Canadians have a right to live in cities that meet their basic needs in a dignified way, but in recent decades increased inequality and polarization have been reshaping the social landscape of Canada’s urban areas. This book examines the dimensions and impacts of increased economic inequality and urban socio-spatial polarization since the 1980s. Based on the work of the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership, an innovative national comparative study of seven major cities, the authors reveal the dynamics of neighbourhood change across the Canadian urban system. While the heart of the book lies in the project’s findings from each city, other chapters provide important context. Taken together, they offer important understandings of the depth and the breadth of the problem at hand and signal the urgency for concerted policy responses in the decades to come.

Just how resilient are our urban societies to social, energy, environmental and/or financial shocks, and how does this vary among cities and nations? Can our cities be made more sustainable, and can environmental, economic and social collapse be staved off through changes in urban form and travel behaviour? How might rising indebtedness and the recent series of financial crises be related to automobile dependence and patterns of urban automobile use? To what extent does the system and economy of automobility factor in the production of urban socio-spatial inequalities, and how might these inequalities in mobility be understood and measured? What can we learn from the politics of mobility and social movements within cities? What is the role of automobility, and auto-dependence, in differentiating groups, both within cities and rural areas, and among transnational migrants moving across international borders? These are just some of the questions this book addresses. This volume provides a holistic and reflexive account of the role played by automobility in producing, reproducing, and differentiating social, economic and political life in the contemporary city, as well as the role played by the city in producing and reproducing auto-mobile inequalities. The first section, titled Driving Vulnerability, deals with issues of global importance related to economic, social, financial, and environmental sustainability and resilience, and socialization. The second section, Driving Inequality, is concerned with understanding the role played by automobility in producing urban socio-spatial inequalities, including those rooted in accessibility to work, migration status and ethnic concentration, and new measures of mobility-based inequality derived from the concept of effective speed. The third section, titled, Driving Politics, explores the politics of mobility in particular places, with an eye to demonstrating both the relevance of the politics of mobility for influencing and reinforcing actually existing neoliberalisms, and the kinds of politics that might allow for reform or restructuring of the auto-mobile city into one that is more socially, politically and environmentally just. In the conclusion to the book Walks draws on the findings of the other chapters to comment on the relationship between automobility, neoliberalism and citizenship, and to lay out strategies for dealing with the urban car system.

Just how resilient are our urban societies (to energy, environmental and/or financial shocks, etc), and how does this vary among cities and nations? Can our cities be made more sustainable, and can environmental, economic, and social collapse be staved off through changes in urban form and travel behaviour? How might the recent series of financial crises be related to automobile dependence and patterns of urban automobile use? What is the influence of the automobile in the production of urban socio-spatial inequalities, and how might inequalities in mobility be understood and measured? What has been the role of automobility, and auto-dependence, in differentiating forms of citizenship, both within cities and rural areas, and among transnational migrants moving across international borders? How is the auto-mobile city implicated in the rise of neoliberal ideology, and how has it affected electoral campaigns and results? What can we learn from the politics of mobility and social movements within cities? What can we do to fashion more socially just and resilient cities? These are some of the questions this book addresses.This volume provides an holistic and reflexive account of the role played by automobility in producing, reproducing, and differentiating social, economic and political life in the contemporary city, as well as the role played by the city in producing and reproducing auto-mobile inequalities. The first section, titled Driving Vulnerability, deals with issues of global importance related to economic, social, financial, and environmental sustainability and resilience, and socialization. The second section, Driving Urban Inequality, is concerned with understanding the role played by automobility in producing urban socio-spatial inequalities, including those rooted in accessibility to work, migration status and ethnic concentration, and new measures of mobility-based inequality derived from the concept of effective speed.The third section, titled, Driving Urban Politics, explores the politics of mobility in particular places, with an eye to demonstrating both the relevance of the politics of mobility for influencing and reinforcing actually existing neoliberalism, and the kinds of politics that might allow for reform or restructuring of the auto-mobile city into one that is more socially, politically and environmentally just. The conclusion to the book draws on the findings of the other chapters to comment on the relationship between automobility, neoliberalism, and citizenship, and to lay out strategies for dealing with the urban car system. The book is original and useful in advancing the body of knowledge through the application of abstract concepts in the automobility literature to the study of the city, but also by providing in each chapter comparative empirical analysis quantifying a range of measures by which such concepts were applied.The book will be useful for those working on theorizing the city and automobility, and those conducting empirical analyses on these issues (mobility-based inequalities and as a guide for political strategizing and negotiating the politics and policies of the auto-mobile city.

Canadians have a right to live in cities that meet their basic needs in a dignified way, but in recent decades increased inequality and polarization have been reshaping the social landscape of Canada's urban areas. This book examines the dimensions and impacts of increased economic inequality and urban socio-spatial polarization since the 1980s. Based on the work of the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership, an innovative national comparative study of seven major cities, the authors reveal the dynamics of neighbourhood change across the Canadian urban system. While the heart of the book lies in the project's findings from each city, other chapters provide important context. Taken together, they offer important understandings of the depth and the breadth of the problem at hand and signal the urgency for concerted policy responses in the decades to come.