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Spatial Discourses and Social Boundaries: Re‐imagining the Toronto Waterfront
Author(s) -
Cooper Matthew
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
city and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1548-744X
pISSN - 0893-0465
DOI - 10.1525/ciso.1994.7.1.93
Subject(s) - ideology , salient , sociology , perception , space (punctuation) , commission , aesthetics , politics , geography , epistemology , political science , linguistics , archaeology , law , philosophy
THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES the work of a recent Canadian royal commission investigating the future of the Toronto waterfront. It is particularly concerned with the emergence of a new kind of spatial discourse and how it affected the perception of the area, definition of the issues, and planning strategies. Focusing on changing forms of discourse opens a window on the historical processes through which spatial meanings and the experience of space change. Spatial discourses elaborate ideologies of place that often relate to the construction of social boundaries. Using ideologies of place, people describe the kinds of places that exist, explain their nature, evaluate them (employing cognitively and emotionally salient imagery to create a symbolic landscape), identify with them, and imagine places as they ought to be (thus creating moral landscapes), [waterfront, discourse, ideology, boundaries, planning, Canada]