CiTR -- The City

The Survivors' Totem Pole will be raised by Downtown Eastside communities to serve as a lasting symbol for those struggling for social justice. On the program, we hear speakers from the June 28th Survivors' Totem Pole Open House provide background to the project and discuss its significance for communities who have and continue to experience oppression.

David Vaisbord discusses the importance of the Little Mountain story and his campaign to create a documentary film to showcase the community and residents' struggle against the BC government over Vancouver's first social (public) housing development and the ultimate victory.

On the program, we discuss a new independent media organization, a new model of independent media, and a new media platform to connect Anglophone and Francophone Canada ? Ricochet. In the second half of the program, we hear about Vancouver public school students standing up for their teachers.

One in five shelter users are youth. 25 to 40% of youth experiencing homelessness self-identified as LGBTQ, and 40 to 70% of homeless youth have mental health issues compared to 10 to 20% of housed youth. On the program, we discuss the crisis of youth homelessness in Canada and how we might better respond to the problem.Dr. Stephen Gaetz is associate professor in the faculty of education at York University in Toronto and he is the director of the Canadian Homelessness Research Network. He is the author of a new report ? Coming of Age: Reimaging the Response to Youth Homelessness in Canada.

Former Vancouver School Board Trustee Jane Bouey discusses the state of public education in BC and Vancouver, provides the context to the current strike and lockout, and provides an update on the Vancouver School Board's work on updating their sexual orientation and gender identity policies.

Miloon Kothari is the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, and he spoke at Simon Fraser University - Woodward's on July 9, 2012. Mr. Kothari's talk is titled 'The Right to Adequate Housing: From Practice to Policy to Practice'. He discusses his work as Special Rapporteur, the similar (and distinct) challenges facing a variety of countries and cities, and how this right can be realized.Thank you to SFU?s Vancity Office of Community Engagement for permission to broadcast this talk.

On the podcast, we discuss the rise of administration of justice offences ? typically breaches of bail and probation ? in Canada and BC, and use of particular spatial practices in Vancouver?s criminal justice system. Are particular criminal justice practices setting marginalized groups up to fail in the criminal justice system? And how do they affect how people negotiate urban spaces?

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a new report ? The Best and Worst Place to be a Woman in Canada: An Index of Gender Equality in Canada?s Twenty Largest Metropolitan Areas. On the program, we discuss the findings with the author of this recent study. Kate McInturff is a senior researcher at the CCPA and director of their initiative on gender equality and public policy ? Making Women Count.

Between now and 2017, one quarter of housing co-operatives in BC will lose rent-geared-to income subsidies for low-income members as federal housing agreements end. Over 1500 households will face a crisis as their homes become unaffordable. On the program, we discuss this situation and how this affects the affordable housing landscape in Vancouver, across BC and Canada.

Urban geographer Nicholas Lynch discusses the findings of a recent study showing an increasingly divided metro Vancouver region and a disappearing middle class. We?re revisiting this important discussion from April 2013.Urban social geographer Nicholas Lynch is co-author of Divisions and Disparities in Lotus Land: Socio-Spatial Income Polarization in Greater Vancouver, 1970-2005. The report was originally published in October 2012 by the University of Toronto?s Cities Centre.The research presents worrisome trends, with an increasingly divided Vancouver and a disappearing middle class. We discuss the social geography of polarization across the region, the implications, and possible policy solutions.

What are the conditions that have led to the current labour situation at Canada?s largest port? And what is the significance of Vancouver?s port within wider global supply chains? On the program, we?ll be taking an in-depth look at the current labour situation involving port truckers and we?ll be examining the complexities of global commodity chains, ports, and port cities like Vancouver.

Vancouver's recently approved Downtown Eastside neighbourhood plan raises concerns over the definition of social housing and the plan's ability to stop -- or even slow -- gentrification. Low-income advocates and others express frustration that the significant 30-year plan was rushed through city council. On the podcast, we hear from low-income advocate Tamara Herman (Carnegie Community Action Project), Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, Councillor Adriane Carr, and urban planning/geography PhD student Melissa Fong.

Seven hundred and thirty-one homeless people live in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) according to the City of Vancouver, and approximately 5000 more live on the edge of homelessness in tiny Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel rooms. Many of these people rely on welfare and basic pension and desperately need new self contained social housing.This year?s Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) hotel and housing report found that SROs in the DTES are more expensive than ever and that fewer still are available to low-income individuals looking for rooms.Rory Sutherland, is co-author of the report, No Place to Go: Losing Affordable Housing and Community.

Highlights from the past year of critical urban discussions and a reminder to support independent radio. Donate online at www.citr.ca/donate and support the alternative programming that you enjoy.

On the podcast, we examine the history and memories of Vancouver's original black community, Hogan's Alley, in a radio documentary produced by Arial Fournier and Andy Longhurst.

