Revitalization of Public Housing
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June 4th, 2014 @ 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm EDT
Cost: FreeDetails » Click here to register »
Challenges and Celebrations in Toronto and Japan
A talk by Prof. Sayaka Fujii, Tsukuba University
Introduced by Prof. André Sorensen, University of Toronto
NEW June 12, 2014: lecture slides available for download (pdf)
Since 2005, there has been a large-scale revitalization project underway in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood. Both criticized and celebrated, the revitalization project has faced questions such as: how can we revitalize rather than gentrify the area, how do we relocate residents during construction but not cut them off from their support networks, and how do we increase the neighbourhood’s livability?
Like Regent Park, there are numerous public housing estates in Japan, built after the war to meet significant housing shortages in metropolitan areas. In 1954, the Japan Housing Corporation, a nation-wide public housing and urban development corporation, was established to build public housing.
Regent Park, Toronto
Though popular when built, much of this housing has become outdated over time. With new standards in design and planning and Japanese public housing in need of renewal, today’s Urban Renaissance Agency has been working on several interesting revitalization projects, demonstrating some creative attempts to engage and empower the resident community. In this talk, we will explore some of these projects and look at ways that Toronto’s own revitalization can share from the lessons learned in Japan.
The talk will be introduced by André Sorensen, Professor and Chair of the Department of Human Geography at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
Reservations are now closed. Thank you for your interest. We will have a rush line starting 30 minutes before the event, and will start to release unclaimed seats 10 minutes before the event.
About the Speakers
Prof. Sayaka Fujii
Sayaka Fujii is an Associate Professor at the University of Tsukuba in Japan and a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto (2013-2014). Her research interests include planning and management of housing estates by community associations, planning for aging communities and revitalization of public housing. While in Toronto, she has been researching the Regent Park revitalization project.
Professor Fujii holds a BA in Planning and Management Sciences and a M.A. in Environmental Science from the University of Tsukuba and a Ph.D. in Urban Engineering from the University of Tokyo. She teaches Urban Planning, Land Use Planning and Urban Studio at the University of Tsukuba.
Andre Sorenson
André Sorensen is Professor and Chair of the Department of Human Geography at the University of Toronto Scarborough. He has published extensively on Japanese urbanisation, urban planning, and planning history. His monograph ‘The Making of Urban Japan: Cities and Planning from Edo to the 21st Century’ (Routledge 2002) won the book prize of the International Planning History Association in 2004. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the University of Tokyo School of Engineering in recognition of his research on Japanese urbanism and urban planning.
His current research examines institutions, urban space, and temporal processes in urbanisation and urban governance from a historical institutionalist perspective, with a focus on urban land and property development, infrastructure management, and the creation of increasingly differentiated property rights in urban settings.
