FREE CITY ISSUE 4 NUMÉRO 4 HIDDEN CITY VILLE INVISIBLE
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FREE CITY
ISSUE 4
NUMÉRO 4
HIDDEN CITY
VILLE INVISIBLE
MARCH 2019
MARS 2019
Editor in Chief Rédactrice en chef Filipa Pajević Junior Editor in Chief Rédacteur Junior James DeWeese Communications Editor Responsable des communications Meghan Doucette Copy Editors Madeline Johnson Éditeurs-réviseurs Patrick Kilfoil Technical & Design Editor Responsable de la technique et du design Jasmine Ali
- Italo Calvino, "Invisible Cities"
Editorial
When we elected to go with “hidden city” as our theme for this issue, we were excited
about all the possibilities that it offered. We imagined receiving contributions on all things
underground: odes to the aesthetics of subway stations, commentaries on the complex
webs of gas and power lines (and of broadband and other communications infrastruc-
ture), and exposés of underground economies. We discussed possibilities for our own
contributions: invisible policies and their very visible outcomes, the city after dark, data as
a snapshot of time (and those obscured by the image), and the marginalized as hidden in
plain sight.
And we did collect a set of brilliant contributions and curated them carefully so as to form
a narrative that will likely leave you dazed and confused—in a good way.
That said, upon seeing all of the contributions, I was surprised to find that none of them
dealt with the issues of homelessness and displacement head-on. We tip-toed around
them: discussed the right to the city, affordability, the costs of technological advancement,
and the aftereffects of economic restructuring, which all undoubtedly feed the problems.
We discussed everything in relation to them—as many planners do—but none of us (our
contributors included) pointed fingers at homelessness and displacement and screamed
“why is this still an issue???” (manners be damned). It was a hidden hope, I suppose.
Well, why didn’t we? Point the finger, I mean. Why didn’t I?
I’m not an expert, some may have thought. It’s been discussed and is expected, others
may have considered. It’s too complicated, it’s too depressing, it’s too aggravating—and the
constant reminder that there is no solution in sight is just much too overwhelming. Sure.
But does one need to be a depressed, jaded, unoriginal expert in matters of homelessness
and/or displacement1 to force a thought? I’m not dismissing the prowess that comes with
expertise, but I am criticizing those using lack of it as an excuse to keep turning the blind
eye. Are we, as planners, so afraid of being criticized for our lack of proper vocabulary that
we shy away from pointing out the obvious? Even as I write this, I am cautious and careful
so as not to misspeak, but there comes a point where caution becomes too limiting. We
seem to be spending more time coming up with a kinder, gentler word for homelessness
instead of actually coming up with kinder, gentler solutions. Maybe by word No. 1,725…
It’s not hidden, you may say, it’s in our faces all of the time. Indeed, and it’s the endless effort
of trying to hide homelessness and displacement that I find so fascinating on multiple
levels—moral, practical, legal… Atlanta went through some trouble to sweep away its
homeless ahead of the Super Bowl; southern Europe diverts tourists from crossing and/
or visiting areas that serve as temporary holding places for migrants (refugees and asylum
seekers) hailing from the Middle East and Northern Africa; and while Hollywood cele-
brates an all-Asian cast in Crazy Rich Asians, nowhere in the film are we given glimpses of
homelessness (very much a reality in Singapore), only the glitz and glamour of the world’s
richest city. That’s some serious muscle-flexing and revenue-draining business—all in the
name of ignorance.
1 I realize that homelessness and displacement are not the same and need to be distinguished. Dis-
placement does not always result in homelessness, and homelessness is not always the cause of dis-
placement. That said, this editorial is inspired by thoughts related to both and should be read as such.
5
All the while, in Toronto, roughly two lives are lost per week in the harshest months of winter—which, I’d like to remind you, is a significant amount of time in these parts of the world. Fun fact: after sharing this statistic in a recent conversation, my interlocutor replied, “At least they cared enough to keep count.” Stings, doesn’t it? So, I leave you with this highly unoriginal—borderline cliché—parting thought: things are hidden only by our own reluctance to see. And will remain so unless we force ourselves to keep our eyes wide open instead of eyes wide shut. This is my last piece for Free City as its Editor in Chief. It has been an absolute delight seeing the ’zine come to life. My gratitude to the Free City team (present and past) for their creativity, support, excitement, and companionship. And, finally, to the School of Urban Planning, McGill University, for giving us the freedom and trust to do this well. I’m excited to see the ’zine evolve in the very capable hands of our students, and through the contributions of our readers and supporters—to whom I am also grateful. Finally, and as always, many thanks to all of our contributors for their thoughts. Love and peace (and awareness), Filipa Pajević Editor in Chief 6
Éditorial
Quand nous avons choisi « la ville invisible » comme thème pour ce numéro, nous étions
enthousiasmés par les possibilités qu’il offrait. Nous imaginions des interventions portant
sur tout ce qui se trouve sous terre : l’esthétique des stations de métro, la complexité des
réseaux de distribution de gaz ou d’électricité (sans compter les infrastructures de commu-
nication à large bande et autres) ou encore le marché noir. Nous avons discuté de nos pro-
pres interventions : les politiques invisibles et leurs impacts très visibles, la ville nocturne,
les données qui saisissent le moment comme un instantané (et ceux masqués par l’image)
et la marginalité cachée sous nos yeux.
Et nous avons rassemblé un ensemble de contributions brillantes et les avons organisés de
façon à raconter un récit qui vous laissera probablement étourdi et confus – d’une bonne
façon.
Ceci étant dit, j’ai été surprise de constater qu’aucune intervention ne traite de front des
problèmes d’itinérance et de déplacement forcé. Nous avons effleuré le droit à la ville,
l’accessibilité financière, les coûts du progrès technologique et les conséquences des
restructurations économiques, qui alimentent sans aucun doute ces problèmes. Nous
avons discuté de tout ce qui en découle – comme le font beaucoup d’aménagistes – mais
aucun d’entre nous (nos collaborateurs) n’a pointé du doigt l’itinérance et le déplacement
forcé pour s’écrier : « Pourquoi est-ce toujours un problème ??? » (au diable les bonnes
manières). C’était un désir caché, je suppose.
