Other ways of knowing your place: immigrant women's experience of public space in Toronto.

Rahder, Barbara ; McLean, Heather

Abstract

The erosion of public spaces and institutions and the widening gap between rich and poor within the current neoliberal city entrenches race, class and gender inequalities. Newcomer communities working to build social relationships bare the brunt of policies that favour competition, individualism, and market-oriented values. In the Toronto context--a city where racialized, low-income communities are increasingly concentrated in underserviced neighbourhoods and increasingly excluded from well-paying jobs--cuts to public programs and services entrench barriers and deepen the isolation of immigrant women. Drawing on a feminist environmental justice framework, this article explores how newcomer women know their place within the neoliberal city. Knowing your place denotes social exclusion and the subtle or not-so-subtle ways that marginalized groups are blocked from using needed public spaces and services, a form of environmental racism or injustice. But we also reveal other ways of knowing your place that involves developing the social commitments and spatial attachments necessary for sustainability. We found that immigrant women in Toronto are actively engaged in the social construction of knowledge and meaning in the city and, with organization and support, could become a significant force for developing more equitable and sustainable urban communities.

Keywords: environmental justice, gender and race, public space, social sustainability, neoliberal policy

Resume

Lerosion des espaces et des institutions publiques et l'elargissement du fosse entre riches et pauvres dans la ville neoliberale actuelle accentuent les inegalites de race, de classe et de genre. Les communautes de nouveaux arrivants travaillant a construire des relations sociales sont confrontees aux politiques qui favorisent la concurrence, l'individualisme et les valeurs du marche. Dans le context de Toronto--une ville ou les communautes racialisees a faible revenu sont de plus en plus concentrees dans les quartiers mal desservies et de plus en plus excluses des emplois bien remuneres--les coupures aux programmes et services publics accentuent les obstacles et l'isolement des femmes immigrantes. Utilisant un cadre de justice environnementale feministe, cet article explore la facon dont les nouvelles arrivantes connaissent leur place au sein de la ville neoliberale. Connaitre sa place designe l'exclusion sociale et les manieres subtiles ou pas tant subtiles eprouvees par les groupes marginalises dans l'utilisation des espaces et des services publics necessaires, une forme d'injustice et de racism environnemental. Mais nous revelons egalement d'autres manieres de connaitre sa place qui consiste a developper les engagements sociaux et les appartenances spatiales necessaires a la durabilite. Nous avons constate que les femmes immigrantes a Toronto sont activement engagees dans la construction sociale de la connaissance et de la signification dans la ville et, avec organisation et au soutien, pourraient devenir une force importante pour un developpement plus equitable et durable des communautes urbaines.

Mots cles: justice environnementale, genre et race, espace public, durabilite sociale, politique neoliberale

Introduction

Immigrant women have a vital role to play in the creation of more sustainable and equitable cities. With increasing diversity in cities, a widening gap between rich and poor, and a sense of dwindling access to or increasing conflict within public spaces, it is important to understand the neoliberal context as well as the role that urban public spaces and institutions play in sustaining local social relationships among and between diverse socio-cultural groups. This article explores how some of Toronto's most vulnerable community members--women immigrants--experience and use public space and the implications for the concept and prospect of social sustainability. This article argues that knowledge and use of public space is gendered, racialized and classed and, consequently, best understood within a feminist environmental justice framework. From this analysis, knowing your place emerges as both negative and positive. On the one hand, it denotes social exclusion and a subtle or not-so-subtle means of circumscribing the use of public space by marginalized groups--a form of environmental racism or injustice. On the other hand, the process of learning about a place is a means of developing the social and spatial attachments and commitments necessary for sustainability. In other words, there are other ways of knowing your place. Immigrant women are actively engaged in the social construction of knowledge and meaning in their urban environment and, with organization and support, this could become a significant quest for equitable and sustainable urban communities.

We begin this article with an overview of current urban research examining the effects of neoliberal urban policies on immigrant communities in Canadian cities, focusing in particular on women's everyday lives. Next, we explore the relevance of feminist environmental justice literature as a framework for understanding how neoliberal cuts to public programs and services differentially impact communities marginalized by race, class, gender and urban space. We then relate situated stories that immigrant/newcomer women told us about their knowledge and use of public space in Toronto. We contend that this is important not only to give voice to women's experiences, but to illustrate the value of a feminist environmental justice perspective in framing the ways marginalized women negotiate social and spatial relations in their everyday lives. In the final section on knowing your place we reflect on the active and unanticipated ways immigrant women are making space for themselves despite inadequate public services and facilities. We conclude with a call to reimagine women's place in organizing for a more sustainable and equitable society.

Changing Social and Spatial Divisions in the Neoliberal City of Toronto

Over the past fifteen years, city officials, boosters and private sector partners have reconfigured Toronto's physical and social infrastructure with neoliberal policies and programs. Neoliberal ideology shapes not only global and national political economies but also intimate, local and everyday spaces (Keil, 1998; Brenner and Theodore, 2002; Peck and Tickell, 2002; Roberts and Mahtani, 2010). For instance, since amalgamation in 1998, the City of Toronto has dramatically cut back funding and support for immigrant settlement services, a policy shift that has accelerated the "racialization of poverty" in a city that is one of Canada's key immigrant destinations (Viswanathan, 2010: 262). Urban researchers informed by a critical anti-racist feminist perspective have articulated how socially constructed race and gender inequalities and neoliberal regimes are interconnected and "actualized through various policies, discourses, and social relations" (Roberts and Mahtani, 2010: 253; see also Galabuzi, 2007). Neoliberalism's myth of meritocracy (Roberts and Mahtani, 2010) promotes the idea of individual responsibility and subsequently privileges competition for resources over more collective solutions to social challenges. It is an ideological regime that undermines vulnerable, low-income and racialized residents, depoliticizes the structural barriers they face, and reproduces uneven capital development across the urban landscape.

