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There is growing attention across the social sciences to the mobility of people, products, and knowledge. This entails attempts to extend and/or rework existing understandings of global interconnections and is reflected in ongoing work on policy transfer—the process by which policy models are learned from one setting and deployed in others. This paper uses a case study of the development of an innovative approach to drug policy in Vancouver, British Columbia to deepen our understanding of what I call 'urban policy mobilities.' It details the often apparently mundane practices through which Vancouver's 'four-pillar' drug strategy—which combines prevention, treatment, enforcement, and harm reduction—was learned from cities outside North America and is now increasingly taught elsewhere. In doing so it draws on a neo-Foucauldian governmentality approach to emphasize the role of expertise (specialized knowledge held by many actors, not just credentialed professionals) and the deployment of certain powerful truths in the development of the policy. The paper concludes by discussing the spatialities of urban policy mobilities and raising questions about the political and conceptual importance of also maintaining a focus on the causes and consequences of policy immobilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Substantial efforts in housing and community development have been focussed onto the West Broadway neighbourhood of inner city Winnipeg in order to stem processes of decline. This paper focuses on the effects of housing work in which residential buildings have been purchased and / or renovated with the support of public or philanthropic resources. Beyond the upgrading of housing stock and the provision of improved quality accommodation, the impacts of such housing work are poorly understood. The paper seeks to document and interpret the relationship in space and time between supported housing work and improvement to the stock undertaken without support. It finds that in some cases in West Broadway, assisted housing work appears to have had a stabilizing influence on the local area and in others there are indications that private sector activity has concentrated near assisted interventions. Indications of gentrification pose particular tasks for community development workers and funding agencies in West Broadway and provide lessons for this work in other areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the example of the Saint-Roch district in Quebec City (Canada), this paper is an analysis of the rhetoric of urban discourse which for the last decade or so has driven and justified the revitalization project of older urban areas in North American cities. The goal here is to add from a cultural geography perspective to the understanding of this so-called new urbanism which seems to have great success in both practice and public opinion. This paper will firstly demonstrate that this discourse is built essentially as a self-criticism, since its fundamental principle is to recognize the failure of post World War II urbanism which favored the renewal of older urban areas through large scale demolition and systematic reconstruction. Next, this paper explains that on this basis a set of figures has emerged which have paradoxically been used to justify: (1) the protection of built heritage while at the same time allowing for innovative uses of this heritage; (2) the diversity of uses of urban heritage while at the same time actively excluding certain options; (3) the necessity for participatory urbanism while at the same time acknowledging the impossibility of including certain social categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The situation of Québec has always been considered unique amongst the 10 Canadian provinces and in the case of regional and urban planning there is no exception to this rule. Thus, in 1979, Québec was the last province to adopt a planning law after 20 years of previous attempts. Québec is often portrayed as a special case. It is too easy to explain the situation in Québec by making reference to its particular cultural context, to the detriment of other equally important factors such as the historical context, class relationships and political control over planning. The paper emphasizes on specific conditions within which social relationships are established and to underline the ongoing dialectic which brings together national and international trends, on the one hand and on the other, the internal dynamics of a society, the aim being to set out the conditions within which social practices and policies occur. Changes in Québec society from 1950-60 occurred within narrow limits circumscribed by the state. Following a Keynasian approach, the central state took responsibility for economic development and division of powers of intervention amongst institutions involving sharing out of spheres of influence between local and national factions of the bourgeoisie. Urban planning did not escape this trend leading to a vertical distribution of government responsibilities.

Unlike virtually all other old immigrant enclaves in North American cities, the historic downtown Chinatowns of big cities in the United States and Canada largely survive, though not for lack of plans to destroy them. City Beautiful era plans, development projects, and other public and private interventions displaced or sought to eradicate Chinatowns, from Los Angeles to Victoria to Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. Urban renewal era projects destroyed large portions of many Chinatowns, and some entirely. This article traces these broad patterns and trends of planned and realized destruction and preservation across 15 of the major cities in twentieth-century Canada and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an impressive international career, the German city planner Hans Blumenfeld remains largely unknown. In The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal, Christopher Klemek depicts him as an apologist of authoritarian and technocratic urban renewal. This statement is puzzling because many post-war planners saw him as a humble left-wing progressive. Drawing from a close analysis of the writings and actions of Blumenfeld, in particular his work in Canada, this article shows that he was far from being an uncritical apologist of urban renewal in North America. He was always very sceptical but, as opposed to Jane Jacobs, he did not think that modernist urban planning had it all wrong. He always thought that progress came not only from citizens' participation, but also principally from science and expertise. For that reason, Blumenfeld tried, on the one hand, to transform the language of city planning to answer criticism from citizens and activists, and, on the other, to retain the expertise to proceed from plan-making to a communication-process, as some professionals were beginning to advocate at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In 1943, after Japanese Canadians were uprooted from coastal British Columbia, federal officials commenced selling all of their property without consent. This article argues that the dispossession of Japanese-Canadian-owned property has an urban history that has been largely overlooked, as arguments for the dispossession emerged from the Vancouver municipal government, which focused federal attention on the historic Japanese-Canadian neighborhood in the city. Federal officials seized upon the condition of a small number of deteriorating “slum” properties as a justification of wholesale dispossession. An initiative town planners in Vancouver thus helped to motivate the wholesale dispossession of Japanese Canadians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 2006, researchers surveyed Canadian “new urbanism” projects by reviewing literature and websites, examining municipal and government documentation, and contacting local authorities. The study found that many of the projects that began as “new urbanist” changed during development, eventually becoming more conventional in character. Only one development project reached build-out as a complete new urbanism community by its targeted date. Although new urbanism principles are increasingly integrated into planning principles across Canada, full-fledged new urbanism developments prove surprisingly rare in the market. The survey indicated that new urbanism projects cluster in particular parts of the country: generally the areas growing most quickly around Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary. New urbanism communities have been successful in achieving a mix of housing types, high design standards, attractive open space systems, and a walkable environment. They have had less success in establishing viable commercial districts, increasing urban densities, providing affordable housing, or reducing reliance on automobiles. While new urbanism and smart growth principles are affecting planning ideology, development practice may prove resistant to transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]