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Toronto’s Quayside waterfront regeneration project has become an international reference point for the burgeoning debate about the scope and limits of the digitally enabled ‘smart city’ narrative. The project signals the entry of a Google affiliate into the realm of ‘smart urbanism’ in the most dramatic fashion imaginable, by allowing them to potentially realise their long-running dream for “someone to give us a city and put us in charge.” This article aims to understand this on-going ‘smart city’ experiment through an exploration of the ways in which ‘techno-centric’ narratives and proposed ‘disruptive’ urban innovations are being contested by the city’s civic society. To do this, the article traces the origins and evolution of the partnership between Waterfront Toronto and Sidewalk Labs and identifies the key issues that have exercised local critics of the plan, including the public/private balance of power, governance, and the planning process. Despite more citizen-centric efforts, there remains a need for appropriate advocates to protect and promote the wider public interest to moderate the tensions that exist between techno-centric and citizen-centric dimensions of smart cities.

" The creation-exhibit Le corps en question(s) / The Body in Question(s) premiered at the Festival TransAmériques (Montréal, Canada) in May 2012. " -- Page 9.

Architectural plans for the Sahara Hotel Convention Center from 1966. Printed on mylar. Berton Charles Severson, architect; Brian Walter Webb, architect.

Preliminary parking structure plans for the Sahara Hotel Convention Center from 1966. Printed on mylar. Berton Charles Severson, architect; Brian Walter Webb, architect; Fred D. Anderson, delineator.

In many rural areas of Wales there are particular issues facing local communities in seeking to increase the supply of affordable housing, as well as in terms of housing's role in supporting the longer-term sustainability of smaller rural settlements. Local planning policies are critical in this respect, but so is an understanding of issues around the economics of housing on rural exceptions sites and assessing development viability. Planning Policy Wales provides a means of identifying affordable housing exception sites, defined as small sites, located within or adjoining existing settlements, to provide affordable housing to meet local needs. These sites are ‘exceptions’ and would not otherwise be allocated in a development plan. Through a policy review of Local Development Plans, the use of a survey of Local Planning Authorities in Wales, a series of national stakeholder interviews, and documentary analysis of key case studies, this research explores how widely rural exception site policy is used across Wales, it’s effectiveness, variation in use and interpretation, as well as how similar policies are used in other parts of the UK. In doing so the research identifies best practice in the use of rural exception site policy and develops a series of recommendations for improvement.

This thesis discusses the governmental institutional dynamics that structure the formulation and coordination of spatial policy within the federal Canadian intergovernmental system and presents methods to improve it. The research utilises the three traditions of new institutionalism - historical, rational choice and sociological - to develop a crosscutting assessment of intergovernmental spatial policy coordination. An embedded case study approach is then used to discuss intergovernmental spatial policy coordination between the governments of Canada, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.Research findings highlight the uniqueness of the institutional environments that exist within each government, and to a lesser extent each department, which structure policymakers’ understandings of intergovernmental spatial policy coordination. Policymakers demonstrate a distinct awareness of spatial issues, but they are often constrained in their ability formally to articulate this in the development of public policy, particularly in relation to intergovernmental interactions. The decentralised federal nature of Canada is shown to be a highly influential reason for this, with issues of history, equity, politics and strong regional government cultures playing important roles in impeding intergovernmental spatial policy coordination.The thesis explores these constraints, discussing how both formal and informal institutional structures interact to discourage the use of spatial policy, and discusses the ways in which intergovernmental spatial policy coordination could be enhanced in the specific context of Canada. The institutional framework developed in this research is shown to be a useful method for conceptualising the competing federal principles of unity and diversity in the study of intergovernmental spatial policy coordination. Ultimately this thesis argues that while intergovernmental spatial policy coordination is poorly developed in Canada, policymaker awareness of spa

This thesis discusses the governmental institutional dynamics that structure the formulation and coordination of spatial policy within the federal Canadian intergovernmental system and presents methods to improve it. The research utilises the three traditions of new institutionalism - historical, rational choice and sociological - to develop a crosscutting assessment of intergovernmental spatial policy coordination. An embedded case study approach is then used to discuss intergovernmental spatial policy coordination between the governments of Canada, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.Research findings highlight the uniqueness of the institutional environments that exist within each government, and to a lesser extent each department, which structure policymakers’ understandings of intergovernmental spatial policy coordination. Policymakers demonstrate a distinct awareness of spatial issues, but they are often constrained in their ability formally to articulate this in the development of public policy, particularly in relation to intergovernmental interactions. The decentralised federal nature of Canada is shown to be a highly influential reason for this, with issues of history, equity, politics and strong regional government cultures playing important roles in impeding intergovernmental spatial policy coordination.The thesis explores these constraints, discussing how both formal and informal institutional structures interact to discourage the use of spatial policy, and discusses the ways in which intergovernmental spatial policy coordination could be enhanced in the specific context of Canada. The institutional framework developed in this research is shown to be a useful method for conceptualising the competing federal principles of unity and diversity in the study of intergovernmental spatial policy coordination. Ultimately this thesis argues that while intergovernmental spatial policy coordination is poorly developed in Canada, policymaker awareness of spa