate strategies just hype or potentially a significant answer to these challenges? We hear from SFU School of Resource and Environmental Management professor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Mark Jaccard on the podcast.

Jackie Wong discusses her recent series, Generation Rent: Two Cities, Two Directions, recently published by The Tyee. We talk about the differences and similarities between Vancouver and San Francisco ? and we specifically explore how political attitudes towards renting and renters can shape cities in profound ways. What are the differences between these two west coast cities? And what might we learn from our southern neighbour?

Does the growth of service sector jobs in North American cities imply greater urban inequality? What are the implications of deteriorating job quality in our cities? How can organizers, workers, and policymakers challenge the degradation of work? On the podcast, Marc Doussard discusses his recent book, Degraded Work: The Struggle at the Bottom of the Labour Market, which is based on extensive field research in Chicago.

His 2013 book details the deteriorating conditions of employment in local-serving industries immunized against international competition. The book builds on a long-term engagement with regional economic development, and challenges the assumption that low pay and poor working conditions are intrinsic characteristics of service-sector jobs. Marc Doussard is assistant professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.