This uneven development is deepened by policies that 'roll back' public sector safety nets and 'roll out' pro-market policies (Peck and Tickell, 2002) including the privatization of city services, the contracting out of formerly unionized municipal jobs, the abandonment of affordable housing programs, and the demolition of public housing in favour of 'socially mixed' neighbourhoods (See for example Hackworth and Moriah, 2006; Leitner et al., 2006; August, 2008; Hackworth, 2008; Walks and Maaranen, 2008). All of these strategies articulate a broader institutional realignment that downloads responsibilities from government to community organizations (Basu, 2004; DeFilippis, 2004; DeFilippis and Fraser, 2010; Kipfer and Keil, 2002) and pressures them to adopt entrepreneurial strategies and compete for funding. Ensnared within these dynamics, community advocates find themselves too overwhelmed to spend much time investing in advocacy work; their capacity to develop meaningful, long-term programming that supports a wide range of community members is eroded.

The resulting social and spatial polarization is especially entrenched in Toronto's suburban neighbourhoods, which are increasingly configured by "a dual system of 'haves' (rich suburbs) and 'have-nots' (poor suburbs)" (Orum and Xianmeng, 2003: 127). Hulchanski's (2007) research describes Toronto's inner suburbs--Scarborough, East York, York, North York and Etobicoke--as home to increasing numbers of recently arrived immigrants, racialized groups and precarious workers. These neighbourhoods face challenges of"declining social and material infrastructure, selective social policy and record levels of poverty" (Parlette and Cowen, 2011: 789). Meanwhile, just beyond these post-war suburbs new exurban neighbourhoods expand with high levels of investment and resident incomes (Walks, 2001; United Way, 2002; Cowen, 2005).

The old suburban neighbourhoods also have minimal social infrastructure. These post-war spaces were "built around the private family in private space" (Cowen, 2005: 794) with minimal provision for public space or services. Over the past few decades, however, many residents that worked in local manufacturing, lost their jobs as companies relocated to the global south (Kumizaki et al., forthcoming). As these areas became depressed, the housing became more affordable, making these neighbourhoods into important immigrant reception areas. The lack of social infrastructure, including the lack of social services agencies for newcomers (Lo, 2011), compounds the inequities embedded in the landscape.

Toronto has a history of efforts to inject critical discussion about gender and race politics into city building efforts (Bashevkin, 2006; Wekerle, 1999, 2004, 2005). For example, in the 1980s and 1990s, Women Plan Toronto activists and planners actively involved a diversity of women in planning processes and debates. Using participatory methods, Women Plan Toronto challenged public and private sector planners to create more inclusive urban designs, land use policies and social planning policies that meet the needs of diverse residents (Modlich, 2012). They challenged mainstream planners to directly engage with underrepresented women, including elder women, immigrant women and aboriginal women in planning practice (Kern and Wekerle, 2008; Rahder, 1998). However, six years after the City of Toronto amalgamated, Women Plan Toronto dissolved. Since the mid 1990s, powerful networks of mostly male private sector 'experts' have dominated planning while opportunities for community engagement have all but disappeared (Kern and Wekerle, 2008). These dynamics have resulted in the sedimentation of a particularly gendered city-building regime reflected in the city's growing social polarization.

Social and spatial patterns are changing in Canada cities, becoming at the same time more diverse and more segregated. While the patterns of segregation are still nowhere as dramatic as those in the United States, a number of studies show income disparity increasing in Canada with ethno-racial minorities on the losing end (Ornstein, 2006; United Way, 2002; Toronto Community Foundation, 2012). Low-income urban communities are plagued by poor access to needed public services--lacking access to affordable housing and public transit, to healthy food and to good schools--with youth and women of colour hit hardest (Khosla, 2003). As racialized poverty becomes more spatialized in Canadian cities, along with all the attendant barriers and risks that this entails, the concepts of environmental racism and environmental justice appear suddenly more relevant to any discussion of urban public space in Canada.

Feminist Environmental Justice and Sustainability

Environmental racism and the movement for environmental justice have well-documented histories in the United States, but are only beginning to be recognized in Canada. The movement for environmental justice began in the US in the 1980s as a series of initiatives employing strategies learned during the Civil Rights era. Community activists challenged politicians, developers and corporations for intentionally siting waste facilities, landfills, and polluting industries in areas inhabited predominately by Blacks, Latinos, and indigenous communities (Cole and Foster, 2001). In these struggles, activists coined the term environmental racism to "represent, explain, and draw attention to how racialized discrimination, socio-economic conditions, and environmental health are inextricably linked" (Gosine and Teelucksingh, 2008: 2). The history of environmental racism was better masked in Canadian cities by urban patterns that displayed, until recently, relatively little ethno-racial segregation. (1)

The concept of environmental racism has also moved beyond its original association with the systemically racist distribution of toxic waste in communities of colour to broader emphases on the spatiality of racism, how racist hierarchies influence planning policy and how policies, in turn, reproduce racism (Pulido, 2000). This broader conceptualization is important because it articulates how racialized inequalities are naturalized within policies and practices that shape hegemonic norms, rather than being limited to individual, hostile acts (Pulido, 2000). Urban policies and predatory planning (2) practices that entrench segregation, neglect public infrastructure, and discriminate in housing and job markets, whether intentionally or unintentionally, put racialized individuals and communities at increased risk. Expanding the environmental justice framework to urban spatial analysis more broadly allows us to take account of systemic mal-distributions of a broad array of environmental benefits and risks in cities. The cost and quality of neighbourhood housing, for example, is a fairly reliable indicator of the quality of schools and other services to be found in a neighbourhood. Urban spatial patterns and the distribution of a whole host of social and public goods--jobs, transit, schools--delineate the social inequities of a society as these become inscribed in the urban landscape.

