Research Seminar: Sébastien Lambelet

Revisiting Toronto's growth machine (1990s-2020s): from a neoliberal regime to a regime of "throwntogetherness"

Abstract:

Sébastien Lambelet will present preliminary results of the field research he is conducting in Toronto for about a year. Since his arrival in this large and fascinating city, Sébastien is puzzled by the way city politics constantly gets influenced by higher level of governments and market changes, thereby making city authorities unable to properly plan and steer urban development. In this context, Sébastien will argue that Toronto is currently governed by a “regime of throwntogetherness” (see Massey 2005).

His talk will retrace the evolution of Toronto’s growth regime since the 1998 amalgamation, underlying that a coherent land use policy regime was established in the 2000s, as a progressive backlash to amalgamation. However, since the early 2010s, this policy regime has been progressively und successfully dismantled by a succession of legislative reforms undertaken by conservative leaders in the name of market and governmental efficiencies. Sébastien will critically discuss this evolution and argue that, instead of solving Toronto’s housing “crisis”, market solutionism turns city politics into apolitical debates, thereby a) overlooking policy alternatives and b) reinforcing the preemptive power of developers and financialized landlords (see Stone, 1988).

Bio - Sébastien Lambelet:

Sébastien Lambelet joined the EUC Faculty and the CITY Institute as a postdoctoral fellow in February 2024. He is also lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of Geneva (Switzerland) where he obtained his PhD in Political Science in late 2019. Sébastien’s research focuses on urban and metropolitan governance, policy studies, cross-border metropolitan areas, land-use planning, land policies and no net land take policy objectives.

Moderator: Roger H Keil

Discussants: Stefan Andreas Kipfer and Ute A Lehrer

Roger Keil is a Distinguished Research Professor and is York Research Chair in Global Sub/Urban Studies, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University in Toronto.

Ute Lehrer is a professor at EUC and teaches urban planning. She in interested in critical urban theory and social justice. She is the PI of a SSHRC research project on high-rise living and public space, and is a co-applicant for a SSHRC research project on "New Housing Alternatives for a Socially-Just Urban Canada".

Stefan Kipfer is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University, Toronto