Au fait, pourquoi n’a-t-on pas pointer le doigt? Pourquoi n’ai-je pas pointer le doigt, moi?
Je ne suis pas un expert, peut-on se dire. On en a discuté et s’était prévisible, d’autres auront
pensé. C’est trop compliqué, trop déprimant, trop accablant – un rappel constant qu’il n’y a
pas de solution en vue, ce qui est beaucoup trop bouleversant. Mais encore, faut-il être un
expert déprimé, blasé et dépourvu d’originalité en matière d’itinérance et/ou de déplace-
ment forcé1 pour se faire une tête? Je ne rejette pas la pertinence de l’expertise, mais je cri-
tique ceux qui se disent non-experts pour continuer à fermer les yeux. En tant qu’aménag-
istes, avons-nous si peur d’être critiqués pour notre maîtrise imparfaite du vocabulaire
approprié que nous évitons d’enfoncer des portes qui devraient être ouvertes? Même en
écrivant ces lignes, je m’emploie à la prudence afin d’éviter tout lapsus ou erreurs, mais
arrive un moment où la prudence devient un carcan. Il semble que nous passions plus
de temps à proposer un mot plus gentil et plus doux pour désigner l'itinérance au lieu de
proposer des solutions plus gentilles et plus douces. Peut-être au 1 725ième mot…
Ce n’est pas vraiment invisible, pouvez-vous dire, c’est même flagrant. En réalité, ce sont
les efforts constants afin de cacher et de dissimuler l’itinérance et le déplacement forcé
qui me fascinent à tant de niveaux – moral, politique, juridique… Atlanta a eu du mal
à faire disparaître ses sans-abris avant le Super Bowl; l’Europe méridionale détourne les
touristes des zones de passage et/ou de visite qui servent de zones de détention temporaire
de migrants (réfugiés et demandeurs d’asile) originaires du Moyen-Orient et d’Afrique du
1 Je suis consciente que l’itinérance et le déplacement forcé ne sont pas la même chose et doivent être
distingués l’un de l’autre. Le déplacement forcé n’entraîne pas toujours l’itinérance, et l’itinérance n’est
pas toujours le résultat du déplacement forcé. Ceci étant dit, cet éditorial est inspiré par des pensées
liées aux deux enjeux et devrait être lu comme tel.
7
Nord; et tandis que le gratin d’Hollywood salue la distribution 100% asiatique de Crazy Rich Asians, le film ferme les yeux sur l’itinérance (pourtant bien réelle à Singapour) pour ne montrer que le faste et le glamour de la ville la plus riche du monde. Ça fait beaucoup de gesticulations viriles et de pertes de revenu au nom de l’ignorance. Pendant ce temps, à Toronto, deux personnes perdent la vie à chaque semaine en raison du froid pendant les mois les plus rigoureux de l’hiver – donc une bonne partie de l’année. J’ai partagé cette statistique dans une conversation récemment. La réponse de mon inter- locuteur : « Au moins, ils s’en soucient assez pour garder le compte. » Déprimant, n’est-ce pas? Alors, je vous laisse sur une pensée très peu originale – un cliché à la limite : les choses ne sont rendues invisibles que par notre propre réticence à les voir. Et elles le resteront tant que nous ne nous efforcerons de ne pas garder les yeux grand ouverts plutôt que grand fermés. Ceci est ma dernière intervention dans Free City en tant que rédactrice en chef. Ce fut un pur plaisir de voir le zine prendre vie. Toute ma gratitude à l’équipe de Free City (présente et passée) pour sa créativité, son soutien, son enthousiasme et sa camaraderie. Et, enfin, à l’École d’urbanisme de l’Université McGill pour nous avoir donné la liberté et la confiance de bien faire les choses. Je suis ravie de voir le zine évoluer entre les mains très com- pétentes de nos étudiants et grâce aux contributions de nos lecteurs et de nos supporters – à qui je suis également reconnaissante. Enfin, comme toujours, merci à tous nos collaborateurs pour leur réflexions. Amour et paix (et prise de conscience), Filipa Pajević Rédactrice en chef 8
- Italo Calvino, "Invisible Cities"
The City in Your Pocket Madeline Johnson MUP, McGill School of Urban Planning ‘20 Since appearing in our cities in the waning days of the twentieth century, the smartphone has affected most functions of daily life, transforming, with a Midas-like touch, activities that once required mechanical equipment and fixed locales into variations on a theme of slick swipes and taps. What is the landscape left in the wake of this metamorphosis? As grocery shopping and banking join movie-rentals and book-reading in the world in- side our pockets, the urban landscape morphs to accommodate their loss. Even equipped with small, plurifunctional devices, human bodies—the fact remains—take up space. But what kind of space, absent any props for the activity undertaken therein? The aesthetic logic of the space-for-digital-life is the logic of the Apple store, of a white-walled room of wooden tables set with sleek devices, each inscrutable as a minimalist modern sculpture. The space-for-digital-life is a space without cues and without constraints, of infinite indi- vidual discretion and infinite privacy, in which our bodies are visible but our intentions are not. It is not a public space. Play it out: the girl in front of you on the sidewalk suddenly stops, transfixed, neck droop- ing, arms folded in, face lit by an unreadable glow. Her attention has been snatched from the plane you shared; her body remains only as a placeholder in the space of the street. You divert your path around her like water flowing around a rock. Of the strangers with you on the subway, four read books, nine sit and suffer silently, sixteen leave their bodies on the seats to shop and read and play and write in the invisible worlds behind the screens in their hands. With which do you feel any sense of commonal- ity? Which become most completely invisible to you? I’m not here to decry the digitization of everything (much as I privately mourn it), only to make a few claims. The first is this: although the activities it enables are despatialized, be- ing-on-one’s-phone remains, itself, an activity undertaken in space, with a certain posture, a certain physicality. Designers of public spaces should see this nearly invisible activity and design spaces to filter out and accommodate it, to resituate smartphone users in their environments rather than allowing them to break up the flow of spaces designed for other embodied activity. (Such a design approach would, of course, depend on a cultural sen- sibility that there are appropriate and inappropriate times and places to teleport into the digital plane from the physical world. One can always dream.) But second, if we don’t want our cities to evolve into giant, open-air Apple stores, there might be more for both designers of public space and digital experience designers to do to make our digital activities more comprehensible to each other, from the outside. Because on the human level, on the level of intention, only rarely is being-on-one’s-phone an activity willed for its own sake (when, for instance, we scroll through nothingness to avoid the appearance of idleness or isolation—which is, by the way, a sad and antisocial form of activity that more engaging public spaces could erase the desire for). More often, what 10
is willed is something else, something that may not need to be so entirely private. I don’t
need to read over your shoulder to understand that you are reading a book. I don’t need
to critique your purchases to be shopping next to you. But I might note the title; I might
consider, next time, trying parsnips.
