Historic waterfronts are iconic sites of urban change, and the redevelopment of urban waterfronts... more Historic waterfronts are iconic sites of urban change, and the redevelopment of urban waterfronts – from sites of industrial work and commerce to post-industrial places of residence, retail and recreation – is a global phenomenon. Official discourses about such places are intimately related to the changes in physical land use, in material practices and in the production of publics. Using ethnographic research conducted in the post-industrial waterfront city of New Westminster, British Columbia, I examine the way that planning discourses about (re)connecting the city to the Fraser River are embedded in broader claims about heritage and identity. New Westminster, a rapidly gentrifying city within Metro Vancouver, has long taken pride in its British colonial past. As city leaders have worked to redevelop the industrial waterfront, however, they have quietly jettisoned the colonial heritage narratives in favour of ones in which local heritage is found in nature, represented by the Frase...
On a crisp, sunny morning in late November 2015, the City of New Westminster, British Columbia, h... more On a crisp, sunny morning in late November 2015, the City of New Westminster, British Columbia, held the official opening for a piece of public art that is intended to be a permanent fixture on the city’s redeveloped waterfront. The ribbon cutting was attended by approximately forty people, of whom most were either city officials or invited dignitaries. While waiting for the ceremonies to begin, one dignitary – a representative of the local rail operator, a donor to the project – turned to his neighbour and repeated what has become the hopeful mantra about nearly all development in this Metro Vancouver city of sixty-five thousand on the north bank of the Fraser River, ‘This is really going to put NewWestminster on the map!’ The artwork, entitled ‘WOW! Westminster’, consists of four 40 feet shipping containers, balanced and suspended to form the letter W, with the W reported to stand for Westminster. Public discussions around the installation of WOW! Westminster occurred while we were engaged in research, and the curation of a temporary museum exhibit, about New Westminster’s working waterfront. The contrast between these concurrent, independent initiatives illustrates some of the challenges to opening up public conversations about waterfront and transport history. Our project, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and entitled (Re)Claiming the New Westminster Waterfront, was a research partnership among faculty and students from Simon Fraser University, the New Westminster Museum and Archives (a municipal department), retired longshoremen who began their careers on New Westminster docks before containerization, local teachers and individual residents. The four-year research partnership documented post – World War II changes to the city’s waterfront as it shifted
ABSTRACT As formerly industrial urban waterfronts are redeveloped worldwide, a common claim of th... more ABSTRACT As formerly industrial urban waterfronts are redeveloped worldwide, a common claim of these projects is that they preserve the historical distinctiveness of their sites. This essay presents an industrial waterfront redevelopment in a suburban context, namely the Queensborough neighborhood of New Westminster, British Columbia. We note that Queensborough, past and present, is presented as “distinctive,” though with different connotations for different time periods. In the past, Queensborough’s distinctiveness was a neutral term meant to mask perceived problems. Currently, distinctiveness is a positive term meant to signal a desirable address. Ironically, the historical characteristics that gave the neighborhood its unique flavor have been largely erased with the demolition of the industrial buildings and sites. The rapid redevelopment of the industrial waterfront for residences has led to the adoption of building styles and forms similar to those found in widely dispersed places.
Recently, scholars have begun to explore questions of regionalism and regionalization in rural co... more Recently, scholars have begun to explore questions of regionalism and regionalization in rural contexts. Regionalism is often understood and presented as a pragmatic solution to intractable problems of fragmentation, inefficiency, accountability, spillover and neglect in the face of economic restructuring and other external threats. These arguments have long been deployed in the top-down restructuring of rural public administration; for example, the amalgamation of service districts to keep schools, hospitals and other facilities open in the face of declining population. At the same time, regionalization may be understood as a ‘means’ or process of becoming through the formation of new and shared regional identities, “structures of expectation” and institutions. Between 1996 and 2004 the number of municipalities in the Canadian Province of Ontario was reduced by more than 40 percent from 815 to 445. Evidence suggests that many of these amalgamations were undertaken reluctantly. In this paper we examine the issue of regionalism from the perspective of one rural municipality—the former silver mining centre of Cobalt, Ontario—that has resisted amalgamation. We argue that its resistance to amalgamation is a consequence of the conflictual social relationships that have been inscribed into the landscape over the past century. Using documentary and archival materials, supplemented by contemporary survey and ethnographic data, we trace how successive generations of miners, mine-owners, government officials, politicians and residents have constructed Cobalt as a distinct place. We show that this oppositional identity belies the extent to which the town and its citizens are embedded in regional housing, labour and consumer markets.
