Just going through my photos and have to share some of my favourites. I took these a couple of years ago hanging out the window of a very small plane. They are to the east and north of the city of Toronto. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these best capture my fascination with exurbia.
Not the city, not the country: is this the middle landscape?
My main research interest is studying the complex dynamics at work in creating the phenomenon of exurbia, which I’ve come to understand is a cultural landscape common to many places around the globe.
Political ecology provides one of the best ways of understanding these social and environmental dynamics, and I am working to encourage planners to use the theoretical framework and methodological approaches of political ecology to make sense of human-environment relations in the landscape of exurban sprawl.
I am interested in the ideology of nature in sprawl (separating it from other interrelated pulls that draw people outwards (privacy, status) and pushes away from the city (noise, traffic, hectic pace, crowds, visible poverty) to provide insights into questions about the way we plan and live in our city regions.
Waterfront access, year round road access, farmer’s market close by.