At the very least, I propose an exercise of spatial self-awareness and an exercise of imag-
ination. For yourself, consider: What does your smartphone do to your sense of place?
When does it take you from where you are? When do and don’t you want it to? For others,
imagine: The inscrutable zombies that surround you are not just on-their-phones, but
have intentions that you could, in principle, share. Ask yourself, What is she reading?
What is he exploring? What are they working toward?
Photo credit: Evan De Silva
“Is the built environment capable of handling winter
weather and other natural elements? In most Canadian
cities every year roads get repaired due to winter
damage. This can be very costly and if not done can
leave some roads full of potholes.”
11Photo credit: Evan De Silva
“Shopping malls are one of the only places you’ll find
so many members of the public under one roof. Full
of untapped economic opportunities, malls have the
potential to do much more than simply house retail
stores.”
12Hidden Little Giants
Patrick Kilfoil
PhD, McGill School of Urban Planning ‘19
Post-industrial nostalgia occupies a central place in many attempts to grasp the volume
and pace of change that has occurred over the last 25 or so years, as Western society has
transitioned almost fully into the Age of Knowledge. Even today, Canadiana imagery
contains a disproportionate number of references to mining villages in Northern Ontario,
hamlets revolving around the Prairies’ countless grain elevators, and mill towns that once
cropped up out of New Brunswick’s pine forests.
Yet, more than 80% of Canadians live in urban areas, and almost half live in metropolitan
regions of at least a million in population. However, these cities remain distinctly absent
from the images that populate our collective identity. At the same time, those places that
are deeply embedded as markers of the Canadian identity—mill towns, farming towns,
mining towns, and so on—have in many cases struggled to adapt to the new economy.
The flows of the global economy have long departed Canada’s hinterlands (unless they
overflow with oil, of course). At least, that is what most urbanites think. But is it so? The
mind and the body of Canada’s populace may have long become urban, but its heart still
lies squarely in its great expanse. And the heart is still beating.
This great expanse is in fact a very romanticized version of what rural Canada is today. It
harkens back to a time when lumber mills and mining operations gave rise to small com-
munities which over time became regional centres, only to fall on hard times when the
resource became scarce, jobs left and people became stuck in place. Canada’s great cities
are doing fine, but the transition into the post-industrial economy has proved painful
for places such as Flin Flon, Bathurst and Sydney. Many of these cities still bear the scars
of the hundred or so years of sheer environmental exploitation, scars that in many cases
they cannot remediate by themselves. Our quaint small towns are not just pond hockey,
log cabins and maple syrup; they are also home to brownfields with little hope of adaptive
reuse. If Canada was built in these towns, it left the people who took root in these commu-
nities with plenty of cleaning up to do.
Yet, many of these places are still growing, redefining what it means to be a small commu-
nity after the post-industrial era. La Pocatière is a hotbed of innovation. New music rever-
berates from Rouyn-Noranda. Franco-Ontarian resistance is deeply rooted in Sudbury.
Do these places matter anymore? A small town was levelled by a barrelling oil train half a
decade ago, yet we hear of plans to send even more tankers through these forgotten villag-
es. Can’t stop capitalist progress, can we? On the way to the cottage, we drive by a few of
these small towns on the Trans-Canada Highway that now bypasses many others, and we
wonder why that farmhouse in the field turned into a shack whose roof has now caved in.
Perhaps that’s all these towns were meant to be, names on highway signs, specks in Can-
ada’s great expanse that once were useful, but now have little use other than as a sanitized
backdrop to an idealized vision of Canada’s yesteryears. Perhaps we need to find new im-
agery that reflects what Canada has become to most—more urban, more diverse—instead
of what it once was. But to many of us, whether we have left or not, the hidden little giants
of Canada’s hinterland remain home. Treating them as artefacts of a cherished past hides
that they are alive and well, and in many cases more dynamic than ever.
13Photo credit: Evan De Silva
“Proven for freight, surface rail has great potential
to coax commuters into active transport modes,
especially in cities like Halifax, which sits on bedrock
and has slow buses.”
14Unearthing the Hidden City: Free City Interview with Rollo
Home, Ordnance Survey
James DeWeese
MUP, McGill School of Urban Planning ‘20
Despite the rapid pace of development in geographic and building information systems,
much of the city subsurface and its thicket of assets and obstacles remains maddeningly
opaque to even the most sophisticated municipalities and developers. In some cases, data
capture is the challenge; in others, it’s a lack of coordination among generators and users
of the information we already have. Either way, this limited knowledge of the “hidden
city” beneath us can drive up costs and frustration, hampering development, particularly
for cost-sensitive projects like affordable housing.