Jules Boykoff discusses the Olympics Games -- prominent urban mega-event spectacles -- as a form of 'celebration capitalism' (the complement to Naomi Klein's 'disaster capitalism'). He talks about celebration capitalism and political dissent in the context of the Vancouver, London, and Sochi Olympic Games.Jules Boykoff is author of Celebration Capitalism and the Olympic Games (2013). He is associate professor of politics and government at Pacific University in Oregon.

On the program, the second part of the conversation with urban economic geographer Elliot Siemiatycki about Vancouver?s transformation from a productive city into a city of consumption, dominated increasingly by real estate and tourism. We discuss what the future might hold for Vancouver as a city of consumption ? and whether it might be advantageous for the city to chart an alternative economic path forward.

On the program, urban economic geographer Elliot Siemiatycki discusses Vancouver?s transformation from a productive city into a city of consumption, dominated increasingly by real estate and tourism. We examine how the city?s structure, feel, and image of itself have shifted over the last three decades ? and how the rise of precarious employment is implicated in this transformation.

On the program, renowned New York City scholar John Mollenkopf (Distinguished Professor, City University of New York) discusses Michael Bloomberg?s three terms as mayor of New York City and what the election of Bill de Blasio means for the city. We also discuss the history of urban politics in New York. inequality, affordable housing, and urban development ? as well as immigration and the shifting landscape of electoral politics in the US?s largest city.

On the program, we reflect on the Michael Bloomberg era in New York City and what the mayoral election of Bill de Blasio might mean for (in)equality, public and affordable housing, and urban development policies. He is the first democratic mayor elected since 1993. Valery Jean of Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE) discusses these issues and more.

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.

Environmental historian and author Sean Kheraj traces how this tension between popular expectations of idealized nature and the volatility of complex ecosystems helped shape the landscape of one of the world?s most famous urban parks. Kheraj's book, Inventing Stanley Park, examines how human forces have shaped ? and continue to shape ? this urban environmental space. Kheraj asks us to question our understanding of the 'nature' of Stanley Park, and why it is important be aware of our complex relationship with the environment. Sean Kheraj is an assistant professor in the Department of History at York University in Toronto.

UBC Sociology Professor Renisa Mawani traces the ways in which colonial and imperial power have historically been inscribed in the land now known as Stanley Park.

Historian and author Jean Barman reflects on Stanley Park's 125th Anniversary and processes of dispossession which were part of the making of Stanley Park. Her book Stanley Park's Secret won the 2006 City of Vancouver Book Prize. She also situates Stanley Park within the country's broader colonial geographies and the ongoing work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools.

Professor Marjorie Griffin Cohen (SFU Political Science and Women's Studies) discusses the challenges facing low-wage workers and unions, and policy options to foster greater economic security. Ben Isitt (Victoria City Councillor, labour historian, and legal scholar) talks about the history of BC's labour movement in order to put current challenges into context.

What are local solutions to addressing affordable housing, homelessness, and mental health? What are the gender dimensions to these issues?We explore these issues in a Vancouver context with four speakers who bring considerable experience and insight into providing safe, adequate, affordable, and gender-inclusive housing in the city.

Urban scholar John Friedmann (UBC and UCLA) reflects on how we're to make sense of rapid urbanization in Asia."The first half of the 21st century is anticipated to be a period of continuing large-scale urbanization in the developing world, with much of this occurring in Asian countries, especially China and India. This fundamental, on-going change in Asia presents, on the one hand, prospects for economic prosperity, new visions of an urban future and the potential for local democratization, and on the other, challenges of increasing economic and social inequities, increased resource consumption and environmental degradation. Underlying all these problems and possibilities are fundamental research challenges for scholars to consider."

Dr. Leslie Kern, a professor of women's studies, discusses her book 'Sex and the Revitalized City: Gender, Condominium Development, and Urban Citizenship' and the social and political implications of real estate development reshaping the landscape of cities.

Dr. Sylvia Bashevkin (University of Toronto) and author and urban planner Prabha Khosla speak at the Women Transforming Cities National Conference convened on May 30, 2013. Dr. Bashevkin speaks about how women are to transform cities, and Ms. Khosla speaks discusses gender equality and social inclusion in municipal policies and services.

A conversation with 'My Brooklyn' documentary filmmaker Allison Lirish Dean on race, class, corporate redevelopment, and the displacement of vibrant and unique urban places.

A Rio de Janiero-based social anthropologist, Dr. Cecilia Mello, discusses the urban social movements taking to the streets in Brazilian cities demanding a better quality of life and a right to the city.