While environmental racism and environmental justice have been under-researched in Canada, its relevance is becoming more evident to urban scholars (see for example Buzzelli, 2008; Gosine and Teelucksingh, 2008; Agyeman et al., 2009). Gosine and Teelucksingh (2008) contend that multiculturalism, the Canadian government's sanctioned approach to acculturation, blurs our understanding of the connections between racialization and environmental injustice. The policy of multiculturalism encourages racialized and immigrant groups to maintain aspects of their culture while interacting with the dominant, Eurocentric culture. Proponents of Canadian multicultural policy value the symbolic image of a vibrant 'cultural mosaic' and suggest that this is a more progressive model than the US ideal of a 'melting pot' that requires minorities to assimilate and conform to dominant values and norms. Meanwhile, critics of multiculturalism contend that this is a state sanctioned ideology promoting the myth of a tolerant society in which dominant groups generously accommodate other ethnic groups (Bannerji, 2000; Gosine and Teelucksingh, 2008). Critics argue, as well, that multicultural policies exacerbate neoliberal culture by seeming to celebrate diversity while actually obfuscating issues of race and domination (Catungal and Leslie, 2009; Goonewardena and Kipfer, 2005; Jafri and Okamoto, 2008).

Racialization dynamics in Canadian cities occur through layered processes of ideology and discourse. These processes are evident in the ways news reporters disparagingly describe low-income communities (Gosine and Teelucksingh, 2009) and in the ways planners and Business Improvement Associations frame low-income residential and commercial areas as needing revitalization (Rankin and McLean, forthcoming). The ongoing challenge in Canada has been our unwillingness to acknowledge the extent of racialized environmental injustice within our own cities.

The literature on environmental justice has also largely ignored the gendered implications of environmental racism, despite the fact that many mention gender along with race and class, and acknowledge women's active involvement in the environmental justice movement. Many agree that women's concerns and contributions have been overlooked, but argue about whether this is from neglect or oversight, done for strategic reasons or in order to discredit and discount the experiences of women so that they remain silent, subservient and invisible (see for example Simpson, 2002; Gaard, 2004; Kaalund, 2004; Unger, 2004; and Rahder, 2009). MacGregor's (2006) interviews with women activists in Ontario found stereotyping a common means of discrediting women, particularly homemakers, working-class women, and women of colour. Lowincome women of colour continue to face the most appalling bias--a bias well hidden by a continued and socially constructed pretence towards such things as credibility, neutrality, and authority (Rahder, 2009).

Adding a feminist lens to environmental justice allows us to explicitly identify the differential risks and burdens experienced by women. Moreover, because women of colour face both a higher risk of poverty and a greater chance of being dismissed, undermined or ignored by the media, a feminist analysis must look beyond the experiences of women as a homogeneous group to examine the disparate lives of women systematically excluded from participation in public life. If we examine the spatial distribution of environmental benefits, as well as the distribution of poverty, health risks, and environmental contamination, there can be little doubt that these spatial patterns reflect deeply racialized, but also gendered social divisions.

This analysis is increasingly important as Toronto community services are cut back and neighbourhoods polarized by racialized and gendered poverty. Over the past decade, many have documented how low-income women in Toronto, even those who are employed, are slipping further and further behind as cuts undermine already marginalized communities. As the Toronto's Vital Signs 2012 Report notes, roughly half of the city's residents are immigrants with 80% of recent immigrants identifying as visible minorities (Toronto Community Foundation, 2012). The Report also reveals that immigrant unemployment levels continue to be substantially higher than for those born in Canada, with recent university-educated immigrants having the same levels of low income as non-immigrants without high school completion. In fact, three quarters of the working poor are immigrants; more than half are women.

Perhaps not surprisingly, then, neither women nor visible minorities are adequately represented among elected municipal officials. Toronto's Vital Signs reports that visible minorities made up only 7% of the 253 municipal council members in the Greater Toronto Area in 2011, and only 11% of all elected officials. There are only 5 visible-minority council members out of 45 in the City of Toronto, rather than the 21 who would represent a more accurate reflection of the city's population. Similarly, although women are 51.3% of the population, in 2011 they held less than 30% of senior leadership positions across seven sectors in the GTA (Toronto Community Foundation, 2012).

A feminist environmental justice framework reminds us that sustainability requires active, engaged citizens whose networks cross lines of class, race, culture, and gender. Immigrants, low-income women of colour, refugees--all clearly have critical roles to play in creating more equitable and sustainable Canadian cities (3) and in building the local social relationships and networks that make this possible. It is paramount that we understand the ways exclusionary neoliberal urban policies and practices impact newcomer women's engagement with public spaces and services, but also how women negotiate these inequalities. This lens values the multiple ways women engage in cities and learn about space and place. Their actions give us clues as to how women build sustainability and justice from the ground up.

Immigrant Women Create Public Space

The situated stories that immigrant/newcomer women tell about their knowledge and use of public space in Toronto illustrate the everyday ways women negotiate the uneven terrain of the contemporary neoliberal city. Their stories are set within a particular conjuncture when neighbourhood-based organizations and other social services are undergoing significant cuts. Responding to the lack of needed public spaces and services, these women create their own social spaces, demonstrating their resilience and creativity in the face of hardship and exclusion.

