"We all know we live in an increasingly specialized world, where knowledge and, therefore, understanding, becomes more and more fragmented. To cut deeper in our sciences, we have to break the disciplines into ever-smaller shards of specialization to keep the edges bright and sharp. I ask you: What other discipline, other than philosophy itself, still has the capacity to combine the scientific with the humane, to inform rigorous inquiry with human care?" Peter R. Gould (1991). "Thinking Like a Geographer." The Canadian Geographer 35(4), 324-332, quote from pp. 325-326.
Toronto, April 2008 (Elvin Wyly)
Working City. For people who spend much of their time in the residential and shopping districts of cities, urban life today often seems to be all about consumption. And there are many influential scholarly theories of the "post-industrial" city. But we should never lose sight of the fact that cities are also places of work, and that every urban landscape of entertainment and consumption is sustained by a backstage infrastructure of all the mundane, dirty, and necessary activities. In a previous generation, production was central to these infrastructures in cities of North America and other parts of the Global North. Today, deindustrialization has moved most (but not all) of the manufacturing to various sites in the Global South, creating a complex and ever-changing global assembly line for many products.
But deindustrialization often leads people to forget about the hard-working people, in the hard-working landscapes that are behind -- and that support -- all of the consumption and entertainment landscapes of the postindustrial city. Wholesalers provide daily infusions of food and goods to the city's restaurants and upscale retailers. Shipping and distribution centers shuffle all sorts of packages from one place to another, from one side of the city to another, or through import-export channels to and from all corners of the globe. Back-office cubicle farms house telemarketers, penny-stock promoters, and customer-service reps in those call-center plantations that remain after waves of offshore outsourcing. Low-rent warehouses provide base camps for courier services, plumbers, installers, repair services, and every other kind of firm where the workers spend most of their days in motion, driving from one appointment to the next. There are many other urban landscapes of work.
Every city requires lots of backstage work to keep the performance running smoothly. Look behind the curtain, and you'll be rewarded with some fascinating insights. But it also helps if you're willing to invest a bit of work, to track down fugitive pieces of information that can help you to understand particular cities or general urban patterns and processes. Let's get to work and analyze the city!
The view above of one part of one side of one working city is near Toronto's Pearson airport.
Examples
If you want to see examples of creative and rigorous projects submitted by students who have taken this course before, you may be interested in some of these. Posted with permission; copyrights reserved by respective authors.
Martin Kozinsky (2012). The Vancouver (Revanchist) Special. [Geography 3350 project submission.] Vancouver, BC: Department of Geography, University of British Columbia.
Brent Fairbairn (2010). Vancouver Island's Urban System: A Structural Analysis. [Geography 350 project submission.] Vancouver, BC: Department of Geography, University of British Columbia.
Nicole subsequently submitted this paper for consideration at The Geographical Bulletin, the refereed journal of Gamma Theta Upsilon, the Geography Honor Society. After review and extensive revision, Nicole Foth (congratulations!) had this paper accepted:
Nicole Foth (2010). "Long-Term Change Around SkyTrain Stations in Vancouver, Canada: A Demographic Shift-Share Analysis." The Geographical Bulletin 51:37-52.
This study examines the long-term demographic implications of the SkyTrain, a light-rail rapid transit system, on surrounding neighborhoods in Vancouver, Canada. Using demographic Census data from 1981 and 2006, shift-share analysis shows the residents characteristics change over time. Results demonstrate that SkyTrain neighborhoods near stations have become physically denser, wealthier and more educated compared to vancouver as a whole. From these results, the article explores the contextual reasons why denser development occurred around the SkyTrain stations and the effect on residential demographics in the area.
Elissa Berrill (2008). Stagflation Shines on the Sunbelt An Industry Analysis of Deindustrialization and the Growth of the Service Sector. [Geography 350 project submission.] Vancouver, BC: Department of Geography, University of British Columbia.