UK-based research partnership Project Iceberg1 recently spent more than two years work-
ing to identify better ways to generate and share vital information about the very ground
that underpins our modern cities. The project—a collaboration between UK mapping
agency Ordnance Survey, the British Geological Survey and Future Cities Catapult—
aimed to identify a common approach to subsurface information that suits increasingly
data-driven decision-making processes. Project Iceberg wrapped up the first phase of its
work with the publication of its third and final report and recommendations a little over a
year ago. Among other things, it proposed developing a consistent set of standards for col-
lecting and sharing data about the underground in a “federated” framework (where data
are stored separately but are accessible in the same format). The researchers’ work suggests
it’s a worthwhile—even essential—endeavor to standardize and share better underground
data. But it won’t be cheap. Nor will it be easy to navigate some of the task’s complexities,
which range from reconciling existing data standards and formats to overcoming security,
commercial and intellectual property concerns about sharing.
Rollo Home, a strategic project manager for Ordnance Survey, chatted with us from
London, England, about the current state of our understanding of the ground beneath our
urban feet. Mr. Home graciously gave us permission to publish this interview.
James DeWeese: Why spend years thinking about something that for most people is ‘out
of sight and out of mind’? And why is this important now, particularly to city planning?
Rollo Home: There are many reasons. First, managing underground infrastructure is
a persistent problem for which the costs are only getting bigger, and the impacts are
becoming more apparent. Some of the more noticeable ones to the individual are around
congestion—people sitting in their cars waiting for work [on underground utilities] to be
completed. The frustration felt by the citizen is matched by the Local Authorities who face
difficulties in controlling streetworks more precisely, and the utilities companies who want
simpler licensing processes—it should be possible to get the work done in hours instead
of days. But we need the data to do that. Second, we are pushing more utilities into the
ground than we ever have before. Major programs of renewal are replacing key infrastruc-
ture, much of it a Victorian hangover, to address service and environmental performance
1 “Managing Underground Assets.” Project Iceberg, Ordnance Survey, www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/
business-and-government/smart/underground-assets-project-iceberg.html.
15issues. Add to that new infrastructure, in particular fiber back-bone, and you can begin to see the scale of the problem. More generically, space is at a premium. In London, there’s a very prominent trend where the only option is to go down, resulting in “super basements,” some of several stories. It transpires that these underground buildings are having a real impact on things like the water table which highlights our lack of understanding of how the ground beneath us actually operates2. Affordable housing is another large problem. Government is keen to understand why sites being land-banked aren’t being built on. It turns out that in many cases, it’s a lack of knowledge about what’s in the ground. Site assessment and remediation can take a long time. Because of that risk, there’s a lot of caution in terms of how developers approach par- ticular plots of land, notably “brownfield sites.” Poor understanding of ground conditions is widely recognised as the largest single cause of project delay as well as overspending3. A simple lack of knowledge could lead to a site being pushed for planning ahead of its being ready for development, potentially costing a city millions and more importantly delaying the outcomes of the overall programme, which has a real impact on people’s lives. Glasgow, where very substantial regeneration programmes have been underway for some time to address a range of problems, is an example of a city that has taken the positive step to address this risk. Glasgow is developing and sharing subsurface data at a citywide level to help prioritize how they bring these types of plans forward4. What I really like about this example is that it creates a direct link between a bore hole—a technical piece of data taken from a muddy plot—to something that keeps the City Chief Executive awake at night, namely the delivery of their core programs. It’s not often that the impact of good subsurface data management is so stark or visible to decision makers. JD: If it’s so important, why do we have such a severe lack of understanding about the ground underneath us? RH: It really is “out of sight, out of mind,” which is a refrain for a reason. It’s only when you lay it out that people understand it’s so important. And then there’s also a very practi- cal reason: Up until very recently, it’s been very hard to get the data about the subsurface. JD: How are things coming along? RH: Generally, I think they’re coming along well. Iceberg has been useful in stimulating a discussion at the government level [in the UK] about the fact that there is a data gap. My hope is that government leads on this with the appropriate perspective and doesn’t get sucked into the obvious high-value use cases and end up looking at just utilities. It’s nat- ural for people to think about pipes as there is a well-defined problem to be solved. How- ever, there are a million and one other things that we need to keep track of. You need to 2 Batty, David, Barrm Caelainn, & Duncan, Pamela, “What lies beneath: the subterranean secrets of London’s super-rich.” The Guardian. N.p. 7 May 2018. Web, (https://www.theguardian.com/mon- ey/2018/may/07/going-underground-the-subterranean-secrets-of-londons-super-rich). 3 “Ground Rules.” New Civil Engineer. N.p. 24 November 2011.Web,. (https://www.newcivilengi- neer.com/features/geotechnical/ground-rules/8623967.article). 4 Accessing subsurface knowledge – ASK Network. British Geological Society, (https://www.bgs. ac.uk/research/engineeringGeology/urbanGeoscience/Clyde/askNetwork/home.html). 16
be able to bring all that information together. And the important thing is the interaction
between all those buried things and the things on the surface. We are at a critical point in
our society generally where technology (and data) are transforming every process, busi-
ness and norm. In order to be ready for the future we need to be building systems with
enough flex to adapt, and resist building solutions that simply answer today’s problem.
JD: Besides asset management and utilities, where the business case is clear, are there also
consumer or cultural applications for underground info? Things like wayfinding, tourism
or heritage?
RH: It’s an interesting question. Some of the other areas where we were linking [informa-
tion] up include culturally significant items such archaeology, as that’s an asset that needs
to be maintained. From a planning perspective, we need to be managing the space more
effectively; it’s just becoming much more crowded underground. We are breaking surface
much more than we used to—not just in cities but all over the country. From an environ-
mental perspective, as we push underground more, we are having a much bigger impact
on things like groundwater flows, which in turn are impacting water quality in unknown
ways… unintended consequences which can be quite far reaching (metaphorically as well
as geographically). These are some of the wider “use cases” that are very important. But
you need those high-value, simple to understand use cases [like buried utilities] to justify
everything else.
JD: What’s on the horizon for cities and their subsurfaces?