To gather immigrant women's stories we collaborated with CultureLink Settlement Services, a Toronto-based agency that supports newcomer clients with various programs and services including housing referral and employment training. CultureLink's overall goal is to connect newcomers with programs that support and assist them in their transition "towards integration to Canada" (Culture Link, 2012). While we were particularly interested in the experiences of women, CultureLink connected us with men and women from ten different countries, including Asian and South Asian, Eastern European, Latin American, and Middle Eastern parts of the globe. We conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with ten participants, all of whom had low to moderate incomes. Five out of six women reported having low or no incomes, while half of the men reported having low incomes. Seven of those interviewed had arrived in Canada within the last three years, with three of these having arrived in the last six months. The other three--two men and one woman--have been in Canada between 7 and 20 years; two of these respondents reported having moderate incomes. We have focused this article on the responses of the women only.

Our interviews focused on participants' perceptions, experiences and use of public space. For this article in particular, we sought to gather data on the barriers and opportunities immigrant women identified within Toronto public spaces and institutions. We asked participants to describe public places that they go to, why they go there, whom they meet there, and what they like or dislike about these places. We also asked if there are public places that they avoid or public services or facilities that they need but don't have access to. We attempted to probe for rich descriptions and explanations of the places they used often, as well as those they avoided, in order to develop snapshots of the role of public space in their everyday lives.

Our interviews reveal the vital role public spaces, publicly funded community programs, and public services and infrastructure play in newcomer women's lives. The women repeatedly pointed out how community centres, parks and libraries are important spaces for meeting people, making friends and developing community networks. The fact that these spaces are affordable is especially important for newcomer women negotiating a new language, culture, and labour market in an increasingly expensive city.

Some women talked about publicly funded settlement services and public libraries as important public spaces for learning and socializing. They consistently found these facilities appealing because they provide meeting spaces that break down their sense of isolation. For example, one woman who had recently arrived from Latin America described how her local public library is a lifeline because it offers job-hunting programs, child and youth-friendly recreation, and literacy workshops. The job-hunting courses included resume writing and interview preparation as well as providing access to printing services in support of her job search. She also appreciated the library's free children's story and music workshops because they offered a needed break from loneliness as well as skills development in a fun environment. Another woman explained that her local immigrant settlement service program offers social space and needed supports. She appreciated the skills developed in job hunting and language classes but, more importantly, the opportunities to socialize and make friends during a stressful transition to a new country.

Other women expressed frustration with these types of community services and, in some cases, claimed that certain programs actually deepened their sense of desperation. Some criticized job search programs in particular because, while offering space for socializing, these programs did little to support women faced with systemic barriers to employment. One woman, for example, expressed her resentment about the futility of diligently attending job-hunting programs, including one on how to craft a strong resume, when she had to confront a discriminatory job market. She said that, regardless of the quality of her resume, Canadian employers continue to overlook foreign trained workers in favour of those with Canadian experience. Her sense of hopelessness grew over time as she continued to attend these workshops, but found them completely ineffective. She reported that: My husband and I have bachelor degrees. We both speak English very well. We are all good communicators. They teach you to write a c.v., a cover letter, how to pass an interview but, at the end of the day, nobody is answering you in the first place! Employers want Canadian experience. This is a job barrier. Anyone coming to this country needs to find a good job. I have multinational experience. Why should I have this Canadian experience? I dealt with lots of cultures and I communicated with people from different countries. I can deal with anyone. So, why the Canadian experience?

Another woman elaborated on how the demand for Canadian experience traps newcomers and drains what little resources they have. As they scramble to make ends meet in jobs that often pay minimum wage or even less, immigrants find they must also invest time and money re-training in costly and time consuming programs in college or university. Some become ensnared within nefarious labour practices over which they have little control or even work free in volunteer internships in order to obtain this valued experience. As a result, many families burn through the personal savings they brought with them from their home countries. As one woman said, Our savings are vanishing because we spent a lot more than we earn, because so far we haven't been able to find good jobs. This is a very tough situation and others have the same problem. Lots of newcomers come to Canada to spend their savings and have trouble.

Other women expressed similar resentment towards the multiple exclusions experienced at City of Toronto community centres. Even though the City offers community-based programs such as yoga, swimming, and various children's activities, previously free programming has been eliminated by funding cuts and replaced by user fees that create barriers for newcomers and others surviving on low incomes. Compared to private gyms and the local YMCA, the City's fees seem low, but for anyone working in the low wage service sector, any fees are prohibitive. When fees block participation in these courses, newcomers not only miss out on physical activity, but also on opportunities to socialize, establish healthy routines and build social networks. One woman who described herself as "just getting by on minimum wage" explained that, while she valued her local community centre's aerobics classes because they helped her develop a routine, make friends, and build a community, the cost of taking part in these activities undermined its social potential. She explained: I am frustrated with these fees. These courses charge but I only take these courses to interact with people, not necessarily to learn something, access information or knowledge. I could just get a video or watch a clip on how to do yoga on the internet. I don't need to go to a class to do that.

Several women complained about the impact of cuts to public transit in Toronto. A few identified the lack of an efficient urban transit system as a cause for much of their anxiety and stress. One woman, a recent immigrant from Eastern Europe, said she was exhausted by her daily four-hour commute to and from work. She described her life as divided between her downtown neighbourhood and her job training program in a suburban neighbourhood in Scarborough; the two parts connected by her arduous journey by streetcar, bus, and subway. Switching from streetcars to buses takes time, and it's just overwhelming in the morning. After work too, you're tired and don't want to travel another two hours, and I am not getting paid for it. I got a job in Scarborough, was placed with a company through their training program. So, now I must travel four hours every day, it's not very convenient ... the transportation system bugs me sometimes, because it's really hard to plan my trip every day, especially when I have such a long trip. It's hard to plan to get a King streetcar, going to Dundas Street West, and with all the waiting time, sometimes the streetcars are off the schedule, and after that I have to go all the way to Kennedy Station, and then take a bus for about fifty stops, and the bus that usually comes to Kennedy Station comes three times every hour. So it's very hard for me to measure all this time, when I actually get to Kennedy Station and whether the bus is there, so that's why I'm always late for work. Probably I'm going to quit this job, because of that ... I'm going to look for something in my neighbourhood.