Elissa subsequently submitted this paper for consideration for Trail Six, the journal launched by the UBC Geography Students Association. After peer reviews and Elissa's revisions, the paper was accepted and published as:
Elissa Berril (2009). "Stagflation Shines on the Sunbelt: An Industry Analysis of Deindustrialization and the Growth of the Service Sector." Trail Six: An Undergraduate Journal of Geography, Vol. 3., 20-29.
Eli Grimson (2008). Chicago and Toronto: A 'World Class City' and 'World Class Wannabe'? [Geography 350 project submission.] Vancouver, BC: Department of Geography, University of British Columbia.
Jeremy Elder (2008). Canadian Media Trend Analysis of the Relationship between Gentrification, Homelessness, and the Olympic Games. [Geography 350 project submission.] Vancouver, BC: Department of Geography, University of British Columbia.
Geography 350 Projects
One part of this course provides an opportunity to do original work on various urban themes. This page provides a variety of resources for several project options; you're free to look around and peek ahead if you'd like, but don't worry if you're just browsing and you feel overwhelmed by the long lists of things. I'll be presenting detailed guidance and suggestions on each of the project options in class.
Marina Bay Sands under construction, downtown Singapore, January 2010 (Elvin Wyly)
Changes in the Canadian Urban System
For a convenient worksheet with all the data, see this.
- Statistics Canada (2008). 2006 Population and Dwelling Counts, Urban Areas and Designated Places. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
For further information on the data, and for other tabulations, see Statistics Canada, Catalogue 97-550-XWE200602
- Mapping Growth and Decline in the Canadian Urban System, 2001-2006. Database compiled by Markus Moos and Anna Glasmacher, School of Planning, University of Waterloo. Data Source: Statistics Canada (2008). Cumulative Profiles for Census Tracts and Census Subdivisions, 2006 Census of Population and Housing. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
- For scholarly sources, track down the footnotes cited in the background paper, the references in Bunting & Filion or Knox & McCarthy, or consider these:
Pierre Filion (2010). "Growth and Decline in the Canadian Urban System: The Impact of Emerging Economic, Policy, and Demographic Trends." Geojournal 75(6), 517-538.
David Bell and Mark Jayne (2009). "Small Cities? Towards a Research Agenda." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33(3), 683-699.
Mario Polese and Richard Shearmur (2006). "Why Some Regions Will Decline: A Canadian Case Study with Thoughts on Local Development Strategies." Papers in Regional Science 85(1), 23-46.
- A small sampling of images from a fast-growing point in the urban system, Fort McMurray, Alberta.
- For local press coverage of your chosen cities and towns, try various keyword searches on one of these databases:
Looking for the North American City
- Project Background Paper
- The dataset described in the project background paper is here: Edmund Zolnik (2004). "North American Cities Dataset." Fairfax, VA: Department of Geography, George Mason University.
- The all-time humor classic on the North American myth is, of course, Rick Mercer. See this, but then don't forget that Americans have no monopoly on ignorance of Canada; see this, too.
- SAS code for the full discriminant analysis in the project background paper.
- For some survey-based estimates of public opinion contrasts between residents of Canada and the United States, see
Gallup International (2012). Voice of the People End of the Year Survey, 2011. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, Study No. 33504.
The study description from ICPSR is here.
I've extracted the data for the U.S. and Canada, and have prepared some simple cross-tabulations here. Note that these cross-tabulations are weighted -- each survey respondent is assigned a weight to account for variations in different groups' likelihood of being part of the survey. This is why the numbers of respondents are in decimal form.
- References you might find useful:
SCHOLARLY SOURCES
David Kaplan (1994). "Two Nations in Search of a State: Canada's Ambivalent Spatial Identities." Annals of the Association of American Geographers 84(4), 585-606.
Loretta Lees and David Demeritt (1998). "Envisioning the Livable City: The Interplay of 'Sin City' and 'Sim City' in Vancouver's Planning Discourse." Urban Geography 19(4), 332-359.
Tom Slater (2002). "Looking at the 'North American City' Through the Lens of Gentrification Discourse." Urban Geography 23(2), 131-153.
