The Production of Space for Entrepreneurship: State-Led Gentrification & Innovation along the ION Light Rail Transit Line in the Region of Waterloo
Abstract:
The Region of Waterloo is rapidly transforming along the route of the ION Light Rail Transit Line as expansions in the innovation industry and investments in public space enhance a new linear core. As the transit line facilitates greater density it increases socioeconomic inequity in terms of who can choose to be near newly connected public space. I argue that the co-produced public space environment of state-led gentrification and innovation is a means for the municipality to ossify and intensify existing structures of spatial and economic inequity. I ask how this transformed public space is presented and produced by the state and perceived by residents. I employ a mix of photography, mapping, and surveying to form a discursive relationship between public documents, in-place experiences, and the changing socio-economic geography of the Region of Waterloo. I find that the co-production of gentrification and innovation is fostered by provincial growth planning and an institutional response to post-industrial decline. In the network of public space more intensely connected by the new transit line, I document an aesthetic and spatial narrative of entrepreneurship that blurs the boundary between labour and life - foreclosing the political potential of these spaces. With this work, I extend the theorization of gentrification in relation to innovation labour—entrepreneurship—in the political economy of a post-industrial municipality.
The examining committee is as follows:
Supervisor:
Adrian
Blackwell
Co-Supervisor: Maya
Przybylski
Committee
member: Martine
August
Internal-external
reader:
Brian
Doucet
External:
Greig
de
Peuter
The
defence
examination
will
take
place:
Friday,
August
5,
2022,
10:00
a.m.
This
is
a
hybrid
defence
taking
place
in-person
in
the
Ward
Room
at
the
School
of
Architecture
as
well
as
online
via
Teams.
Please
contact the
grad
office for
the
Teams
link.
The
committee
has
been
approved
as
authorized
by
the
Graduate
Studies
Committee.
A
copy
of
the
thesis
is
available
for
perusal
in
ARC
2106A.