She also criticized Toronto's transit fare system for the inflexibility that locks riders into linear, direct routes. She noted that other cities, like Calgary, allow riders to get on and off the bus for up to an hour and a half. This allows commuters the flexibility to hop on and off transit to buy groceries, pick up kids at daycare, drop in on ageing parents, and return library books all in one trip. Clearly, Toronto's transit system does not align with women commuters' daily needs. Another woman expressed her frustration about the subway system she described as "too simple" and not expansive enough to cover the city. She stated, I think it would be better to have a bigger subway system here. Especially with all those shopping centres, they are like a centre for socialization for all the local people. I'd like to see more subways connecting people to these shopping places.

Women had different reactions to large arts and culture spectacles that take place in public space on a regular basis in Toronto. Among the public events that some women appreciated were the corporate-sponsored music and arts festivals that animate downtown during the ten-day Luminato festival in June and the all night Nuit Blanche contemporary arts festival in September. These events include free outdoor movie screenings and concerts, as well as lively interactive community arts interventions. Others were less enthusiastic about these types of events because, as one woman said, these are primarily planned for business or "promotional" purposes, not for supporting local Toronto communities.

Women also described the important role that commercial spaces play in their daily lives. Most referred to malls, especially Dufferin Mall and the Eaton's Centre, as important public spaces in the city. Some valued malls because they offer air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter, attractive features for people living in substandard rental housing. Women also appreciated malls because they are walkable environments, an especially important feature for seniors and people with disabilities. Women with children particularly valued the washroom facilities available in malls, amenities often missing in more traditional public spaces like parks and urban squares.

Other women criticized malls, however, for triggering negative emotions. One woman said that the sheer consumerism these venues promoted filled her with shame because they surrounded her with items that she could not afford. Another worried that she was being harshly judged for spending time near shops that she could not afford to shop in. These spaces reminded her of the city's high cost of living and her own growing debts. Some stores that look very, very clean and polished have people in the front, greeting you. But these people are also watching you because they have expensive merchandise. These security people make you feel like you can't be trusted. I don't want to go to a place where someone is being right away judgmental. I have worked in retail before and I know how they train people. They watch customers so stealing is prevented. This kind of thing frightens me away a little bit.

Women also described bars and pubs as important public spaces for meeting friends and socializing in the city. One woman explained why her favourite public space was a downtown karaoke bar. Despite it's being a "dive," she loved the fact that a wide cross section of residents from young students to old men gathered there to sing. The roof leaks. There is not a lot of room for the crowds that go there, but it has a variety, a diversity of people. They have regulars that go there every day. They have people from all over the city just coming to drink and sing, dance groups, theatre groups. People just come to relax and drink and sing.

She explained how, after showing up every Friday night, she slowly developed an informal social network, including some who have become her close friends.

Taken together, these interviews provide a glimpse into the various ways newcomer women utilize and understand public spaces and services in the city. Their stories demonstrate the important role played by publicly funded spaces like libraries, community centres, and settlement services. They also reveal how user fees, inefficient services and inadequate programs can undermine newcomer women's access to needed jobs, resources, and social networks. If public spaces and services do not address structural inequalities in access, women's sense of possibility is blocked.

At the same time, newcomer women's stories capture the ways that privatized spaces--from corporatized arts and culture festivals to shopping malls and karaoke bars--are used and understood as important public spaces in their everyday lives. When public space is inadequate, immigrant women create other ways of meeting their social needs by carving out their own spaces within privatized realms.

Knowing Your Place

Knowing your place is most often used as a pejorative; it implies a social hierarchy in which certain types of people belong at the top and are seen as deserving the privileges associated with their high status, while certain others are considered lower or lesser. Typically, when people suggest that you ought to know your place, they are suggesting the need to circumscribe your identity and behaviour in such a way as to conform to these preconceived hierarchically defined social roles, such as when people assert that 'a woman's place is in the home' or that immigrants and people of colour ought to 'go back where they came from'. Indeed, these outmoded social norms and prescriptions have spatial implications. Social exclusion takes place; it manifests itself as the exclusion or marginalization of certain groups in public space. This subtle, or not so subtle, means of restricting the categories of people who may legitimately occupy or use public space is a form of environmental racism or spatial injustice.

But there are other ways of knowing your place. If we take these words literally and actively seek to learn about the neighbourhoods and cities where we live--about the social, cultural, and natural histories of these places--we may actually begin to rewrite the narratives that define our identities both socially and spatially.

While there are many types of feminists, many conceptions of justice and sustainability, and many types of bioregionalists (see Gilbert et al., 2009), there is an environmental justice strand within bioregionalism that speaks eloquently to the other ways of knowing our place. Thayer (2003), for example, argues that the process of actively learning about the history of the place where you live fosters the attachments, commitments and care necessary for sustainability. He argues that it is not enough to learn about native plants and animals; it is at least as important to know the history of the indigenous peoples who originally occupied the space as well as the histories of the immigrants who have transformed the landscape and its social and ecological functions over time. This way of knowing your place involves an active engagement with the history of a specific place--an active engagement that can create a renewed sense of community and help build sustainability and environmental justice from the ground up.