Edmund J. Zolnik (2004). "The North American City Revisited: Urban Quality of Life in Canada and the United States." Urban Geography 25(3), 217-240.
Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Judith A. Garber (2005). "The Construction of the Geography of Immigration as a Policy Problem: The United States and Canada Compared." Urban Affairs Review 40(4), 520-561.
Thomas Ott (2004). "Are Canadian Cities Becoming More American? Evidence from the West." Journal of the Association for Canadian Studies in German-Speaking Countries 24(1), 162-175.
Eran Razin and Mark Rosentraub (2000). "Are Fragmentation and Sprawl Interlinked? North American Evidence." Urban Affairs Review 35(6), 821-836.
Laura Reese (2004). Do Goals Drive Stragegies? Differences in Canadian and U.S. Approaches to Local Economic Development. Paper presented at City Futures Conference, University of Illinois at Chicago. Detroit: Wayne State University.
Bruno Théret (1999). "Regionalism and Federalism: a Comparative Analysis of the Regulation of Economic Tensions between Regions by Canadian and American Federal Intergovernmental Transfer Programmes." International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 23 (3), 479-512.
JOURNALISTS' REPORTS
Allen Abel (2010). "Apocalypse Soon." The National Post, Comment, May 29, B11.
Associated Press (2010). "Obama Speech Defends Government." New York Times, May 1.
Randy Boswell (2010). "Common Culture Question Splits Poll Respondents." Vancouver Sun, June 2, B2.
Brian Lee Crowley, Jason Clemens, and Niels Veldhuis (2010). "It's Finally Our Time." The National Post, May 26, A13.
Bruce McCall (2004). "Application for Permanent Canadian Residence." The New Yorker, November 22, 108.
Ottawa Citizen (2010). "The Census Numbers Racket." Ottawa Citizen, June 4, p. A16.
Philip Resnick (2010). "Quebecers Signal a Return to the Two Solitudes." Vancouver Sun, May 13, A17.
Mattathias Schwartz (2010). "Firing Line." New York Times, July 29.
Kate Zernike and Carle Hulse (2010). "In Washington, a Call for Religious Rebirth." New York Times, August 28, A15.
VIDEOS
The Globe & Mail (2010). "It's Our Time to Lead." Toronto: The Globe & Mail, September 22.
Morton Weinfeld (2008). "Social Identity in Canada: What are the Facts and Issues?" [excerpt]. Calgary: Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership.
Metropolitan Economic Restructuring
The materials below present you with a wide range of choices for the raw data you'll need for your project. There's a lot of options, but don't be overwhelmed by the long list. All you need to do is to find data for one or two metropolitan areas you want to study, copy the data for a start and end time period to a new empty worksheet, and then do the same for the national totals. Then you'll be ready to calculate a shift-share analysis like one of the examples shown in the background paper.
Here is the sample worksheet showing the calculations for the industrial employment data, broken down by SIC groups. See "Sheet 2" of this worksheet.
You're free to analyze industrial or occupational change -- or both -- for any city or metropolitan region anywhere, so long as you can obtain reliable data. I've given you a head start by assembling data for metropolitan areas in Canada and the United States, but you're free to study any metropolitan area so long as you can get the right information. You will need 1) total values of the thing you're studying, say, jobs, organized according to a set of categories (i.e., industries or occupations), for 2) two separate time periods, for 3) for a city that you're interested, and a "reference region." This reference region is usually the entire nation or country, but it could also be a province, state, or similar political zone.
Once you've done the calculations, then look through Chapter 4 of Knox and McCarthy, and/or Chapters 6, 7, and 16 of Bunting and Filion, Fourth Edition. Some of these chapters will be more relevant than others, of course, depending on which kind of metropolitan region you choose to study. I also highly recommend that you read this:
Ted Rutland and Sean O'Hagan (2007). "The Growing Localness of the Canadian City, or, On the Continued (Ir)relevance of Economic Base Theory." Local Economy 22(2), 163-185.
For other valuable scholarly sources, consider a few of these:
John S. Adams (1990). "The Regional Service Economy: A Contemporary Mirage?" Journal of Applied Manufacturing Systems, Spring, 3-10.