In June 2013, City of Vancouver planning staff released the draft community plan for the Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood in the heart of East Vancouver. Residents are shocked at the proposed 22-36 storey towers and the upzoning of substantial parts of the neighbourhood known for its existing affordable housing stock and unique feel and character.Where did these directions come from? Are planning staff listening to the community? What does public consultation mean to residents and staff? What are the implications for the neighbourhood? How will condo towers and a growing culture of property ownership affect the neighbourhood?

How can cities be more attentive to the needs of women and girls? How do we design, plan, and foster the ideal city for women and girls? From the 2013 Women Transforming Cities conference in Vancouver, we hear from urban scholar Dr. Tiffany Muller Myrdahl as she discusses interventions for feminist urban futures.

Precarious employment is increasing in the Hamilton and Greater Toronto Area and its harmful effects on individuals, families, and community life are documented in a recently released research report. Today on the program, we?re talking labour economist Wayne Lewchuk and lead author of a research study that explored poverty, employment precarity, and household wellbeing in southern Ontario. The report seeks to broaden the public discussion around poverty, and implicate deteriorating work conditions as a major aspect of poverty and social wellbeing.

He?s been fighting substance use allegations and defending his ability to govern the city of Toronto. We?ll be discussing the Rob Ford saga with rabble.ca contributor Michael Laxer. Does this be the end of Mayor Rob Ford?s bumpy tenure at city hall? And in the second half of the show, we hear about the Women Transforming Cities 2013 Conference from Associate Professor Margot Young (UBC Law), which is designed to facilitate discussion about transforming our cities into places where women are more involved in electoral processes, and municipal governments are responsive to the priorities of women and girls in Canada?s urban centres.

In July 2012, UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing Miloon Kothari spoke on the right to adequate housing as part of Simon Fraser University?s Public Square speaker series. In 2000, Mr. Kothari was appointed the first Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living. His mandate ended in 2008. On the podcast, Miloon Kothari discusses Canada's housing problems in global context, policy solutions, and the right to the city for marginalized groups.

In 2011, Simon Fraser University?s Department of History hosted a lecture series, Think you know Vancouver? Think Again. On January 27th, local authors Matt Hern and Charlie Demers addressed the question of whether Vancouver, as it is often branded, is indeed the best place on earth. Their humorous discussion provides a critical take on Vancouver, its history (or perceived lack of history), and why we need to think about Vancouver with a bit more honesty. In a March podcast, we heard from local author and comedian Charlie Demers. In this podcast, Matt Hern provides a short commentary on Vancouver and then Charlie Demers joins him in discussion.

Vancouver City Council, under the direction of the ruling Vision Vancouver party, wants to remove two remnants of the never fully realized inner city highway system in the downtown core. But, in the process, two long-standing community gardens are threatened with demolition. In this documentary, Green for All or Green for Some, Peter Driftmier explores the debate around the removal of the viaducts through the twin lenses of gentrification and environmental sustainability.As of April 2013, city staff have yet to come back to council with final recommendations on the removal of the viaducts. In recent months, the Strathcona Residents Association has expressed serious concerns about the possibility of increased traffic volume on Prior Street, and community groups in the Downtown Eastside have also expressed similar concerns regarding increased traffic along Hastings Street.This documentary was originally produced for Redeye on Vancouver?s Coop Radio 100.5 FM and aired in Fall 2012. Peter Driftmier is a producer with the Redeye Collective, and we are pleased to bring you this documentary.

UBC geographer Nicholas Lynch is co-author of a recent study, Divisions and Disparities in Lotus Land: Socio-Spatial Income Polarization in Greater Vancouver, 1970-2005. The research presents worrisome trends, with an increasingly divided Vancouver and a disappearing middle class. We discuss the social geography of polarization across the region, the implications, and possible policy solutions.

The BC NDP's David Eby (former executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association) is running against BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark in the Vancouver-Point Grey riding on Vancouver's wealthy westside in the upcoming provincial election. He discusses regional planning, housing, poverty, jobs, and the importance of progressive provincial-municipal policies.

Transportation planning and policy expert Matti Siemiatycki (University of Toronto) discusses transportation policy and planning within the Vancouver context, lessons from the Canada Line, the politics of transportation planning, and the possible UBC-Broadway rapid transit line and the implications for urban development.

In 2011, to mark Vancouver?s 125th anniversary, the Simon Fraser University Department of History hosted a lecture series, Think You Know Vancouver? Think Again. On January 27th, 2011, local authors Matt Hern and Charlie Demers gave short talks to address the question: Vancouver: The Best Place on Earth? and in turn provided a critical take on Vancouver, its history or perceived lack of history, and why we need to think about Vancouver with a bit more honesty.We hear from Charlie Demers in the first half of this talk. We?ll be broadcasting the second half, featuring Matt Hern, at a later date. Charlie Demers is an author, comedian, local activist, and a regular performer on CBC?s The Debaters. Thank you to the SFU History Department for permission to broadcast this content.