A feminist environmental justice framework helps us see the ways that mutually reinforcing systems of oppression shape the city and impact the daily lives of immigrant women. The current neoliberal conjuncture further entrenches these structural inequities in urban public space as cuts to libraries, community centres, parks and pools make it increasingly difficult for newcomer women to negotiate this terrain. Moreover, "the demise of the social contract and the fraying of the welfare state under neoliberalism engenders a reliance on private means of securing and sustaining social reproduction" (Kern, 2012; see also Bakker and Gill, 2003; Evans and Wekerle, 1997; Katz, 2001). Meanwhile, new programs emphasize economic development and 'revitalization' without addressing ongoing structural inequalities and processes of racialization (Viswanathan, 2010).

Though we did not explicitly raise the issue of cuts to public services during our interviews, women's comments demonstrated the various ways the unravelling safety net shapes their personal experiences and is reflected in their stories about the barriers they face when attempting to use public space and participate in public programs. Public services and spaces meant to support social reproduction in the city are becoming increasingly inaccessible. What may appear affordable to middle-class residents, is prohibitively expensive to low-income residents. These differences remind immigrant women that they are too poor to take part, that their place in society is socially and spatially circumscribed--a message that deepens racialized exclusion.

However, our interviews also reveal the active roles immigrant women play in creating their own social space when public services and facilities are inadequate. While many women described their lives as stuck in a cycle of marginalization, at the same time they reported participation in social gatherings in malls, coffee shops and karaoke bars. Spaces where they were able to carve out a place for themselves. While public space activists and urban scholars often dismiss such spaces as too commercial to be considered genuine 'public space" these are perceived as among the most affordable and inclusive spaces in the lives of the newcomer women we spoke with.

Instead of dismissing spaces not traditionally thought of as public space, we need to understand the potential of such spaces to meaningfully engage women in strategies for change. Women use these spaces to share knowledge about job opportunities, about healthy and affordable food options, about good places to shop, about accessible childcare, as well as developing networks of friends that, over time, provide invaluable social support (see Kurtz, 2007). As Gibson-Graham (2006) remind us, these types of strategies represent important economic and social practices that should not be overlooked in our critique of neoliberalism. While Katz (2008) argues that immigrant women demonstrate a propensity for resilience, engaging in survival tactics that meet immediate needs without naming and challenging deeper power relations, we believe that these strategies of resilience are necessary preconditions for critique and resistance--strategies that can shift, morph, and multiply into spaces of engaged feminist citizenship. While there is a danger of romanticizing the survival strategies of low-income women or of over-celebrating a "narrative of local adaptability" (Rose, 2010: 8), we see women's stories as providing clues to an alternative way of knowing your place. Newcomer women are negotiating the neoliberal city in unanticipated ways and are thus, making space for themselves. The movement for environmental justice would do well to see such venues as presenting new opportunities for organizing collective efforts to challenge neoliberal planning.

Social sustainability and environmental justice needs the active engagement of immigrant and other marginalized women in the development of meaningful networks, strategies and coalitions. While some citywide organizations, like Women Plan Toronto, which once played important roles in this effort, have disbanded, new groups with more grassroots connections have emerged. Among these are: 1) the Alternative Planning Group, a network of activists representing Chinese, Continental African, Latino-Hispanic and South Asian communities in collaborative, participatory social planning processes (Viswanathan, 2010); 2) the East Scarborough Storefront, a community-based organization that addresses transit and pedestrian justice, as well as food and income security in a low-income, racialized and underserved neighbourhood (Parlette and Cowen, 2011); and 3) the West End Local Economic Development (WE Led) group, a partnership that strives to insert the voices and experiences of racialized residents and storeowners in planning the 'revitalization' of their underserviced former manufacturing neighbourhood. There are more such groups, possibly many more. Each one is challenging the City to include marginalized and racialized communities in planning. We urge progressive planners to include and highlight the perspectives of newcomer women, to extend organizing efforts into unconventional 'public' gathering spaces, and to create space for other ways of knowing.

Conclusion

Contemporary urban public policy is dividing cities by race and class in ways never seen before in Canada. The gaps between groups are growing wider. Low-income and racialized minorities are finding themselves faced with higher rates of unemployment and with less access to public transit and affordable housing than ever before (Khosla, 2003; Lo, 2011; Parlette and Cowen, 2011; Rankin and McLean, forthcoming). Sorely needed community services are cut to the bone. Our urban policies happily promote and reward competitiveness, while undermining the collective supports we so desperately need. Nowhere is this more evident than in cuts to services for immigrant and refugee communities (Dippo and James, 2010; Lo, 2011), despite the fact that immigration remains the primary sources of urban and economic growth in Canada (Toronto Community Foundation, 2012). In the process, we are eroding the quality of public space and endangering our prospects for social sustainability.

People disadvantaged by poverty, gender, ethnicity, age, disability, or other experiences are particularly vulnerable to the impact of cuts to social services. Recent immigrants are often bearers of multiple vulnerabilities. Although some may break through social exclusion, it is difficult to escape entrenched vulnerabilities because social interactions, political institutions, and cultural values are shaped and reinforced by deep, structural inequalities (Lo, 2011). The impacts of inadequate social services and how this acerbates isolation and loneliness were common themes that emerged in our interviews with newcomer women.

Substantial changes in the ethnicity of immigrants over the past 40 years have been coupled with increasing ethnic segregation and widely varied experiences of settlement. Immigrants and refugees often arrive in Canada with mixed feelings. There is a mixture of excitement and fear about the prospects of living in a new country. At the same time, there may be a mixture of grief and relief about who and what has been left behind. To settle into a new community involves learning how to navigate the space, both socially and physically, developing the new social and spatial networks that will allow them to feel connected, committed and rooted in a new place.