RH: It depends on the city. Take the city of London, where they are under such intense
pressure: By 2050, they are expecting a population increase the equivalent of the UK’s
second city, Birmingham5. This requires not just more homes, but somewhere for all these
people to work, be schooled, and receive healthcare. We need all that additional space in
the roads just to enable them to move around. It’s a massive number, so the city’s been
very innovative in how they think about space. For them, the subsurface is an important
asset to be exploited, but sustainably: London clay, which underpins most of the city, has
some interesting properties which can trigger subsidence. London is also very low-lying
and so at risk from flooding, much of that from groundwater flooding. Understanding the
subsurface is, for them, very important.
JD: Did your research for this project give you any insights into our relationship with the
subsurface on, say, a more philosophical level?
RH: The thing that did strike me is that we talk about the “subsurface” as is if it’s a consis-
tent medium. But the majority of things that we were interested in (pipes, archeological
remains, groundwater flow) occur within a very thin layer just below the surface. Really,
there are not many uses that penetrate more than 20 meters or so. You might get the odd
piling or tunneling, but the majority of things are in the top 5 or 10 meters. So, there’s still
so much more untapped potential in terms of how much more effectively we can use the
ground beneath us.
But first, we need to tidy up after ourselves. We’re like kids on the beach, digging in the
5 London Infrastructure Plan 2050. City of London, https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/busi-
ness-and-economy/better-infrastructure/london-infrastructure-plan-2050
17sand. We’ve made a terrible mess all over the beach. If we tidy up, we could start doing
some really cool stuff down there. We could ask ourselves, “If we could put this or that un-
derground, what could we put on the surface? What could we do with that newly released
surface space?”
Photo credit: Evan De Silva
“ We’ve created a perfect environment for the middle class or
upper middle class, while the low-income and homeless face
struggles with the built environment that many of us never face.
The City can only provide public housing for so many people,
forcing others to live in the streets or under overpasses. Instead
of allowing those who seek it to find shelter in such places, we
put in defensive architecture to make sure they don’t have a
place to sleep. The unhoused are thus left to suffer even more,
living without proper protection from the elements until they can
find emergency housing.”
18Of Dwarves and Men
Nicolas Le Berre
MUP, McGill School of Urban Planning ‘20
L’urbanisme contient toujours une part de fantasme, celui de contrôler et modeler son en-
vironnement et celui des autres. Et comme tout fantasme, l’urbanisme est parfois difficile
à rationaliser, en constante mutation, qui s’intéresse à tout mais ne se passionne pour rien.
Je vous invite donc aujourd’hui à vous pencher sur une thématique peut-être nouvelle
pour vous, une forme particulière de la ville invisible; la ville virtuelle, et plus particulière-
ment les villes de Dwarf Fortress.
Comme plusieurs de mes pairs, je crois que mes premiers contacts avec l’urbanisme me vi-
ennent, d’une certaine façon, du jeu vidéo. Qu’il s’agisse de Sim City et autres simulateurs
de ville ou des jeux de stratégie en temps réel comme Civilization, un large éventail de
jeux nous laisse contrôler des villes et populations virtuelles pour notre bon plaisir.
Ces jours-ci, je m’adonne à planifier des cités minières, habitées non pas par des humains,
mais par une centaine de… nains. Pour l’apprenti urbaniste que je suis, l’intérêt de ce jeu
réside dans l’impossibilité de contrôler les habitants de la ville malgré mon titre de Dieu de
la création, Armok. La raison est que dans Dwarf Fortress, le rôle du joueur est unique-
ment de définir des tâches à accomplir, que les nains décident d’effectuer ou non. S’ils ont
les ressources et le talent nécessaire, s’ils sont rassasiés, s’ils n’ont ni soif ni sommeil, ils
coopèrent. Rien ne sert d’imaginer une cité en or si le minerai n’est pas disponible dans vos
mines ou sur le marché, et donner l’ordre de réaliser des gravures sur les murs demeure un
vœu pieux si aucun nain n’est formé dans ce métier ou n’a le temps de les réaliser. Un peu
comme l’urbaniste, le joueur doit apprendre à connaître ses citoyens/nains, leurs capacités
et aspirations; c’est sans doute aussi important que de développer une vision et de planifier
pour l’avenir de la mine. Au-delà de cette difficulté conceptuelle, les naissances et migra-
tions nombreuses de nains forcent le joueur à toujours construire plus, jonglant avec ses
ressources limitées dans le but de répondre aux besoins immédiats… sans compromettre
les besoins des générations futures.
Chaque nain à sa propre personnalité, ses croyances, son réseau d’amitié, sa famille, et
son humeur (Voir la figure 1). Un nain malheureux travaille mal, ou refuse simplement
de travailler. Il risque de se défouler en brisant du matériel, rendant ses amis et victimes
malheureuses, les poussant à leurs tours à travailler moins. Ce genre de cercle vicieux,
qualifié par les joueurs de “tantrum spiral”, constitue le principal défi en début de partie et
témoigne de la complexité des sociétés naines.
19Figure 1. Description complète de la naine Zaneg Irolshorast, générée entièrement de façon
procédurale. Chaque nain est complètement unique et évolue au travers de ses activités et relations.
Pourtant, une fois qu’on réussit à produire les nécessités primaires pour les nains et qu’on
engendre assez de surplus, on a la chance d’observer les braves travailleurs agrandir et
aménager leurs citadelles selon nos plans, dont la beauté améliore grandement le moral
des habitants de la cité. C’est ainsi que la mine peut subsister et croître au travers des
saisons et des années. Toutefois, il arrive qu’un nain allant chercher les minéraux pour
construire la ville, telle que demandé par le joueur, creuse dans un aquifère et inonde
malencontreusement la ville. C’est alors qu’on doit générer un nouveau monde, lancer une
nouvelle colonie minière et tenter, avec un nouveau groupe de nains, de se rendre plus loin
que la partie précédente, ou tout simplement expérimenter autrement avec les formes ou
les systèmes sociaux complexes du jeu.
Pour moi, le plus inspirant est que ce jeu, créé par seulement deux personnes, fait désor-
mais partie de la collection du MoMA1. Témoignage de la complexité de la simulation de
Dwarf Fortress, celui-ci est en développement continu depuis maintenant 12 ans et en est
à sa version alpha 0.44.12. Il continue de s’enrichir et sa plateforme open source permet à
l’ensemble de la communauté de s’impliquer directement dans son évolution. Dwarf For-
tress devient ici doublement interactif, à la fois dans son utilisation et dans l’élaboration de
son code.
