For better or worse, [the city] invites you to remake it, to consolidate it into a shape you can live in ... Decide who you are, and the city will again assume a fixed form round you. Decide what it is, and your own identity will be revealed, like a position on a map fixed by triangulation. (Raban, 1974, 1–2)
In early 2009, a Toronto Star headline proclaimed “Toronto a Suburb? It's Begun” (Lu, 2009). Prompted by an economic “scorecard” issued by the Toronto Board of Trade (2009), the article re-presents the board’s conclusion that a role reversal is underway— i.e., “downtown is the magnet for living, while the surrounding municipalities form the more powerful economic engine.” Representing the centre as a suburb of the periphery is provocative. But does a widening divide in economic performance (especially in terms of employment growth, income growth, and productivity) between the City of Toronto and the rest of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) justify the inversion? A few days later the Star’s resident urbanist, Christopher Hume (2009), provided a sharp rejoinder: “The point isn't that Toronto's about to become a suburb, but that the suburbs are becoming cities.”
Coming from Hume, this conclusion is noteworthy. Like most urban discourse, his columns are heavily invested with terms, concepts, and imagery organized via a city- suburb dichotomy. As a trenchant critic of all things suburban, he, perhaps not surprisingly, objects strongly to the idea of Toronto being represented as a suburb. But what are we to make of his solution? If the suburbs are becoming cities, how do we describe, analyse, and interpret differing parts of the city-regional whole? City-suburban distinctions are widely used because they function as shorthand in urban discourse, allowing powerful spatial imaginaries to structure urban space and make representation of it more manageable. Though increasingly recognized as problematic, this structuring most often takes the form of constructing one side of the city-suburb binary against the presumed fixity of the other.
Slowly percolating into popular discourse, growing awareness of the “metropolis unbound” (Isin, 1996)1 undermines old city-suburb distinctions and suggests that the
complex realities exhibited by city regions call upon us to reinvent the terms and
1 Isin (1996) uses the “metropolis unbound” to denote how the metropolitan dynamic of
dominant central city and integrated or dependent suburban periphery has given way to a more fragmented, polycentric form of urbanization.
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imagery we use to understand and represent the contemporary urbanization dynamic (Bourne, 1996). The difficulty unfortunately remains that, despite the proliferation of new terms, urban discourse continues to be dominated by centre-oriented perspectives on urbanization and animated by simplistic city-suburban distinctions.2 Here, I have
three aims: (1) to highlight the degree to which centre-oriented discourse on urbanization continues to inform perspectives on Toronto’s postwar urbanization, (2) to sketch out how the in-between city unsettles centre-oriented discourse by problematizing simplistic city-suburban renderings of urban space, and (3) to tease out the representational difficulties associated with mapping the in-between city. Finally, I conclude with a brief discussion illustrating these representational difficulties using examples drawn from mapping work undertaken as part of the City Institute at York University’s In-Between Infrastructure research project.
Expressive of contemporary urbanization, the in-between city can’t be reduced to a territory within contemporary cities. Rather, it is an emergent urban condition that reflects the myriad of practices that produce the GTA as a real and imagined place. Schmid (2008) reminds us that Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space is grounded in three-dimensionality (the interplay between “the perceived,” “the conceived,” and “the lived”) and that space as a social product has three moments: material production, the production of knowledge, and the production of meaning. This suggests that one way to unsettle centre-oriented discourse is to examine critically how spatial imaginaries3 are integral to making sense of the complex mix of built
environments, representations of space, and spatial practices that inform the contemporary urban experience.
Toronto’s in-between city, currently revealed in spaces positioned between the extremes of the revalorized inner city and newer, more affluent suburban and exurban residential areas, complicates straightforward city-suburban distinctions, as it exhibits a diverse array of uses, users, residents, built environments, green spaces, and infrastructures that confound conventional understandings and representations of “urban” and “suburban” (see Boudreau, Keil, and Young, 2009, 119). The representational challenge of the in-between lies in recognizing that the in-between city isn’t simply a place or territory that can be mapped or described exhaustively; instead, it is a dynamic, shifting mix of forms, risks, vulnerabilities, linkages, flows, and material conditions. Critical engagement with the in-between city requires an inclusive embrace of its complexities and contradictions—and a willingness to consider its spaces anew, without automatically reverting to criteria and imagery drawn from more “urban” spaces and places.