If we destabilize the notion of women as maternal caregivers to their communities, as MacGregor (2006) argues, and instead emphasize a more activist and politicized identity, our expectations about what is needed to create equitable and sustainable neighbourhoods shift. MacGregor suggests: ... greater attention to the conditions necessary for active citizen participation: child care and eldercare, a more egalitarian division of labour at home, participatory processes that respect the time scarcity of people who juggle multiple roles, and public--as opposed to privatized and feminized--responsibility for human welfare and the quest for environmental sustainability (p.216).

Social sustainability is an active, grassroots process, which changes and adapts as we learn about our place and re-connect with our history. Urban public space is not benign in this process, but plays an active role in creating or thwarting our connections. Despite the struggles that racialized women face as newcomers to Canada, they actively contribute to reshaping our cities and redefining who we are as a society. As women play a vital role in creating the social networks that allow our communities to take root, a feminist environmental justice framework becomes key to establishing other ways of knowing our place.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to CultureLink Settlement Services in Toronto and to participants Xin Chen, Tenzin Dedhen, Marco Hernandez, Neveen Korayem, Mana Mazaheri, Tamara Meparishvili, Juan Pinto and Emese Szabo for their contributions to this study. Thanks to Vivien Leong and Matt MacLean for their invaluable research assistance. Thanks to our anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. Funding from SSHRC 410-2006-2178 is also very gratefully acknowledged.

References

Agyeman, J., P. Cole, R. Haluza-DeLay and P. O'Riley. 2009. Speaking for Ourselves: Environmental Justice in Canada. eds. University of British Columbia Press: Vancouver.

August, M. 2008. Social mix and Canadian public housing redevelopment: Experiences in Toronto. Canadian Journal of Urban Research. 17(1): 82-100.

Bakker, I. and S. Gill. 2003. Power, Production and Social Reproduction: Human In/security in the Global Political Economy. London and New York: McMillan-Palgrave.

Bannerji. H. 2000. Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Racism. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press.

Bashevkin. S. 2006. Tales of Two Cities: Women and Municipal Restructuring in London and Toronto. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Basu, R. 2004. The rationalization of neoliberalism in Ontario's public education system, 1995-2000. Geoforum 35(5): 621-634.

Brenner, N. and N. Theodore. 2002. Preface: From the 'new localism' to the spaces of neoliberalism. Antipode 34(3): 341-347.

Buzzelli, M. 2008. The political ecology of scale in urban air pollution monitoring. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 33(4): 502-517.

Catungal, J.P., D. Leslie and Y. Hii. 2009. Geographies of displacement in the creative city: The case of Liberty Village, Toronto. Urban Studies 46(5): 1095-1114.

Cole, L. and S. Foster. 2001. From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement. New York: New York University Press.

Cowen, D. 2005. Suburban citizenship? The rise of targeting and the eclipse of social rights in Toronto. Social & Cultural Geography 6(3): 335-356. Culture Link. 2012. Culture Link web site, available at http://www.culturelink.ca/.

DeFilippis, J. 2004. Unmaking Goliath: Community Control in the Face of Global Capital. New York: Routledge.

DeFilippis, J. and J. Fraser. 2010. What kind of mixed-income housing and for what reasons? In Critical Urban Studies: New Directions. eds. J. Davis and D. Imbroscio. Albany, NY: SUNY Press: 135-148.

Dippo, D. and C. James. 2010. Schooling in the new urban environment. In In-Between Infrastructure: Urban Connectivity in an Age of Vulnerability. eds. D. Young, P. Wood and R. Keil. Kelowna, BC: Praxis (e) Press: 115-131.

Evans, P. and G.R. Wekerle. 1997. The shifting terrain of women's welfare: Theory, discourse and activism. In Women and the Canadian Welfare State. eds. P. Evans and G.R. Wekerle. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press: 3-27.

Gaard, G. 2004. Towards a queer ecofeminism. In New Perspectives on Environmental Justice: Gender, Sexuality and Activism. ed. R. Stein. Piscataway Township: Rutgers University Press: 21-44.

Galabuzi, G.F. 2007. Marxism and anti-racism: Extending the dialogue on race and class. Marxism: A Socialist Annual. 5:47-49

Gilbert, L., L.A. Sandberg and G.R. Wekerle. 2009. Building bioregional citizenship: the case of the Oak Ridges Moraine, Ontario, Canada. Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability. 14(5): 387-40.

Goonewardena, K. and S. Kipfer. 2005. Spaces of difference: Reflections from Toronto on multiculturalism, bourgeois urbanism and the possibility of radical urban politics. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27(3): 670-678.

Gosine, A. and C. Teelucksingh. 2008. Environmental Justice and Racism in Canada: An Introduction. Toronto: Edmond Montgomery Publications.

Hackworth, J. 2008. The durability of roll-out neoliberalism under centre-left governance: The case of Ontario's social housing sector. Studies in Political Economy 81: 7-26.

Hackworth, J. and A. Moriah. 2006. Neoliberalism, contingency, and urban policy: the case of social housing in Ontario. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30(3): 510-527.

Hulchanski, D. 2007. The Three Cities Within Toronto: Income Polarization Among Toronto's Neighbourhoods, 1970-2000. Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto.

Jafri, B. and L. Okamoto. 2008. Green is not the only colour: Reflections on the state of anti-racist environmentalism in Canada. Briarpatch Magazine. December 2007/2008.

Kaalund, V.A. 2004. Witness to truth: Black women heeding the call for environmental justice. In New Perspectives on Environmental Justice: Gender, Sexuality and Activism. ed. R. Stein. Piscataway Township: Rutgers University Press: 78-92.

