Marcy Burchfield
Neptis Foundation

“Rethinking Suburban Sprawl: Is planning policy leading or following the market? Lessons from a 20 year-analysis of urban growth patterns in four Canadian cities.”

Marcy Burchfield (MSc) is the Executive Director of the Neptis Foundation, a Canadian independent and charitable foundation that funds and conducts nonpartisan research on Canadian urban regions. For the last 15 years, she has applied her graduate studies in spatial analysis and remote sensing to developing innovative techniques for studying growth and change in Canadian cities

Friday December 5, 2014

12:30 - 2:00 pm
Room 519 Kaneff Tower
91��ɫ

Everyone is Welcome!

The post City Seminar: Rethinking Suburban Sprawl, by Marcy Burchfield appeared first on The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY).

Below are some photos from the event as well as a description with bios of the panelists.

The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY) presents:

How has the 2014 Toronto municipal election affected residents of the inner suburbs, such as Etobicoke North, Scarborough and North 91��ɫ, who face growing socio-economic inequalities and a lack of public transit? A panel of academics, community activists and emerging politicians will discuss the dynamics, as well as the steps, that could lead to a more socially just city.

Despite the inequalities of the inner suburbs, conservative politicians and their politics remain ascendant in these communities and in most of the city. Former candidates will share their recent experiences running for office, including the interesting challenges of building local coalitions and of articulating credible progressive and left alternatives, while confronting mainstream policies and discourses that emphasize austerity.

“2014 Toronto Election: Implications for Politics & Social Justice in the Inner Suburbs” will take place Monday, Dec. 1, from 3:30 to 5:30pm, at 280N 91��ɫ Lanes, Keele campus. The panel discussion is presented by The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY). Everyone is welcome to attend. The meeting will be chaired by Jane Farrow.

Monday December 1, 2014

3:30pm-5:30pm
Room 280N, 91��ɫ Lanes
91��ɫ

• Jane Farrow (Moderator) 2014 Candidate for City Councillor in Ward 30 Toronto-Danforth
• Paul Bocking 2014 Candidate for City Councillor in Ward 35 Scarborough & PhD Candidate, Geography, 91��ɫ
• Munira Abukar 2014 Candidate for City Councillor in Ward 2 Etobicoke North
• Amarjeet Chhabra 2014 Candidate for City Councillor in Ward 44 Scarborough East
• Professor Stefan Kipfer Environmental Studies, 91��ɫ
• Professor Roger Keil Environmental Studies, 91��ɫ
• Parastou Saberi PhD Candidate, Environmental Studies, 91��ɫ
• Nigel Barriffe Elementary Teacher & Community Activist in Rexdale, Etobicoke North NDP Candidate in 2014 Ontario Election

Welcome to all!

Jane Farrow
Jane ran for the Toronto City Council in Ward 30 Toronto-Danforth in the 2014 municipal election. Jane Farrow’s career highlights include stints as CBC Radio One host and producer, best-selling author, executive assistant at City Hall and dynamic emcee and moderator. She was the first executive director of Jane’s Walk, a dynamic non-profit organization based in Toronto engaged in walkability initiatives that celebrate the ideas of urbanist Jane Jacobs. The Toronto Community Foundation recognized Jane's contribution to urban resiliency with a Vital People Award in 2010 and in 2014 she was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement LGBTQ Inspire Award. She was an advisor to World Pride Human Rights Conference and sits on the External Advisory Board at 91��ɫ’s City Institute (photo credit: janefarrow.ca).

The following is a list of the speakers:

Munira Abukar
Munira ran for Toronto City Councillor in Ward 2 (Etobicoke North). Her aim is to restore integrity and accountability back into municipal affairs. Munira is also a student at Ryerson University (photo credit: muniraabukar.ca)

Nigel Barriffe
In the 2014 provincial election, Nigel Bariffe finished second for the NDP in Etobicoke North, beating the conservatives in that riding for the first time in nearly 20 years. A community organizer and an elementary teacher with the Toronto District School Board in Rexdale, Barriffe is co-chair of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto Political Action Committee, Board Chair for Educational Attainment West, and a board member of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations and the Rexdale Community Legal Clinic. He is also treasurer for the Ontario Alliance of Black School Educators and is a former co-chair of the African Heritage Educator’s Network. His work has won him the 2011 Urban Heroes Award and the 2012 JS Woordsworth Award.

Paul Bocking
Paul Bocking was a first time candidate in the 2014 Toronto election for city councillor in Ward 35 Scarborough Southwest. His platform included increased TTC funding to freeze fares and improve service, opposing contracting out and offering more employment training, after school children’s programs, better rental housing conditions and local participatory democracy. He will be sharing some of his experiences from the campaign and observations on local politics. Bocking is also in the third year of his PhD in Geography at 91��ɫ. His research interests focus on labour movements, education policy and political economy in Canada, Mexico and the United States. He has worked for several years as an adult educator and as a high school teacher of English, Geography and History with the Toronto District School Board.