Setting the scene
The GTA landscape is often described as “Vienna surrounded by Phoenix” or “Vienna surrounded by Los Angeles.” Though this description evokes a place-based distinction primarily understood via built forms, it isn’t difficult to discern how social, economic, and political relations mediate the manner in which the constituent parts of Toronto are represented within spatialized discourse. For example, William Thorsell explained “elite” opposition to “megacity” amalgamation (see also Boudreau, 2000) in the following manner:
2
The phrase “centre-oriented discourses on urbanization” originates in Keil and Ronneberger (1994).
3 Spatial imaginaries are the mental maps that aid people and social groups in relating to and
The Representational Challenge of the In-Between 69
Toronto is mostly ugly and alienating. The only parts of Toronto that really work are the older, central city areas between High Park and the Beaches, the lake and Lawrence Avenue. Most of Metropolitan Toronto and its suburbs are a classic suburban wasteland, the newer the horribler. That's the real reason the downtown elites are so passionately opposed to amalgamation: They despise the rest of the region (including Scarberia and Mel Lastman's Calgary of North York), and they fiercely resent association with its banality. It's not a policy issue, it's a personal one. It's a class war. (Thorsell, 1997, D6)
Keen observers of Toronto’s neighbourhood social geographies might question the framing of older, central city areas as the purview of “downtown elites,” but I think that misses the point. Downtown and select “central city areas,” increasingly known discursively as “the city,” are being positioned as the preferred spaces in a rapidly neo- liberalizing, post-Fordist, global Toronto (Boudreau, Keil, and Young, 2009), and empirical evidence from studies documenting inner-city gentrification and income trends across the City of Toronto suggests that intensifying income inequality is slowly transforming the sociospatial configuration of the city region—increasing geographical unevenness across it, as social polarization intensifies within it (Hulchanski, 2007; United Way, 2004; Walks, 2001; Walks and Maaranen, 2008).
Defying fears of inner-city decline—still a concern in some quarters as recently as the early 1990s—talk now expresses an urban triumphalism—i.e., that “downtown density will prevail over the slums of suburbia” (Hume, 2008a). Should we be more attentive to what this means in terms of shifting neighbourhood geographies in the GTA? Globe and Mail columnist John Barber’s commentary suggests we should.
The plain truth is that our inner city is now a virtual ghetto dominated by a single ethnic group—one that is increasingly cut off and isolated from the rainbow-hued paradise we all hoped to build in the new century ... While Toronto as a whole has become a world-historical immigrant reception centre, the inner city remains a realm apart, inhabited almost exclusively by Canadian-born white people. (Barber, 2008a)
Perhaps Barber’s assessment is still a slight exaggeration, but the social composition of Toronto’s urban core (the inverted “T” of the old city) is nonetheless changing in this way. As Walks and Maaranen (2008) reveal, if the trends of the last 30 years continue unaltered “the picture is one of an urban landscape increasingly segregated by class and race, in which affordable rental housing slowly disappears, and the most accessible locations are increasingly occupied by Whites and elites for their benefit” (321).
Viewed in this manner, the ongoing consolidation of gentrified, socially upgrading, and (already) affluent neighbourhoods concentrated in the urban core of Toronto complicates attempts to frame the old city as a refuge from the values and priorities of the new city (see Sewell, 1991). Conflating the geographic dimensions of the old and new city with a temporal disjuncture (pre-war vs. postwar) renders the old city the spatial equivalent to antique furniture. With no more old city being produced, the passage of time renders its real estate an increasingly scarce commodity within the wider city region. The increased desirability of old-city neighbourhoods combined with their relatively limited supply means rising land values and rents. Diversity is still present across the inverted “T” of the old city, but it is under pressure, and its character is changing.
Substantively, I want to highlight how representational strategies can serve to reveal or mask these changes. Clearly, there are residential districts within Toronto’s “old city” that have become disconnected citadel-like spaces—i.e., exclusive and exclusionary
70 Robert S. Fiedler
enclaves (Marcuse, 1997). Spatial sorting according to the “hidden hand” of the urban land market may produce more subtle effects than those of suburban gated communities, but the results are similar—encounters with difference are minimized. Further, electronic surveillance and the hardening of urban space through architectural design and other environmental features can be just as successful as direct denials of access at deterring unwanted users and activities from select spaces (Flusty, 2004; Ruppert, 2006).