Tout cela peut sembler étonnant pour une personne n’ayant pas participé à la culture du
logiciel libre, mais je crois que les urbanistes et urbanistes en herbe comme moi peuvent
en apprendre beaucoup sur la complexité de notre monde, de nos sociétés et villes en s’in-
téressant à la ville virtuelle et à ses innombrables visages. Et pourquoi pas, un de ces jours,
en apprendre plus en installant une copie de Dwarf Fortress sur votre ordinateur?
Strike the Earth!
1 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/164920
20Figure 2. Une cité naine telle que représentée dans Dwarf Fortress. Les graphiques sont sous forme
ASCII, chaque lettre et caractère représentant un élément du jeu comme une pierre, une rivière, un
nain ou encore un animal.
21Photo credit: Evan De Silva
“Mismanaged stormwater runoff in cities can produce
dramatic scenes of flooding and waste. We need to
pursue solutions like the use of permeable concrete.”
22Cities and Challenges: Not Your Testing Lab1
Bojan Francuz and Hone Mandefro
Founders and directors of CityInclusive
The Canadian government is keen to innovate. Keen to tackle “the big challenges” faced by
Canadians across the country (Government of Canada, n.d). In late 2017, entrepreneur-
ial bureaucrats decided that cities are a good staging ground for innovation; a sandbox
for ideation, if you will. Inspired by the tech industry and its culture of experimentation,
they settled on competition as the best conduit to achieve this goal. Nothing motivates
resource-starved municipal officials quite like the promise of federal money (Wilt, 2017).
And so the Canadian Smart Cities Challenge (SCC) was born.
The rules of engagement of the competition are simple. Canadian large, mid-sized, small
cities and indigenous communities are up against each other in a contest for prizes of $50
million, $10 million, and $5 million. Unlike the American Smart City Challenge of 2015,
which focused on solving cities’ urban mobility and transportation issues (United States
Department of Transportation, 2016), Canadian cities have been tasked with coming up
with tech and tech-enabled solutions to make communities “healthier, more inclusive and
livable” (Infrastructure Canada, 2018a).
In total, there were 130 applications from 225 communities, including 20 from indigenous
communities or those focused on indigenous populations. Of all applications, roughly a
third of applicants have identified “empowerment and inclusion” as the focus area of their
projects (Infrastructure Canada, 2018b).
We, however, are left wondering: can a nationwide competition between cities really make
our urban centres better-off and more inclusive? Whose voices, and consequently visions
of a Canadian Smart City, have surfaced to the top in this first iteration of the SCC, and
whose lived experiences continue to be hidden from sight and removed from the munic-
ipal decision-making tables? Does a competition for limited financial resources nurture
innovation and encourage collaboration?
In search of these answers we set out to speak with officials involved in the design of the
Challenge, municipal leaders of small and mid-sized communities as they were crafting
their bids, and other stakeholders galvanized by smart city developments across the coun-
try; those around the controversial Waterfront Toronto Sidewalks Lab project, included.
We are the founders and directors of CityInclusive, five young professionals from five dif-
ferent countries and four different continents, with many intersectional identities among
us, and with a shared interest in policy, community development, and inclusion. We found
ourselves together in Canada in 2017 while taking part in the Jeanne Sauvé Foundation’s
Public Leadership Program, based in Montréal.
Early in the process of connecting with municipal officials, we detected that the nature
of the Challenge—time-bound, competitive and with the potential for large payouts in
the end - sparked excitement in city halls across the country. Steering committees were
1 This piece is collaborative effort between Bojan Francuz and Hone Mandefro. Both are founders
and directors of CityInclusive, a social-impact startup based in Montréal, and futurists-in-residence
at the Institute for Urban Futures at Concordia University. Hone is a first-year PhD student at the
department of sociology and anthropology at Concordia University.
23formed, community engagement strategies rolled out, and interested local groups and engaged citizens were invited to partake in the project design process. In crafting the project, the Government nudged communities to seek residents’ input to identify the needs and problems to be tackled. Discussions about tech and tech solutions were to be secondary and reserved for the later stages of the Challenge. However, the thought of anything “smart,” be it a phone, fridge, home or a city, inevitably scuttled this goal. In Canada it is still easier to talk about gadgets, sensors, Internet of Things (IOT), and automated vehicles than confront structural inequalities in our communities. The SCC timeline allotted roughly six months for communities to develop the initial proposal. Many municipal officials admitted they were racing against the clock to mean- ingfully engage with a panoply of community stakeholders, particularly those on their community’s margins. Due to time and resource constraints, a significant number of mu- nicipal officials relied heavily on community partners, including local NGOs and informal groups of enthusiastic citizens, to lead resident outreach. The means of engagement for many cities were time-tested strategies of engagement: surveys, interviews, focus groups, public events, and in some instances, mini-challenges within the community. We also learned about intentional efforts to reach out to the vulnerable communities, including those of indigenous people and youth. Conversations with representatives from these groups revealed a tendency to feel tokenized, with their input being sidelined if not in alignment with their city’s focus on economic development. Alas, despite the Government’s intention to spark a deeper engagement between city halls and communities, there was little thought spared for alternative visions of urban futures as articulated by those on their community’s margins: people who feel pain, who have differing abilities, and who lack access to power and resources to shape the physical space and infrastructure surrounding them. Additionally, little effort was dedicated to education and opportunities to deconstruct what makes a city “smart” and what role tech solutions play in this process of “smarting.” Despite the ongoing debate about the Waterfront Sidewalks Lab project, too many city dwellers across Canada remain unfamiliar with the smart city concept and its implications in their daily lives and for their communities. We find this troubling. It is troubling because those who frame and fund our futures are not necessarily those who struggle to flourish within them. That is why in parallel with our research, CityInclusive has been organizing and hosting future-cities-visioning work- shops for youth across the country to unleash their imagination and allow them to dream up alternative visions of our urban futures. We believe that imagination is a foundational pillar of vibrant democracy and essential to our cities’ wellbeing. It is also troubling that in this 2018-2019 Challenge, the intentional pitting of communi- ties against each other while dangling carrots in front of them remains the preferred mod- el of urban development. We continue to lack creativity to think of alternative city-build- ing frameworks, which can mobilize excitement while also creating space for inclusive engagement and radical visioning of our urban futures. 24
The first phase of the Challenge wrapped up in April 2018. Twenty finalists were chosen to
advance into the next round, which concludes in the spring of 2019 (Infrastructure Cana-
da, 2018c). Winners are expected to be announced in the summer of 2019. We continue to
engage with the communities that have partaken in the Challenge to better understand its
results and implications.