Katz, C. 2001. Vagabond capitalism and the necessity of social reproduction. Antipode 33(4): 709-728.

Katz, C. 2008. Growing Up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children's Everyday Lives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Kern, L. 2012. All aboard? Women working the spaces of gentrification in Toronto's ]unction. Gender, Place and Culture.

Kern, L. and G.R. Wekerle. 2008. Gendered spaces of redevelopment: Gendered politics of city building. Research in Urban Sociology. 9: 233-262.

Khosla, P. 2003. If Low Income Women of Colour Counted in Toronto. Toronto: Community Social Planning Council Toronto.

Kumizaki, K., K. Rankin and H. McLean. forthcoming. The state of small business in Mount Dennis: Implications for neighbourhood revitalization. University of Toronto Geography and West End Local Economic Development (WE LED).

Kurtz, H. 2007. Gender and Environmental Justice in Louisiana: Blurring the boundaries of public and private spheres. Gender, Place and Culture 14(4): 409-426.

Leitner, H., J. Peck and E. Sheppard. 2006. Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers. New York: The Guilford Press.

Lo, L. 2011. Immigrants and social services in the suburbs. In In-Between Infrastructure: Urban Connectivity in an Age of Vulnerability. eds. D. Young, P. Wood and R. Keil. Kelowna, BC: Praxis (e) Press: 131-151.

MacGregor, S. 2006. Beyond mothering earth: Ecological citizenship and the politics of care. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press.

Modlich, R. 2012. In Practice: Women Plan Toronto (1985-2000) and Toronto Women's Alliance (2004-and struggling on): Experiences and lessons. Universitas Forum. 3(1). Available at http://www.universitasforum.org/ index.php/ojs/article/view/74/375.

Nagel, K. 2007. Losing Our Commons--Predatory Planning in New Orleans: The Importance of History and Culture in Understanding Place. MIT Master's Thesis.

Ornstein, M. 2006. Ethno-Racial Groups in Toronto, 1971- 2001: A Demographic and Socio-Economic Profile. Toronto: Institute for Social Research, York University.

Orum, A. and C. Xianming. 2003. The World of Cities: Places in Comparative Historical Perspective. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Parlette, V. and D. Cowen. 2011. Dead malls: Suburban activism, local spaces, global logistics. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35(4): 794-811.

Peck, J. and A. Tickell. 2002. Neoliberalizing space. Antipode 34(3): 380-404.

Rahder, B. 1998. Women Plan Toronto: Grassroots participation in re-shaping the city. In Possible Urban Worlds: Urban Strategies at the End of the 20th Century. Eds. R. Wolff, A. Schneider, C. Schmid, P. Klaus, A. Hofer, and H. Hitz. Basel, Switzerland: Birkhauser Verlag: 100-103.

Rahder, B. 2009. Invisible sisters: Women and environmental justice in Canada. In Speaking for Ourselves: Environmental Justice in Canada. eds. J. Agyeman, P. Cole, R. Haluza-DeLay and E O'Riley. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press: 81-96.

Rankin, K. and H. McLean. forthcoming. Commercial streets as racialized class projects: Competing Agendas for Toronto's Inner Suburbs.

Roberts, D. and M. Mahtani. 2010. Neoliberalizing race, racing neoliberalism: placing "race" in neoliberal discourses. Antipode 42: 248-257.

Rose, G. 2010. Doing Family Photography: The Domestic, The Public and The Politics of Sentiment. London: Ashgate.

Toronto Community Foundation. 2012. Toronto's Vital Signs Report 2012. https://www.tcf.ca/torontos-vital-signs.

Unger, N. 2004. Women, sexuality and environmental justice in American history. In New Perspectives on Environmental Justice: Gender, Sexuality and Activism. ed. R. Stein. Piscataway Township: Rutgers University Press: 78-92.

United Way of Greater Toronto. 2002. A Decade of Decline: Poverty and Income Inequality in the City of Toronto in the 1990s. Toronto: United Way of Greater Toronto.

Viswanathan, L. 2010. Contesting racialization in a neoliberal city: Cross-cultural collective identity as a strategy among alternative planning organizations in Toronto. GeoJournal75(3): 261-272.

Walks, R.A. 2001. The social ecology of the post-Fordist/global city? Economic restructuring and social-spatial polarisation in the Toronto urban region. Urban Studies 38(3): 407-447.

Walks, R.A. and R. Maaranen. 2008. Neighbourhood gentrification and upgrading in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Antipode 33(4): 709-728.

Wekerle, G.R. 1999. Gender planning as insurgent citizenship: Stories from Toronto. Plurimondi 1(2): 105-126.

Wekerle, G.R. 2004. Framing feminist claims for urban citizenship. In Mapping Women, Making Politics: Feminist Perspectives on Political Geography. eds. L. Staeheli, M. Kofman and L. Peake. New York: Routledge: 245-259.

Wekerle, G. R. 2005. Gender and the global city: Social exclusion, spatial inequality and claims for justice. Toronto: Oxford University Press: 225-245.

Barbara Rahder and Heather McLean

Faculty of Environmental Studies

York University

Notes

(1) Some notable exceptions include the federal system of Reserves for First Nations peoples and the former African-Canadian community of Africville, Nova Scotia.

(2) Predatory planning, a concept developed by Kiara Nagel (2007), is defined as "an aggressive and deliberate practice of using land use zoning, public policy, law, and city planning to knowingly remove assets from the public or the poor to benefit a few or the very wealthy" (p. 28).

(3) Not all notions of sustainability are compatible with concepts of social and environmental justice. For a discussion of these issues see Adamson et al., 2002; Dobson, 2003; Pellow and Brulle, 2005; and Agyeman, 2005.