The state of Canadian cities: theoretical and applied themes: an introduction

Abstract

The initial goal of this Geojournal symposium was to provide readers with a holistic sense of the current state of research on and conditions in Canadian cities. While the composite articles certainly achieve this goal, the symposium also speaks to larger issues of urban history, current trends and future trajectories both for urban regions themselves but also for urban scholarship. Several aspects of the symposium are worth note. First, the call for papers for the symposium did not identify preferred specific foci for the research as far as topic or field. As will be become clear, however, the articles as a group highlight several critical themes that represent an urban research agenda for the 21st century, as well as the need for a corresponding urban policy agenda. The papers also reflect the inherent interdisciplinarity of urban research in both a normative and applied sense. The interdisciplinarity is also represented in the particular research methods employed, providing a rich and multifaceted look at the Canadian urban system. Finally, the symposium as a whole highlights the complexity of, yet critical need for, effective and thoughtful urban public policy-making in a rapidly globalizing world. One of the most pervasive themes of the research presented here is the importance of past trends as well as the external forces of globalization in shaping current urban realities. Urban policy-making is inherently limited by path dependency and the natural advantages (or disadvantages) of cities as they take their places in the urban hierarchy. Increasing social and economic globalization adds a rapidly changing external environment over which individual cities or even urban regions, no matter how integrated, have little control. Yet, place and politics still matter; livable, sustainable and governable cities will be those that find room within these forces for effective local efforts to address and perhaps even shape change.