Engaging in the Politics of Contemporary City Planning: The Case of 629 Eastern Avenue, Toronto

Book excerpt: This research examines a contemporary planning case in Toronto where tensions between policy visions and planning practices contribute to our understanding of neoliberal urbanism. Media, policy and interview discourses contribute to developing the nexus between neoliberal urbanism, creative class theory and gentrification in the case of 629 Eastern Avenue. The amalgamation of Toronto's municipalities in 1998 resulting from the "Common Sense Revolution", and the 'creative turn' in the 2000s are identified as two key evolutionary stages in Toronto's neoliberal urbanism. The City's contradictory positions as "grassroots" organizers, market actors and market regulators reveals their interventionist role in this case. The analytical imperative presented by this case study to expose the contradictory and contingent nature of 'actually F1 existing neoliberalism' (Brenner & Theodore, 2002) leads to challenging our very understanding of neoliberalism in the context of contemporary urban planning practices.