In order to keep mass transit accessible, we must understand the relationship between gentrification and public transportation

Gentrification and access to the city is a key issue in many urban centers today. Annelise Grube-Cavers and Zachary Patterson examine the relationship between gentrification and access to mass transit in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. They find that exposure to a transit station is related to gentrification in Toronto and Montreal, but not in Vancouver. They call for more research on this subject, so that planners can establish and incorporate transit in a way that would allow the residents who would most greatly benefit from proximity to public transportation (low-income, working class households) have sustained access to it

The Effects of Urban Rapid Rail Transit on Gentrification in Canadian Urban Centres

Throughout the second half of the 20th century theories attempting to explain the phenomenon of gentrification have been pervasive among studies of the changing social structures of urban centres in Europe and North America. Gentrification is defined as a process whereby higher income households move into what were previously working class neighbourhoods, resulting in either direct or indirect displacement of working class households, and ultimately transforming the social character of the neighbourhood. There has been contentious debate over the definition of gentrification, but but through its evolution and adaptation to new contexts it has remained a popular topic among scholars in urban planning. Among the studies and papers published, there are many that show that the process is not only driven by individual actors', but it is also a process deeply affected by government interests and objectives and therefore by public investments. The consequences of the process are still debated; some hail the process as a boost for everyone, (e.g. Duany, 2001), while others assert that gentrification limits accessibility to urban space for lower-income, working-class households, often with already reduced options in terms of housing, and ultimately contributes to creating increasingly socially polarized urban spaces (Marcuse, 1986; Newman and Wyly, 2006). Keeping a necessarily critical perspective in mind, this study identifies the onset of gentrification in Canadian cities and links this process to an element of urban infrastructure essential to cities; transit. The objective of this research is not only to see what the effects of the implementation of transit are on gentrification when it is initially implemented, but also to look at the impacts of transit over time on the gentrification of surrounding neighbourhoods. In the gentrification literature there are a number of articles that make mention of the influential role of accessibility, and transit, on the process of gentrification. The relationship between neighbourhood changes and the implementation and upgrading of transit infrastructure, has, as of yet, not been clearly established. Though transit has long been recognized as having important connections to changes in land-use in the areas surrounding it, there have been few studies that attempt to explore, explicitly, the connections between the implementation of rail transit infrastructure and the process of gentrification in the surrounding metropolitan area. Additionally the few studies that do exist that explicitly address the relationship between transit and gentrification do not adhere to the conventional definition of gentrification according to the literature. The hypothesis of this project is that the implementation of rapid rail transit contributes to the gentrification of surrounding neighbourhoods and may result in the displacement of lower-income households, who would have the greatest marginal benefit from access to transit. This study presents data and analysis in order to assess the hypothesis using a number of indicators of gentrification and covering a study period long enough to capture the effects of major urban rapid rail transit as it has been implemented and upgraded in Canadian cities in the 20th century. This study will specifically address the effects of rail transit infrastructure on gentrification in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver

THE ROLE OF SHOPPING CENTERS AS SIMULATED PUBLIC SPACE: THE SHOPPING CENTER CENTRO MAYOR, BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA

Public space is in an integral part of the cultural richness of cities, and an essential element in the functioning of a democratic society. Made up of the networks of streets, sidewalks, parks and plazas, public space is what makes urban centers living entities. Though its importance is consistently recognized around the world, public space in Latin America has held a special role in society. In the context of Colombia, the role of public space has been shaped not only by its function as a gathering space for citizens, but it has been marked by decades of armed conflict. It was in this context in Colombia that the construction of major shopping malls emerged, becoming an increasingly important part of the commercial sector of Colombian cities, and, according to some authors, providing an alternative ‘public' space in which citizens could gather. This study, through a review of the literature and a survey, summarizes some of the changes that have occurred in the urban public realm of Bogotá in the past decades, and hypothesizes the role that major commercial centers are playing in the daily lives of the city's residents

El papel de los centros comerciales como simulacros de espacios públicos: el centro comercial Centro Mayor, Bogotá, Colombia

El espacio público es una parte integral de la riqueza cultural de las ciudades y un elemento esencial en el funcionamien-to de una sociedad democrática. Compuesto de las redes de calles, andenes, parques y plazas, el espacio público es lo que hace de los centros urbanos entidades vivas. Su im-portancia es reconocida alrededor del mundo y en América Latina, el espacio público ha tenido un papel especial en la sociedad. En el contexto de Colombia, el espacio público cumple su función como espacio para reuniones entre ciu-dadanos, pero además ha estado marcado por décadas de violencia e inseguridad. Es dentro de este contexto que la construcción de centros comerciales emergió, creciendo en importancia el sector comercial de las ciudades colom-bianas, y proveyendo espacios como alternativas al espacio público abierto. Este estudio, sintetiza la relación de los cen-tros comerciales con otros espacios en las ciudades. Con los resultados de una encuesta realizada acompañada por una revisión de la literatura, este artículo resume algunos de los cambios importantes observados en las últimas décadas acerca del tema del ámbito público de Bogotá, y se pregunta por el papel que tienen los grandes centros comerciales en las vidas de los residentes urbanos.Public space is in an integral part of the cultural richness of cities, and an essential element in the functioning of a demo-cratic society. Made up of the networks of streets, sidewalks, parks and plazas, public space is what makes urban centers living entities. Though its importance is consistently recog-nized around the world, public space in Latin America has held a special role in society. In the context of Colombia, the role of public space has been shaped not only by its function as a gathering space for citizens, but it has been marked by decades of armed conflict. It was in this context in Colom-bia that the construction of major shopping malls emerged, becoming an increasingly important part of the commercial sector of Colombian cities, and, according to some authors, providing an alternative ‘public’ space in which citizens could gather. This study, through a review of the literature and a survey, summarizes some of the changes that have occurred in the urban public realm of Bogotá in the past decades, and hypothesizes the role that major commercial centers are playing in the daily lives of the city’s residents.Incluye referencias bibliográfica