IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v40y2008i2p258-282.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urban Form, Everyday Life, and Ideology: Support for Privatization in Three Toronto Neighbourhoods

Author

Listed:
  • R Alan Walks

    (Department of Geography and Program in Planning, University of Toronto, 100 St George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada)

Abstract

One of the trends marking neoliberalism and the attack on the welfare state from the right is the move toward the privatization of public services. Recent research in both the United States and Canada suggests that residents of the suburbs of large urban regions are more likely to vote for political parties on the right and to support neoliberal policies such as privatization, while the opposite is true for inner-city dwellers. However, the reasons why such a spatial division should occur have received little academic attention. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the relationship between residential location, spatial factors, and attitudes toward privatization, using survey data collected in the Toronto region. Results suggest that the way urban space influences residents' daily routines and personal experiences may then mediate their perception of the uses of public services and the efficacy of government spending, factors which are found to affect spatial disparities in support of and/or in opposition to privatization. Thus, there is some evidence that urban spatial form is important for understanding the geographic unevenness of support for neoliberalism, and thus ultimately for the production of ideology.

Suggested Citation

  • R Alan Walks, 2008. "Urban Form, Everyday Life, and Ideology: Support for Privatization in Three Toronto Neighbourhoods," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(2), pages 258-282, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:40:y:2008:i:2:p:258-282
    DOI: 10.1068/a3948
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a3948
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a3948?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roger Keil, 2000. "Governance Restructuring in Los Angeles and Toronto: Amalgamation or Secession?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 758-781, December.
    2. Dunleavy, Patrick, 1979. "The Urban Basis of Political Alignment: Social Class, Domestic Property Ownership, and State Intervention in Consumption Processes," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(4), pages 409-443, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eric Charmes & Roger Keil, 2015. "The Politics of Post-Suburban Densification in Canada and France," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 581-602, May.
    2. Will Poppe & Douglas Young, 2015. "The Politics of Place: Place-making versus Densification in Toronto's Tower Neighbourhoods," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(3), pages 613-621, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kumlin, Staffan, 2000. "Ideology-driven public opinion formation in Europe: The case of third sector attitudes in Sweden," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Institutions and Social Change FS III 00-202, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    2. C J Pattie & R J Johnston, 1990. "Thatcherism—One Nation or Two? An Exploration of British Political Attitudes in the 1980s," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 8(3), pages 269-282, September.
    3. Charles J Pattie & Ron J Johnston, 2002. "Political Talk and Voting: Does it Matter to Whom One Talks?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 34(6), pages 1113-1135, June.
    4. Legrain, Alexander & Buliung, Ron & El-Geneidy, Ahmed M., 2016. "Travelling fair: Targeting equitable transit by understanding job location, sectorial concentration, and transit use among low-wage workers," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-11.
    5. Kevin R. Cox, 2011. "Commentary. From the New Urban Politics to the ‘New’ Metropolitan Politics," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2661-2671, September.
    6. Rune Stubager, 2003. "Preference‐shaping: an Empirical Test," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 51(2), pages 241-261, June.
    7. Federico Savini, 2012. "Who Makes the (New) Metropolis? Cross-Border Coalition and Urban Development in Paris," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(8), pages 1875-1895, August.
    8. Ron Johnston & Danny Dorling & Helena Tunstall & David Rossiter & Iain MacAllister & Charles Pattie, 2000. "Locating the Altruistic Voter: Context, Egocentric Voting, and Support for the Conservative Party at the 1997 General Election in England and Wales," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(4), pages 673-694, April.
    9. R J Johnston & A M Hay & D Rumley, 1984. "On Testing for Structural Effects in Electoral Geography, Using Entropy-Maximising Methods to Estimate Voting Patterns," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 16(2), pages 233-240, February.
    10. Lisa Adkins & Melinda Cooper & Martijn Konings, 2021. "Class in the 21st century: Asset inflation and the new logic of inequality," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(3), pages 548-572, May.
    11. Julie-Anne Boudreau & Roger Keil, 2001. "Seceding from Responsibility? Secession Movements in Los Angeles," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 38(10), pages 1701-1731, September.
    12. R J Johnston, 1983. "The Feedback Component of the Pork Barrel: Tests Using the Results of the 1983 General Election in Britain," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 15(12), pages 1691-1696, December.
    13. David B. Clarke & Michael G. Bradford, 1998. "Public and Private Consumption and the City," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 35(5-6), pages 865-888, May.
    14. Ron Johnston & Richard Harris & Kelvyn Jones, 2007. "Sampling People or People in Places? The BES as an Election Study," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 55(1), pages 86-112, March.
    15. Gordon MacLeod & Martin Jones, 2011. "Renewing Urban Politics," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2443-2472, September.
    16. Fitjar, Rune Dahl, 2019. "2019/01 Merging city and suburban governments: A public choice perspective on the Norwegian local government reform," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2019/1, University of Stavanger.
    17. A Murie, 1991. "Divisions of Homeownership: Housing Tenure and Social Change," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 23(3), pages 349-370, March.
    18. Beckmann, Paul & Fulda, Barbara & Kohl, Sebastian, 2020. "Housing and voting in Germany: Multi-level evidence for the association between house prices and housing tenure and party outcomes, 1980-2017," MPIfG Discussion Paper 20/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    19. Lisa Freeman, 2017. "Governed Through Ghost Jurisdictions: Municipal Law, Inner Suburbs and Rooming Houses," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 298-317, March.
    20. Tom Slater, 2004. "North American Gentrification? Revanchist and Emancipatory Perspectives Explored," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(7), pages 1191-1213, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:40:y:2008:i:2:p:258-282. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.