Amarjeet Chhabra
Amarjeet Chhabra was a city council candidate for Ward 44, Scarborough East. She has contributed her considerable organizational talents to The Canadian Cancer Society, Council of Agencies serving South Asians, Equal Voice, The Canadian National Exhibition Association, a housing co-op Board, Community Volunteer Income Tax Program for young people sponsored by The Canada Revenue Agency and a Community Voter Project in New Haven, Connecticut. She has also worked on campaigns in Vancouver, British Columbia, Boston, Massachusetts and Anchorage, Alaska. She has worked with decision makers at City Hall on development projects and with a Scarborough East School Trustee on a civic engagement program for students. She also spent six years representing workers in the hotel and hospitality industry. Amarjeet was recognized by City Idol, a grassroots program that promoted new potential candidates with fresh ideas and a passion for community building (photo credit: electchhabra.ca).

Keegan Henry-Mathieu
27 year old Keegan Henry-Mathieu began his involvement in civic affairs at the age of 16 when he joined the Toronto Youth Cabinet where he served for almost 10 years in numerous executive positions and eventually was elected as co-chair. Keegan travelled the city helping to connect communities to the decisions being made at city hall while challenging City Hall to do more to engage communities on policies that affect their neighborhoods and individual lives. During that time he also helped build the foundations of the Black Youth Coalition against Violence through his position as treasurer; served on the Toronto Police Services Board Advisory Panel on Community Safety; Served on the CNEA board; and played a role in organizing the first election of Youth Tenant Reps at the TCHC. At the age of 26, Keegan ran unsuccessfully for Toronto City Council. Today he works in the private sector in Communications for the Royal Bank of Canada (photo credit: keeganhm.com).

Roger Keil
Roger Keil researches global suburbanisms, urban political ecology, cities and infectious disease, and regional governance. Among his recent publications are the forthcoming Suburban Governance: A Global View (ed. with Pierre Hamel; University of Toronto Press, 2015), Suburban Constellations (Jovis, 2013) The Global Cities Reader (ed. with Neil Brenner; Routledge, 2006); Networked Disease: Emerging Infections and the Global City (ed. with S.Harris Ali; Wiley-Blackwell, 2008); and Changing Toronto: Governing the Neoliberal City (with Julie-Anne Boudreau and Douglas Young; UTP 2009). Keil is a co-founder of the International Network for Urban Research and Action and previous director of the City Institute. He is also the principal investigator of the MCRI project on Global Suburbanisms at CITY (2010-17).

Stefan Kipfer
Stefan Kipfer teaches in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at 91��ɫ. His research interests range from social theory to comparative urban politics. He has been analyzing the role of new right populism in the production of space in Toronto since the mid-1990s.

Parastou Saberi
Parastou Saberi holds a B.Arch and M.Arch, as well as an M.A. in Sociology. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at 91��ɫ and a contract faculty in the Department of Geography at Trent University. Her doctoral dissertation examines the politics of place-based policies of urban development and policing in Toronto’s postwar suburbs. Alongside her doctoral research, she is also immersed in excavating the interconnection between pacification and (colonial) urbanism, as well as the relations between urban politics and right-wing populism.

The post 2014 Toronto Election: Implications for Politics & Social Justice in the Inner Suburbs appeared first on The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY).

“Place Matters: Mapping Iranian Women in Tehran’s
public spaces using qualitative GIS”

Dr. Nazgol Begheri
Department of Political Science and Geography,
The University of Texas at San Antonio
Trained as an architect and urban planner, Dr. Bagheri is interested in working closely with residents, community activists, and artists to better understand the correlations between design, human behaviors, and cultural differences. Her current work connects three complimentary areas: feminist politics, urban design, and the social production of space. Dr. Bagheri applies empowering and innovative approaches such as Geo-Ethnography and Qualitative Geographic Information Systems (QGIS) that often makes the invisible visible. She is committed to challenge as well as enrich the Anglo-American hegemonic geographical theories through studying the people whose stories are often unheard including women and other minorities. She enjoys international collaborative projects; currently she is working on a project about the status of feminist geographic research and teaching in Iranian universities with colleagues in Tehran as well as an interdisciplinary project about Japanese women’s spatial movement in Tokyo.

The post Audio: Dr. Nazgol Bagheri on Mapping Women's Space in Tehran appeared first on The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY).

Read the article

The post Next City on North American Suburbs appeared first on The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY).