Ann Markusen and Greg Schrock (2009). "Consumption-Driven Urban Development." Urban Geography 30(4), 344-367.
Zoltan J. Acs (1998). "High-Technology Employment Growth in Major U.S. Metropolitan Areas." Small Business Economics 10, 47-59.
Edgar S. Dunn, Jr. (1960). "A Statistical and Analytical Technique for Regional Analysis." Papers in Regional Science 6, 97-112.
Kingsley E. Haynes and Mustafa Dinc. (1997). "Productivity Change in Manufacturing Regions: A Multifactor/Shift-Share Approach. Growth and Change 28, 201-221.
Edward L. Jackiewicz (2001). "Neoliberalism and Shifts in Occupational Structure: Quito, Ecuador, 1982-90. Tijdschrift voor Economishe en Sociale Geografie 92(4), 437-448.
Suahasil Nazara and Geoffrey J.D. Hewings (2003). Towards Regional Growth Decomposition with Neighbors' Effect: A New Perspective on Shift-Share Analysis. Report 03-T-21. Champaign: Regional Economics Applications Laboratory, University of Illinois.
Todd M. Gabe (2006). "Growth of Creative Occupations in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: A Shift-Share Analysis." Growth and Change 37(3), 396-415.
J. Arwell Edwards (1976). "Industrial Structure and Regional Change: A Shift-Share Analysis of the British Columbia Economy, 1961-1970." Regional Studies 10(3), 307-317.
Daniel S. Sui (1995). "Spatial Economic Impacts of New Town Development in Hong Kong: A GIS-Based Shift Share Analysis." Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 21(3), 227-243.
William J. Coffey and Mario Polese (1988). "Locational Shifts in Canadian Employment 1971-1981: Decentralization vs. Decongestion." Canadian Geographer 32(3), 248-256.
For national and local press coverage of deindustrialization, service sector growth, and other metropolitan restructuring topics, do keyword searches in one of these news archives:
Canadian Data
Employment by Industry, monthly
Statistics Canada (2010). Labour Force Survey Estimates, by CMA by North American Industry Classification System, 2000-2010. Table 2820056. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
Statistics Canada (2010). Labour Force Survey Estimates, Canada, by North American Industry Classification System, 1976-2010. Table 2820088. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
Employment by Occupation, monthly
Statistics Canada (2010). Labour Force Survey Estimates, by CMA by National Occupation Classification for Statistics, 2005-2010. Table 2820058. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
Statistics Canada (2010). Labour Force Survey Estimates, Canada, by National Occupation Classification for Statistics, 2005-2010. Table 2820009. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.
If you're interested in analyzing trends prior to 2000, or exploring other measures, you'll need to navigate the CANSIM (Canadian Socio-economic Information Management) system, provided by the Computing in the Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS) initiative at the University of Toronto. Follow these directions:
1. Go to the CANSIM resource listing on the UBC Library's system. You will need to make sure that you're logged in either under the campus-wide login system or another proxy system.
2. Choose "CANSIM II via CHASS, University of Toronto"
3. Choose "CANSIM Multidimensional View"
4. Continue in either English or French (although my deepest apologies for my ignorance and inability to provide all the instructions bilingually).
5. Choose "CANSIM Multidimensional @ CHASS Main Menu"
6. Choose "Browse Tables by Subjects"
7. Chose "Labour"
8. For Industry data, choose "Employment and Unemployment"
the data for Census Metropolitan Areas are in Table 2820056; choose "by dimensions" and then proceed to choose the places, years, and industry categories.
the data for all of Canada are in Table 2820088; choose "by dimensions" and then proceed to choose the years and industry categories to download.
9. For Occupation data, after step 7 above, choose instead "Occupations"
the data for Census Metropolitan Areas are in Table 2820058; choose "by dimensions" and then specify the details of what you need to download.
the data for all of Canada are in Table 282009; choose "by dimensions" and then specify the details of your request. Specify "both sexes" to get data for both males and females, and also ask for both full- and part-time employment. After you download your worksheet, you will need to add full- and part-time employment together to make the data comparable to the total employment estimates provided for the metropolitan-area level file.
