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The research explores the suburban tract development industry and sustainability over time in the City of Ottawa, Canada. After establishing the historical, economic, spatial and environmental context of suburban development in Ottawa, the focus shifts to City officials involved with sustainability efforts and several residential developers deemed to be ‘green’ or progressive. The research used public documents, interviews and a case study to compile and compare discourses about sustainable urban development. The interview portion of the research mainly involved asking City officials and development industry officials how they defined ‘sustainable development’ and ‘green building’, and what they thought were barriers to those processes. The main assumption underlying the research was that a common discourse is necessary for public and private bodies to work together towards curtailing low-density suburban development. The research found that two terms, “green building” and “sustainable development,” are employed differently by public and private interests on the outskirts of Ottawa. The research demonstrated that a powerful development lobby in the Ottawa region resists attempts to regulate suburban development with a discourse that is devoid of reference to environmental issues. The dissertation argues that the growth lobby in Ottawa is integrated into a global growth regime that does not account for the full environmental consequences of current production and consumption practices. A conceptual tool, homecology, is found to be useful for exploring the full range of impacts of residential development. In the case study of Minto Communities Inc., the research found that despite questionable claims, Minto as a company is in fact progressive with regards to certain green building initiatives. However, Minto also operates within an industry that is strongly resistant to both change and government regulation. At the same time that Minto publicly offers a simplified sustainability discourse, the company actively lobbies for low density ex-urban residential development. The dissertation concludes that suburban development is embedded in neoliberal political economy in Canada and abroad. The tract or production residential development industry depends on cheap labour and land, and discursively separates homes from global ecology, to continue unsustainable practices.

Manufacturing 'home' : sustainability discourses in suburban Ottawa