“A city is not a computer”, wrote Shannon Mattern (2017). It’s a messy space of physical
infrastructure and performative actions by its residents. We believe it should neither be
solely a testing lab for hasty governmental initiatives which prioritize competition instead
of collaboration. Future iterations of the Challenge ought to give more attention, and
weight in the evaluation criteria, to community engagement processes, the forms they take
and who they reach. Ultimately, this will make any experiment in urban innovation more
inclusive.
References
Government of Canada (n.d) About Impact Canada Initiative. Retrived from https://www.canada.ca/
en/innovation-hub/services/impact-canada-initiative/about.html
Mattern, S. (2017). A city is not a computer. Places. Retrieved from https://placesjournal.org/article/a
city-is-not-a-computer/
Infrastructure Canada (2018a). Smart Cities Challenge. Retrived from https://impact.canada.ca/en/
challenges/smart-cities/challenge
Infrastructure Canada (2018b).Smart Cities Challenge Dashboard. Retrieved from http://www.
infrastructure.gc.ca/alt-format/pdf/cities-villes/dashboard-tableau-eng.pdf
Infrastructure Canada (2018c). Smart Cities Challenge: Spotlight on Finalists. Retrieved from http://
www.infrastructure.gc.ca/alt-format/pdf/flip-book/spotlight-on-finalists.html
Wilt, J. (2017). Radical Municipalism: The Only Solution to Amazon’s Extortion of Cities. Canadi-
an Dimension,. Retrived from https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/radical-municipal-
ism-the-only-solution-to-amazons-extortion-of-cities
United States Department of Transportation ( 2016). Smart City Challenge. Retrieved from https://
www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/Smart%20City%20Challenge%20Lessons%20
Learned.pdf
25Photo credit: Evan De Silva
“Which deserves more attention: the restoration of
historic buildings such as this 200-year-old church, or
the construction of new spaces?”
26The Right to the Hidden City
Meghan Doucette
MUP, McGill School of Urban Planning ‘19
As of this writing in early 2019, we have witnessed major Canadian cities like Toronto and
Vancouver undergo processes that have caused skyrocketing real estate prices, becoming
less and less affordable for even the middle class to live in. As people are pushed out of
their neighbourhoods due to structural economic factors like housing markets, the Right
to the City concept can be employed to counter these inequitable processes.
The Right to the City concept was established by Henri Lefebvre and has been addressed
in the literature by David Harvey (2003), Peter Marcuse (2014), and Margit Mayer (2009),
among others. Marcuse describes six different readings of Lefebvre’s original call for the
Right to the City, some more radical than others, but Marcuse, Harvey, and Mayer all
agree that the intent of the Right to the City is about a redistribution for those in society
who are most marginalized and excluded from all that the city has to offer. Marcuse makes
the important distinction that the Right to the City is not about the built environment,
but rather urban society. The idea is not about a Right to the City as it exists today, but the
right to create the city of the future.
In a way, the city of the future is a “hidden city” because we have not imagined it yet. How
can we uncover the hidden, future city, for the benefit of all members of society? The Right
to the City calls for a new way of interacting with physical urban space, the economy, and
each other. The Right to the City is a radical claim to be made by those who are not bene-
fiting by the capitalist system, including those who are facing displacement by gentrifica-
tion of their neighbourhoods.
Both Mayer and Marcuse are critical of large-scale organizations adopting the Right to
the City as an aim, from city governments to UN Habitat, arguing that by the very nature
of these organizations they cannot achieve the Right to the City as it was envisioned by
Lefebvre. In his 2014 article, Marcuse writes,
For Lefebvre, the Right to the City is a political claim: a cry and a demand
for social justice, for social change, for the realization of the potential that
technological and human advances had made possible…
Based on this reading of Lefebvre’s original call for the Right to the City, Marcuse, Harvey,
and Mayer agree that the Right to the City is about eliminating underlying economic
structures which systematically produce poverty. They also agree that the watered down
version of the call for the Right to the City by multinational organizations like UN Habitat
can never achieve the Right to the City because these organizations are not willing to
disrupt the structures that support their survival as organizations.
If not via existing power structures, how can we create the city of the future and uncover
the potential for a more just society? Mayer suggests that part of the call for the Right to
the City could be creating cities based on use value, not economic value. Mayer attributes
the unlivable housing markets of cities like Toronto and Vancouver in part to a vision of
property as an investment rather than as a place for people to live. Countering gentrifi-
cation under the framework of the Right to the City requires meeting these underlying
27dynamics head-on. The solution will not come through small changes to housing policy,
but through a transformation of our political and economic systems that will allow for the
just distribution of resources to meet people’s basic needs.
References
Harvey, D. (2003). Debates and developments: The right to the city. International Journal of Urban
and Regional Research, 27(4), 939-941.
Marcuse, P. (2014). Reading the right to the city. City, 18(1), 4-9. doi:10.1080/13604813.2014.878110
Mayer, M. (2009). The ‘right to the city’ in the context of shifting mottos of urban social movements.