United States Data
Industry Data for United States Metropolitan Areas (MAs)
- Full and Part-Time Employment by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Sector, 1987 and 2000
- Full and Part-Time Employment by SIC Sector, 1969 to 2000
Note: (N) means that the category was not defined for that particular year. Prior to 1979, for instance, the Department of Commerce did not separate out state goverment employment from local government employment. Therefore, if you wish to compare totals for pre-1979 with later years, you will need to use the combined state and local employment totals to ensure comparability in the shift-share analysis.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (Annual). Regional Economic Information System. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce.
- Total Employment by North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), by Metropolitan Area, 2001-2005
- Total Employment by North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), by Metropolitan Area, 2001-2007
- Total Employment by North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), by Metropolitan Area, 2001-2008
- Total Employment by North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), by Metropolitan Area, 2001-2009
Not long ago, the Census Bureau introduced a new type of geographical classification: the "micropolitan area." Think of it this way: small-town mayors and chambers of commerce wanted to be called "metropolitan areas" too, so they could have more detailed information on economic trends that would help in economic development planning.
The 2001-2009 files incorporate several revisions and improvements to previously released estimates.
Note: (D) means that the data value is suppressed to ensure confidentiality. Use caution if you wish to study a metropolitan area or micropolitan area where one or more sectors have suppressed data. You will need to combine all sectors with (D) codes, and subtract the subtotal of all non-suppressed values from the total employment figure for the metropolitan area in order to obtain a figure for a category that you will probably want to call "all other industries" in your table. You will then need to do the same combinations for the national figures to avoid creating bias in the shift-share analysis. This kind of adjustment is not too difficult, so long as the pattern of (D) codes is the same for the time periods you wish to compare.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (Annual). Regional Economic Information System. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce.
Occupation Data for United States Metropolitan Areas
New, revised Metropolitan Area (MA) definitions
- Nationwide, 2005; Consolidated (big) Metropolitan Areas, 2005; All other MAs (Part 1, 2, 3)
- Nationwide, 2006; Consolidated (big) Metropolitan Areas, 2006; All other MAs (Part 1, 2, 3)
- Nationwide, 2007; Consolidated (big) Metropolitan Areas, 2007; All other MAs (Part 1, 2, 3)
- Nationwide, 2008; Consolidated (big) Metropolitan Areas, 2008; All other MAs (Part 1, 2, 3)
- Nationwide, 2009; Consolidated (big) Metroplitan Areas, 2009; All other MAs (Part 1, 2, 3)
- Nationwide, 2010; Consolidated (big) Metroplitan Areas, 2010; All other MAs (Part 1, 2, 3).
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Annual). Occupational Employment Statistics Program. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor.
Older Metropolitan Area (MA) definitions
Note that beginning in late 2004, U.S. federal agencies began to report their data according to new definitions of metropolitan areas. These new definitions provide much more detail for smaller cities, but the downside is that it can be very hard to compare data for the old and new metropolitan definitions. Therefore, you should be careful when trying to compare the occupation datasets above with those below. You will need to read the documentation on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website to determine whether there have been major changes for a particular metropolitan area you're interested in.
- Nationwide, 2000; MSAs, 2000 (Part 1, 2)
- Nationwide, 2004; MSAs, 2004 (Part 1, 2, 3)
Other Useful Shift-Share Tools
- Shift-Share Analysis of Regional Employment System, University of Georgia
- Standardized Occupational Components for Research and Analysis of Trends in Employment System (SOCRATES), Texas Workforce Commission
Mapping Global Firms and World Cities
- Project Background Paper
- The original producer services firm dataset, from Peter Taylor and his colleagues at Loughborough University
- A copy of Taylor's dataset with labels for specific firms
- SAS code for the full cluster analysis
- Statistical output for the cluster analysis of producer services firms.
