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Urban Expansion and Industrial Nature: A Political Ecology of Toronto's Port Industrial District

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  • GENE DESFOR
  • LUCIAN VESALON

Abstract

This article analyses political and economic practices involved with the production of an industrial form of socio‐nature — the Port Industrial District — during the early decades of the twentieth century in Toronto, Canada. Informed by historical documents from that period, as well as using contemporary concepts from urban theory, we analyse the creation of a major land mass and southern extension of Toronto within a political ecology framework. We explicitly link the concept of socio‐nature with the dynamics suggested by theories of capital and spatial expansion, thereby bringing ‘nature’ into a more central position in understanding urban development processes. The Toronto Harbour Commissioners, the central organization in this land‐creation process, reflected, we argue, more the ideological preferences and economic interests of local elites than an efficient institutional design for solving a multi‐dimensional ‘waterfront problem’. The harbour commission and its supporters envisioned and promoted the new industrial district, the pivotal section of its 1912 waterfront development plan, as a general strategy for intensifying industrialization and growth of the city. The massive infrastructure project is best understood as a spatio‐temporal fix to productively absorb capital through spatial expansion and temporal deferment. A new institutional arrangement consolidated political and economic relations through practices that made possible the production of a new form of socio‐nature and reshaped the eastern section of Toronto's central waterfront as an industrial landscape. Résumé Cet article analyse les pratiques politiques et économiques impliquées dans la production d’une forme industrielle de socio‐nature, le quartier industriel portuaire de Toronto, dans les premières décennies du XXe siècle. À partir de documents historiques de cette époque et de concepts contemporains propres à la théorie urbaine, est analysée la création d’une zone terrestre considérable et d’une extension du Sud de Toronto dans un cadre d’écologie politique. Nous associons explicitement le concept de socio‐nature et les dynamiques suggérées par les théories de l’expansion du capital et de l’expansion spatiale, ce qui recentre la "nature" dans l’appréhension des processus d’aménagement urbain. À notre avis, les commissaires du Havre de Toronto, organisme central chargé de la création de ce terrain, ont davantage traduit les préférences idéologiques et les intérêts économiques des élites locales qu’un projet institutionnel efficient pour résoudre un "problème de front de mer" multi‐dimensionnel. La Commission du Havre et ses partisans ont imaginé et défendu le nouveau quartier industriel, composante‐clé du plan d’aménagement du front de mer de 1912, comme une stratégie d’ensemble visant à intensifier l’industrialisation et l’essor de la ville. Or, l’énorme projet d’infrastructure se comprend mieux en tant que solution spatio‐temporelle pour absorber des capitaux de manière productive par le biais d’une expansion spatiale et d’un report dans le temps. Un nouveau dispositif institutionnel a consolidé les relations politiques et économiques grâce à des pratiques qui ont permis la production d’un forme novatrice de socio‐nature et qui ont reprofilé en paysage industriel la partie Est du front de mer central de Toronto.

Suggested Citation

  • Gene Desfor & Lucian Vesalon, 2008. "Urban Expansion and Industrial Nature: A Political Ecology of Toronto's Port Industrial District," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 586-603, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:32:y:2008:i:3:p:586-603
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2008.00806.x
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Hugo Marcelo Zunino, 2006. "Power Relations in Urban Decision-making: Neo-liberalism, 'Techno-politicians' and Authoritarian Redevelopment in Santiago, Chile," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 43(10), pages 1825-1846, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Koi Yu Adolf Ng & César Ducruet, 2014. "The changing tides of port geography (1950–2012)," Post-Print halshs-01359160, HAL.
    2. Kevin Walby & Chris Hurl, 2014. "Policing Urban Natures: Conservation Officer Work in Ottawa and Toronto, Canada," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1476-1490, July.
    3. Cindy McCulligh & Georgina Vega Fregoso, 2019. "Defiance from Down River: Deflection and Dispute in the Urban-Industrial Metabolism of Pollution in Guadalajara," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(22), pages 1-26, November.
    4. Hillary Angelo & David Wachsmuth, 2015. "Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of Methodological Cityism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 16-27, January.

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