City, 13(2-3), 362-374. doi:10.1080/13604810902982755
Photo credit: Evan De Silva
“Are we designing cities to cause health problems
for their inhabitants? Is it healthy to live in a concrete
jungle? ”
28School of Planning Archives: Uncovering a Hidden Text
Richard G. Shearmur
Professor, McGill School of Urban Planning
I would like to share with you a document that Professor Nik Luka found in Professor
Jeanne Wolfe’s archives. It is a proposal written in the mid-1990s. The name of the student
has been lost, but not Jeanne Wolfe’s opinion: ‘Gibberish’. It is re-printed here for the
record. - Richard Shearmur
Supervised Research Project (SRP) proposal: Existential approaches to urban
locomotion, By Anon
Introduction
In this project I will explore an enduring mystery of urban (meta)physics. i.e. the possibili-
ty that Cyclists operate in a dimension parallel to, but essentially hidden from, that of
other urban dwellers. In particular, it is suspected that Cyclists are hidden from Motorists,
but Motorists are fully visible to Cyclists: the relationship is directional. Likewise, Pedes-
trians (if they exist)1 are thought to be hidden from Cyclists – though Cyclists are not fully
visible to Pedestrians: the relationship has more symmetry. These relationships are intri-
cate, and cut to the chase of existential questions that have kept philosophers employed
since antiquity, and left-bank Parisian cafés in business since the 1950s. They speak to the
solitude of these three modes of locomotion.
Indeed, pace McLennan, there are as many solitudes as there are modes of locomotion. Of
course, solitude can be absolute or relative: whereas Cartesians posit an absolute form of
solitude - ‘I think, therefore I am’ - Realists acknowledge the existence of a world external
to the subject, but point to the difficulty inherent in sharing perceptions of external reality
with others (Sayer, 1992). Psychoanalysts, who question the idea of a unitary subject (‘Is
there an “I”?’), also recognize the difficulty in sharing world views (Lacan, 1980). This
difficulty may hold some clues about the interconnected solitudes of Motorists, Cyclists
and (possible) Pedestrians. I will elaborate below.
Are Cyclists visible to Motorists?
I am aware that many would disagree with the contention that Cyclists are invisible to
Motorists (and maybe, also, to Pedestrians):
‘Cyclists have power over our streets’ (Foucault, 1969, p346)
‘Cyclists mow down little old ladies’ (Fox News, 3rd Feb. 1992)
‘Cyclists exuberantly waste their energy on frivolous activity’ (Bataille, 1949, p18)
‘Cyclists prevent us using Camilien-Houde as a highway’ (Robert Moses, circa. 1950)
‘Cyclists should get off their bikes and use Zimmer frames like everyone else’ (Rotary Club)
‘Some of my best friends are Cyclists’ (Rev. Jerry Falwell, 1973)
‘Cyclists think they have a right to the city’ (Lefebvre, 1974, p55)
1 In this text a non-committal approach to the existence of Pedestrians is used solely in order to
make it less legible. References to pedestrians should not be taken to imply their existence (nor their
non-existence).
29‘Motorists have four partial drives: forward, park, reverse and mow-down-cyclists’ (Lacan, 1980, p110) Non-Cyclists clearly believe they can see Cyclists. This belief is inaccurate. My preliminary empirical investigations confirm that Cyclists are essentially invisible to Motorists. U-turns occur as if no vehicle weighing less than 500kg exists; stop signs, which Cyclists are accused of ignoring (by Motorists), are seldom respected by Motorists (at least when a bicycle is entering a junction); car doors, which are opened tentatively when a car, bus or truck is passing by, are blithely swung wide when a Cyclist wheels past; when a car wishes to turn right, it will not swerve round, then cut off, the vehicle in front, unless this vehicle is unmotorised. Thus, in many circumstances, Cyclists are invisible to Motorists. However, Cyclists are not totally invisible. Should a Cyclist move slowly along a narrow residential street, Motorists will see them, drive up close behind, sound their horn impa- tiently, then squeeze past (as if the Cyclist were not there: the Cyclist has again become invisible). Likewise, should a Cyclist stop to let school kids cross the road, Motorists will blast their horns – in this particular case Cyclists seem to loom so large that they obscure the children who are causing the delay2. In essence, Cyclists, become visible when Motor- ists feel like having histrionics. Overall, this initial exploration corroborates the notion that Cyclists and Motorists op- erate in quasi-parallel universes. Cyclists are essentially hidden: Motorist only see them when they need therapy. The reverse does not hold: Motorists are at all times visible to Cyclists, who use dexterity and skill to preserve their existence. Thus, Motorists are an existential threat to Cyclists (Sartre, 1943), whereas Cyclists are a psychoanalytic problem for Motorists (Lacan, 1980). Cycling and Pedestrian universes: intersections and hidden areas Should Pedestrians exist (we discuss this in the conclusion), then the Cycling universe bears a similar relation to the Pedestrian universe as the Motorist universe bears to the Cycling one. Pedestrians (if they exist) are vaguely aware of Cyclists. Cyclists are likewise vaguely aware of the possible existence of Pedestrians, despite being convinced they are fully aware: ‘Pedestrians have power over our streets’ (Foucault, 1969, p345) ‘Little old ladies mow down cyclists’ (The Cycling Enquirer, 17th May 1987) ‘Pedestrians exuberantly waste their energy on frivolous activity’ (Bataille, 1949, p19) ‘Pedestrians prevent us using Camilien-Houde as a highway’ (Eddy Merckx, circa. 1970) ‘Pedestrians should get off their feet and use bike frames like everyone else’ (Rotating Wheel Club) ‘Some of my best friends are bipeds’ (Rev. Jerry Falwell, 1973) ‘Pedestrians think they have a right to the city’ (Lefebvre, 1974, p56) ‘Cyclists secretly desire Pedestrians’ (Lacan, 1980, p78) Cyclists, as cited above3, think they are aware of Pedestrians, yet this does not make Pe- 2 A Cyclist using brakes is an infinitesimally rare event – one we shall briefly discuss in the next section. 3 Foucault, Lefebvre, Bataille, Lacan and Jerry Falwell are quoted as both non-Cyclists and Cyclists: 30
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