- The original MIDT matrix of airline passenger flows, from Frank Witlox and Ben Derudder
- Statistical output for the cluster analysis of airline passenger flows.
- A small sample of the large industry of global-cities research
Housing Markets and Neighborhood Change: Hedonic Vancouver
- Project Background Paper
- A worksheet with the results of hedonic estimates for 27 separate neighborhoods across the city.
- A large map of the sales-price residuals from the full hedonic model.
- Tsuriel Somerville (2011). Canadian Cities Housing and Real Estate Data Site. Vancouver: Sauder School of Commerce, University of British Columbia.
- Tsuriel Somerville (2011). Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate, Research Section. Vancouver: Sauder School of Commerce, University of British Columbia.
- City of Vancouver (2011). City of Vancouver Census 2006 Data. Vancouver: Department of Planning, City of Vancouver.
Mapping Vancouver's Evolving Social Mosaic
- The Sample, and simple, Classical Social Area Analysis, as described in the project background paper
Maps of Factor Scores for:
Data Worksheet with factor scores as well as the original variables
- For a selection of scholarly sources using various forms of factorial ecology, see the references here.
- For a reference map of Municipalities in Metro Vancouver, see this.
- For a variety of reference maps for the city of Vancouver, see this.
The Factorial Ecology of Vancouver, 2006
You should choose one of the "Results" files below to organize your analysis and interpretation:
Results: The Full Vancouver Social Mosaic
Results: Housing Construction Cycles
Data Worksheet with factor scores as well as the original variables
- The raw data downloaded from the Canadian Census Analyzer for the Vancouver CMA in 2006:
A more manageable subset of variables
in a single worksheet for 2006 is here.
- Census Tract Reference Maps for the Vancouver CMA in 2006
The Factorial Ecology of Vancouver, 2001.
(To interpret some of the variables, you should also
consult the data worksheet with all variables, below)
Maps of Factor Scores for:
Data Worksheet with factor scores as well as the original variables
Student-Defined Ecologies of Vancouver: customized output from factor analyses conceptualized and specified by...
Devin Bartley: SAS output, Tract scores
Jeff Jardine: SAS output, Tract scores
Nadia Formigoni: SAS output, Tract scores,
- Raw Data Worksheet for All Variables from the 2001 Census, Vancouver CMA
- Census Tract Reference Maps for the Vancouver CMA in 2001
Useful Thematic Maps of Vancouver and the Metropolitan Area
- Brock University Cartography Laboratory, Vancouver Metropolitan Area Thematic Maps, 2001
- Brock University Cartography Laboratory, Vancouver Metropolitan Area Thematic Maps, 2006
- Selected Maps from the City of Vancouver Housing Centre:
Other Useful References
- Si-ming Li, Quan Hou, Susu Chen, and Chunshan Zhou (2010). "Work, Home, and Market: The Social Transformation of Housing Space in Guangzhou, China. Urban Geography 31(4), 434-452.
- Wayne K.D. Davies and Robert A. Murdie (1993). "Mapping the Social Ecology of Cities." In Larry S. Bourne and David F. Ley, eds., The Changing Social Geography of Canadian Cities. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 52-75.
- Vancouver Foundation (2012). Vital Signs for Metro Vancouver. Vancouver: Vancouver Foundation.
- Wayne K.D. Davies and Robert A. Murdie (1991). "Consistency and Differential Impact in Urban Social Dimensionality: Intra-Urban Variations in the 24 Metropolitan Areas of Canada." Urban Geography 12(1), 55-79.
- Elvin K.Wyly (1999). "Continuity and Change in the Restless Urban Landscape." Economic Geography 75(4), 309-338.
Project Options
"The paradox of globalization is that increased global trade has accentuated the importance of the local context, particularly for innovative activities. The result ... is that the majority of workers in the global north now work in sectors that are increasingly locally oriented."
Ted Rutland and Sean O'Hagan (2007). "The Growing Localness of the Canadian City, or, On the Continued (Ir)relevance of Economic Base Theory." Local Economy 22(2), 163-185, quote from p. 182.
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