Planetary Urbanization: Cities, Heartlands and Home

Tuesday, November 4
14:30 to 16:30,
Verney Room, South Ross 674
91��ɫ

Reception to follow.

Focusing on feminist theories, methods, and politics, this roundtable examines
possibilities and pitfalls of “planetary urbanization” as a presumed reality
and analytical lens.

Many herald planetary urbanization as a landmark theoretical frame for
understanding contemporary politics as inescapably about “urban society.” Some
suggest harnessing scholarly and political energy toward urban society by
abandoning both “the city” as a unit of scholarly inquiry and “the right to the
city” as a political aspiration. However, cities, as well as myriads of other
local milieus, such as the heartland, home, family, and body, have been
integral to feminist theorizations of politics and power. They have been
platforms for feminist political action.

Drawing upon examples from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, this panel
will address the following inter-related questions:

1. Where, if anywhere, is there space for feminist theories, methods and
politics on the planetary urbanization landscape?

2. Does a focus on planetary urbanization subsume, erase, or realign feminist
concerns?

3. Will the planetary urbanization lens limit or offer new pathways for feminist
thought, research, and action?

4. Can the terrain of planetary urbanization launch new waves of feminist
engagement, and, if so, in what ways, to what ends, and by what means?

CHAIR

Ms. Vanesa Tomasino-Rodriguez
Department of Political Science doctoral student
91��ɫ

PRESENTERS

Dr. Nazgol Bagheri
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Geography
University of Texas, San Antonio

Mr. Karl Gardner
Department of Political Science doctoral student
91��ɫ

Dr. Laam Hae
Associate Professor of Department Political Science
91��ɫ

Dr. Roger Keil
Professor of Environmental Studies
91��ɫ

Dr. Faranak Miraftab
Professor of Urban and Regional Planning
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Ms. Jess Parish
Department of Political Science doctoral candidate
91��ɫ

This event has been made possible with the generous support of the Faculty of
Liberal Arts and Professional Studies and the Office of the Provost; as well as
the European Union, Jean Monnet Programme (incoming Jean Monnet Chair, Dr.
Heather MacRae); The City Institute; the School of Gender, Sexuality and
Women’s Studies; Department of Geography; Department of Political Science; and,
the Department of Social Science. Special thanks to Trudeau Fellow Professor
Isabella Bakker and the students in the Doctoral Core Course in Women and
Politics for sharing classroom time and space for this event.

For more information, please contact
Karen Murray, Associate Professor,
Department of Political Science,
at , ext. 30087

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The post CITY Seminar: Mapping Iranian Women in Tehran’s public spaces (Nov 4) appeared first on The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY).

Roger Keil, a 91��ɫ political science professor who co-authored an in-depth study of how SARS affected Toronto as a city, says he sees some parallels with the new threat, most specifically, how it, too, has emerged from a region of the world that North Americans don’t spend much time thinking about…. He sees the same fervent faith – Keil terms it “hubris” – being expressed about the superiority of Western medicine and technology…. “Ebola is the scariest infectious disease that one can imagine. It really has Biblical plague connotations,” said Keil in �Ѳ������𲹲�’s Oct. 16

Read the full article

The post Roger Keil on Ebola in Maclean's Magazine appeared first on The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY).

Friday, 24 October 2014
Vari Lecture Hall C
3:00 p.m.

The 91��ɫ Geography Distinguished Alumni Speaker Series, in conjunction with the Canadian Association of Geographers - Ontario Division and the City Institute, present "Massive Convergence," a talk by City of Toronto Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat.

Jennifer is a graduate of Western University, and has a Master's of Environmental Studies (politics and planning) from 91��ɫ. She debuted her first TED talk in 2012, "Walk to School," followed by��the 2013 talk "Own Your City."

To see the event poster click here

The post Event: Massive Convergence with Jennifer Keesmaat appeared first on The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY).

The post Event Series: Celebrating Feminist Interdisciplinary Urban Research appeared first on The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY).

Wednesday November 5, 2014
2:00 to 4:00 pm
Room 749, Kaneff Tower

Crossing disciplinary��boundaries, including feminist and transnational studies, Professor Bagheri's work focuses on��Iranian women’s presence and preferences in Tehran public spaces and challenges the predominant western critiques of modern, semi-private public spaces in Anglo-American contexts. Adapting a feminist mixed-methods approach, her work presents an example of geo-ethnography, borrowing methods from geography, anthropology, and urban design disciplines.

For more details about Nazgol Bagheri’s research

If you are interested in attending the graduate student session on November 5, please RSVP to Leeann Bennett (leeannt@yorku.ca) by Friday October 31 at 4:30 pm.

The post Graduate Student Session with Professor Nazgol Bagheri (Nov 5) appeared first on The City Institute at 91��ɫ (CITY).