Melbourne: Most Liveable City, But for Whom?

Melbourne, Australia has been ranked the Most Liveable City by the Economist for four years in a row, and having lived there for the greater part of the year in 2008, I am never surprised to see this city at the top of the list.  But this year, The Age had a bone to pick with the criteria that made this so, begging the question, for whom is the city most liveable?

Sherene Razack’s “When Place Becomes Race”: Interrogating Spatial Justice through an Intersectional Lens

Sherene Razack, a prominent Canadian feminist, anti-racist scholar at the University of Toronto complied Race, Space and the Law: Unmapping a White Settler Society (2002), an interdisciplinary compilation of papers that interrogate the importance of spatialized approaches to social justice. The aim of the book is to “identify legal and social practices that reproduce racial hierarchies” (p. 17). In her introductory chapter entitled When Place Becomes Race, Razack theorizes an intersectional approach to issues of space, or more specifically social space, will bring about a more complex and in-depth understanding, perhaps resulting in a reconsideration of the boundary-making processes that reproduce domination and marginalization.

Before delving into Razack’s chapter, I must stress that it is important to consider this way of thinking when talking about spatial justice, whether or not from a feminist standpoint, as it interrogates issues through an intersectional lens. But what does that mean?

Urban Farming for Social Change in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side

Vancouver’s Downtown East Side is infamously Canada’s poorest postal code, but situated in the heart of a wealthy and thriving city.  The area is home to a diverse range of people, many of whom are impoverished, homeless, and facing mental health and addiction issues.  The infamy of this neighbourhood has brought about a number of revolutionary social programs to help deal with the issues at hand in a way that does not impose an erasure of a community that relies so heavily on proximity, access, and the strong social networks that thrive there.  While many businesses have closed their doors, the area is faced with impending gentrification and even less opportunity for survival within a city that is barely affordable for the best of us.

However, urban farming initiative Sole Food Street Farms has taken over a number of empty lots in and around the neighbourhood, creating urban farms run by the community.  Initially, the arrival of Sole Food simply provided jobs for Downtown East Side residents, utilized space in a productive way, all while providing beautiful, in-season produce for whomever could afford to sign up for their monthly programs.  Sole Food found great success in Vancouver, a city that values health and wellness, and planned to take their initiatives farther.  In the past year, through a successful and on-going crowd-funding campaign, Sole Food has introduced a new farm on a busy corner that was once a gas-station.  Their use of above-ground boxes allows them to utilize otherwise contaminated space to create a “pay what you can” market with food of the exact same calibre of their other farms, now opening access to healthy food for all!  The idea behind this is that they can now provide healthy food for those who could not otherwise afford it within the area that their target market inhabits.

I think this is not only an incredible use of space that would likely otherwise become high-rise condos, but also an amazing way to introduce jobs and health initiatives to an area that so desperately needs it.  Perhaps this is a form of gentrification in itself, but I have difficulty seeing many issues with the introduction of positive and un-intrusive lifestyle changes!

For more information on Sole Food Street Farms, check out their website and their facebook!