This article examines how public spaces shape racialized youth growing up in a multicultural city. It focuses on youths in the Jane-Finch neighborhood of Toronto presenting their fears, sociospatial practices, and aspirations for social inclusion and urban spaces. Research data consist of interviews with stake-holders and social providers working with youth in Toronto, in general, and in Jane-Finch, in particular. In addition, the article relies predominantly on a focus group discussion with 13 young women and men that took place in The Spot Youth Centre located in Jane-Finch in June 2011. In August 2013, two Black teenagers were killed in the area of Jane-Finch in North-West Toronto. This article was inspired by these tragic losses.
BackL.KeithM. (2004). Impurity and the emancipatory city: Young people, community safety and racial danger. In LeesL. (Ed.), The emancipatory city? Paradoxes and possibilities (pp. 57-71). London, England: Sage.
2.
BerryB. J. L. (1985). Islands of renewal in seas of decay. In PetersonP. E. (Ed.), The new urban reality (pp. 69-96). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
3.
BickfordS. (2000). Constructing inequality: City spaces and the architecture of citizenship. Political Theory, 28, 355-376.
4.
BoudreauJ. A.KeilR.DouglasY. (2009). Changing Toronto-governing urban neoliberalism. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
Focus Group. (2011, June16). 13 youth participants from Jane-Finch area. Focus Group conducted by the author, Toronto, Canada.
9.
GalabuziG. E. (2006). Canada’s economic apartheid: The social exclusion of racialized groups in the new century. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars’ Press.
10.
GalanakisM. (2008). Space unjust: Socio-spatial discrimination in urban public space. Cases from Helsinki and Athens. Helsinki, Finland: Publication Series of the University of Art and Design.
11.
GalanakisM. (2013). Intercultural public spaces in multicultural Toronto. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 22(1), 67-89.
12.
GoonewardenaK.KipferS. (2005). Spaces of difference: Reflections from Toronto on interculturalism, Bourgeois urbanism and the possibility of radical urban politics. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 29, 670-678.
GrayB. (2011, May30). Youth programs manager, The Spot. Interview by the author, Toronto, Canada.
15.
HajerM.ReijndorpA. (2001). In search of new public domain. Rotterdam, Netherlands: NAI.
16.
HaldaneR. (2011, June25). Day program coordinator at Horizons for Youth. Interview by the author, Toronto, Canada.
17.
HealeyP. (2006). Collaborative planning: Shaping places in fragmented societies. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
18.
HopkinsE. P. (2007). Thinking critically and creatively about focus groups. Area, 39, 528-535.
19.
HracsJ. B.MassamH. B. (2008). Places/spaces of celebration and protest: Citizenship, civic conversations and the promotion of rights and obligations. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 17, 63-81.
20.
HulchanskiJ. D. (2010). The three cities within Toronto: Income polarization among Toronto’s neighbourhoods, 1970-2005. Toronto, Canada: Cities Centre Press.
21.
JacksonP. (1988). Street life: The politics of carnival. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 6, 213-227.
22.
KaartinenM. (2002). Public and private: Challenges in the study of early modern women’s lives. In KorhonenA.TuohelaK. (Eds.), Time frames: Negotiating cultural history (pp. 89-104). Säärijärvi, Finland: Gummerus, University of Turku.
23.
L’AoustetO.GriffetJ. (2004). Sharing public space: Youth experience and socialization in Marseille’s Borely Park. Space and Culture, 7, 173-187.
24.
LefebvreH. (1997). The production of space (Nicholson-SmithD., Trans.). Oxford, MA: Blackwell. (Original work published 1974)
25.
LeyD. (2003). Forgetting postmodernism? Recuperating a social history of local knowledge. Progress in Human Geography, 27, 537-560.
26.
MacNevinW. (2011, May30). Director of community programs, Jane-Finch Community and Family Centre. Interview by the author, Toronto, Canada.
27.
MerraroM. (2011, June3). Manager of various community and youth programs in Toronto. Interview by the author, Toronto, Canada.
28.
MilesM. (2008). Urban utopias: The built and social architectures of alternative settlements. New York, NY: Routledge.
29.
MitchellD. (2003). The right to the city: Social justice and fight for public space. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
30.
NewmanO. (1995). Defensible space. Journal of the American Planning Association, 61, 149-155.
31.
OakleyT.HougaardA. (2008). Mental spaces and discourse analysis. In OakleyT.HougaardA. (Eds.), Mental spaces in discourse and interaction (pp. 1-26). Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
PainR. (2001). Gender, race, age and fear in the city. Urban Studies, 38, 899-913.
34.
PaskA. (2010). Public space activism, Toronto and Vancouver: Using the banner of public space to build capacity and activate change. In HouJ. (Ed.), Insurgent public space: Guerrilla urbanism and the remaking of contemporary cities (pp. 227-240). New York, NY: Routledge.
35.
SalvatoreA. (2004). Making public space: Opportunities and limits of collective action among Muslims in Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 30, 1013-1031.
36.
SandercockL. (2003). Cosmopolis II: Mongrel cities in the 21st century. New York, NY: Continuum.
37.
SandercockL. (2009). Towards a cosmopolitan urbanism: From theory to practice. In SandercockL.AttiliG. (Eds.), Where strangers become neighbours (pp. 192-229). New York, NY: Springer Science + Business Media.
38.
SennettR. (2002). Flesh and stone: The body and the city in Western civilization. London, England: Penguin Books.
39.
ShakirU. (2011, June21). Equity and diversity manager, City of Toronto. Interview by the author, Toronto, Canada.
40.
SharkeyA.ShieldsR. (2008). Abject citizenship: Rethinking exclusion and inclusion: Participation, criminality and community at a small town youth centre. Children’s Geographies, 6, 239-256.
41.
SiemiatyckiM. (2011). Governing immigrant city: Immigrant political representation in Toronto. American Behavioral Scientist, 55, 1214-1234.
42.
SmithN. (1996). The new urban frontier: Gentrification and the revanchist city. New York, NY: Routledge.
43.
ValentineG. (1998). Food and the civilised street. In FyfeN. R. (Ed.), Images of the street. Planning, identity and control in public space (pp. 192-204). New York, NY: Routledge.
44.
van LieshoutM.AartsN. (2008). “Outside is where it’s at!” Youth Immigrants’ perspectives on public spaces. Space and Culture, 11, 497-513.
45.
VanderbeckR. M.JohnsonJ. H.Jr. (2000). “That’s the only place where you can hang out”: Urban young people and the space of the mall. Urban Geography, 21(1), 5-25.
46.
WilliamsF. (2011, June25). Executive director of Horizons for Youth. Interview by the author, Toronto, Canada.
47.
WoodP.GilbertL. (2005). Multiculturalism in Canada: Alternative vision, accidental discourse, urban practice. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 29, 679-691.
48.
YoungI. M. (1992). Together in difference: Transforming the logic of group political conflict. In KymlickaW. (Ed.), The rights of minority cultures (pp. 155-176). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