Conversely, the postwar suburbs are increasingly maligned in popular discourse. Yet, these suburban spaces possess a vast supply of affordable low-rent apartments—an important resource for less affluent Torontonians, especially new immigrants and refugees. Contrary to the situation in the urban core is the state of affairs in the suburbs, where, as recent reports such as Poverty by Postal Code (United Way, 2004) and The Three Cities in Toronto (Hulchanski, 2007) show convincingly, growing income inequality is producing new and entrenched neighbourhoods and intra-metropolitan geographies of poverty. Still, it remains unclear whether these suburban spaces will become as deeply marginalized as the banlieues of Paris (Dikeç, 2007; Wacquant, 2008). The degree to which these emergent geographies translate into pernicious spaces of exclusion and banishment for marginalized metropolitan or city-regional “others” is a complex and multiscalar question (see Smith and Ley, 2008).
Representing Toronto: The urbane gaze
The in-between city offers an important window into the wider transformation of the GTA. In-between city spaces built during the era of Fordist-Keynesian urbanization have undergone significant economic change, their landscapes reshaped in particular by deindustrialization (Donald, 2002a; 2002b). Starting in the early 1980s and accelerating following trade liberalization in the late 1980s, factories (particularly branch plants) closed or relocated to new industrial spaces elsewhere in the GTA, dramatically altering the economic position and fiscal capacity of the postwar “metro” suburbs (Donald, 1999). Economic change is reflected in the marginalization of less affluent residents in these areas; they bear the costs associated with the loss of employment opportunities— particularly semi-skilled middle-income ones—and experience most intensely the devalorized landscape that accompanies economic decline. They must also endure negative commentary about the spaces they know intimately—often by writers who display little sensitivity to the complexity of such spaces or the lived realities of residents (Hume, 2008b).
In this context, two recent books on Toronto’s postwar urbanization need mention. The first, Shape of the Suburbs: Understanding Toronto’s Sprawl (Sewell, 2009), provides an interesting, if selective, reading that details key policy debates and infrastructural decisions that helped shape Toronto’s built form following World War II. A critique directed primarily at postwar built form, Sewell’s account is guided by strong normative vision captured in the opposing (fictional) vignettes he provides to illustrate the “quintessential” city and suburban experience. The picture painted positions a pastoral image of city life against the apparent pathology of the suburban alternative. Low-density, segregated land uses render suburban residents reliant upon private automobiles, encouraging individuality, competitiveness, and social distance, whilst the compact old city provides walkable streetscapes that facilitate friendly encounters with neighbours and strangers, and it encourages transit-oriented daily routines that promote community, tolerance, and civility (Sewell, 2009, 180). The second book, Toronto Sprawls (Solomon, 2007), argues that Toronto’s postwar urban development can
The Representational Challenge of the In-Between 71
be reduced to sprawl invented by governmental policies and ineptitude. Echoing William Thorsell’s assessment of how “downtown elites” view the rest of the city, Solomon (2007) doesn’t hide his contempt for the banality of the suburban landscape; instead, he floats the suggestion that, without ill-conceived governmental intervention (especially via formal planning), Toronto might have continued building in the manner that “gave us the older districts that most today consider the handsome portion of our cities” and by extension “more of Toronto would have been handsome” (76).4
In both cases, Tom Sieverts’s claim that the “challenge presented by unloved suburbia” is obscured by simplistic, mythologized renderings of the old, historical city is instructive and illuminates why he asserts that being attentive to the Zwischenstadt (“city- in-between” or “intermediate city”)5 offers a corrective to this tendency (Sieverts, 2003,
17). European cities, his work reveals, exhibit similar patterns of urbanization to North American cities when the spaces beyond the compact, historical city are brought into view (see also Bruegmann, 2005). In Toronto, the present tendency to deploy, under the rubric of sustainability and smart growth, the imagery of residential sprawl to critique development on the urban periphery tends to understate the important role of other geographies, such as commercial, industrial, and distributional or infrastructural land uses, in the process of city-regional expansion (Bourne, 2001). Regional divisiveness and institutional paralysis are evident within the GTA (Hepburn, 2009), but the simplistic suggestion that this could have been avoided if postwar metropolitan Toronto had been built more “city-like” doesn’t address the decentralization and dispersion of social, employment, and economic functions and activities in producing city-regional changes.
The in-between city conceptually provides a different framework for interpreting the difficult and complex entanglements revealed by the contemporary urbanization process—those obscured by romanticizing the historic urban fabric increasingly situated in post-industrial spaces. Further, downtown-centric representations of Toronto, whether the product of downtown elite urbanism (see Thorsell, 1997, quoted previously), middle- class progressive urbanism (Boudreau, 2000; Caulfield, 1994; Walks, 2008), or creative class “hipsterurbanism” (Cowen, 2006), possess a curious convergence in their respective understandings and representations of city space: all tend to construct preferred spaces (and associated politics and lifestyles) in relation to a generic suburban “other” that stands in for what is deemed undesirable. For example, a recent review of a new apartment complex in Toronto’s Liberty Village describes the shortcomings of the development as follows: “Though Battery Park is a midrise building, it somehow manages to seem too big for its site, let alone its surroundings. It has an unfortunately suburban feel to it; except for the fact it's built out to the sidewalk on the south side, it could be in some place like Scarborough, where nothing belongs, or even tries” (“Condo critic,” 2007).
In another case, the maps included with the book uTOpia: Towards a New Toronto (an eclectic collection of essays reimagining, reclaiming, and rediscovering Toronto, by
4 This view is based on the hypothetical suggestion that all growth since 1945 could have taken
place within the boundaries of the (old) City of Toronto. According to Solomon, if densities comparable to New York’s West Side or Upper West Side were emulated, the population of the entire GTA could be accommodated within the (old) City of Toronto boundaries; at the more moderate density of New York’s Greenwich Village, the population contained within the old Metropolitan Toronto might have been similarly accommodated.
5 This is an approximate English translation suggested by Boudreau, Keil, and Young (2009,
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McBride and Wilcox, 2005), simply exclude or selectively represent the vast majority of the GTA—leaving the impression that little of interest exists outside of the downtown core and select surrounding neighbourhoods. Worse, inconvenient people, places, and activities in the spaces mapped are simply reimagined into parks and mixed-income communities or replaced by more desirable urban landscapes and lifestyles (Cowen, 2006).6 Finally, a recent coffee-table book, Toronto: A City Becoming, offers a third
example. Here, readers would be forgiven if they formed the impression that nothing worthy of attention exists north of Yonge-Eglinton, i.e., uptown or midtown Toronto. Few of the book’s contributors discuss the Toronto that exists beyond the familiar core of the city, as the book’s editor refers to it. And the introduction aptly summarizes the tone of the book when the editor remarks that, to view the “grey, flat sprawl” that the rest of Toronto resembles would require a trip up the CN Tower—something best left to tourists (MacFarlane, 2008, 15).
Cartographies of ignorance,7 these representations are indicative of how preferred
forms of urbanity, increasingly woven into an aestheticized politic, leave neo-liberal, competitive city strategies unchallenged (Laidley and McLean, 2006). Further, the use of suburban spaces as foil for preferred urban ones is an established representational strategy in Toronto. In Accidental City, Robert Fulford (1995) suggests, for instance, that “in a peculiar way, Scarborough [a postwar suburb] is central to Toronto’s idea of itself” (103). He argues that, in the collective imagination, Scarborough serves as a proxy for the generic suburbia that sophisticated urbanites distain. Noted by Fulford, Barbara Moon’s perceptive commentary on this practice highlights the centrality of presumed suburban banality to the self-image of many urbanites.
They call us Scarberia? Let us point out how essential a Scarberia is to any metropolis worthy of the name … For Toronto, the very pioneer of civic image- changing, has a good deal riding on its current reputation as a cosmopolitan with-it sort of place: infill and gentrification, pink peppercorn cuisine, post– New Wave pink, bunka embroidery, billboards in Latin, the lot. As for individual stance, the imperatives are Acquire or Invent a Lifestyle, and Be Relevant. Do a guest appearance on a picket line. Take a visible minority to lunch. In the contemporary city, a Torontonian would rather be dead then redneck. But to be savored, a Torontonian's superior urbanity requires a contrast, a wrong-headed, boring, inferior and faintly ridiculous collectivity, preferably in reasonable proximity, that can stand for all he disavows. This is