Place branding in heritage tourism development is presented as a strategy that opens up new possi... more Place branding in heritage tourism development is presented as a strategy that opens up new possibilities for attracting investors and visitors by distilling, capturing and shaping what is distinctive about a place. This representational fix is an efficient marketing device in the sense that it represents places through widely intelligible symbols. Branding is also a limiting activity that locks places in time and class relations. While place branding has always had this dual effect, we argue that it has particularly insidious and limiting consequences for local development under current conditions of roll-out neoliberalism. Beginning in the 1960s, several prominent residents and outsiders initiated efforts to transform the Town of Cobalt, Ontario, into a mining heritage tourism destination. In 2001, the town entered and won a contest to be named Ontario's Most Historic Town. The following year it persuaded Parks Canada to designate it as a national historic site. These two events provided renewed external validation for the efforts to brand Cobalt as a heritage site and began a new cycle of mining heritage tourism development. However, instead of breaking the dependency relationships that characterize resource regions, the current round of place branding has acted to circumscribe the range of possible economic development options.Les limites de l'histoire : la réduction des possibilités dans le « plus historique des villages de l'Ontario »L'identité distinctive d'un lieu dans la promotion du tourisme patrimonial constitue une stratégie qui accroît les possibilités d'attirer les promoteurs et les visiteurs en exprimant, captant et déterminant l'essentiel de ce qui fait le charme d'un lieu. L'utilisation d'une image de marque se veut un outil de commercialisation qui s'articule autour de représentations des lieux au moyen de symboles largement lisibles. L'image de marque impose toutefois des limites qui impliquent que les lieux restent figés dans des rapports temporels et de classe. Ces deux conséquences de l'image de marque locale ont toujours existé et c'est pourquoi nous soutenons qu'elle entraîne une série de répercussions particulièrement subtiles qui comportent des effets limitatifs sur le développement local en ces temps de néolibéralisme débridé. À partir des années 1960, de nombreux résidents et non-résidents influents ont soutenu des initiatives visant à transformer le village de Cobalt, Ontario, en une destination touristique du patrimoine minier. C'est dans ce contexte que le village s'est inscrit en 2001 à un concours pour désigner le village le plus historique en Ontario. Ces efforts ont été fructueux, car le village a été déclaré site historique national par Parcs Canada, l'année suivante. Le village de Cobalt a profité de l'engouement suscité par ces deux événements et de la reconnaissance officielle comme lieu patrimonial pour lancer un nouveau programme de promotion touristique de son patrimoine minier. Toutefois, se doter ainsi d'une image de marque ne permet pas de rompre la relation de dépendance dans laquelle se retrouvent les régions ressources. Au contraire, un tel programme limite les possibilités de développement économique.
Historic waterfronts are iconic sites of urban change, and the redevelopment of urban waterfronts... more Historic waterfronts are iconic sites of urban change, and the redevelopment of urban waterfronts – from sites of industrial work and commerce to post-industrial places of residence, retail and recreation – is a global phenomenon. Official discourses about such places are intimately related to the changes in physical land use, in material practices and in the production of publics. Using ethnographic research conducted in the post-industrial waterfront city of New Westminster, British Columbia, I examine the way that planning discourses about (re)connecting the city to the Fraser River are embedded in broader claims about heritage and identity. New Westminster, a rapidly gentrifying city within Metro Vancouver, has long taken pride in its British colonial past. As city leaders have worked to redevelop the industrial waterfront, however, they have quietly jettisoned the colonial heritage narratives in favour of ones in which local heritage is found in nature, represented by the Frase...
On a crisp, sunny morning in late November 2015, the City of New Westminster, British Columbia, h... more On a crisp, sunny morning in late November 2015, the City of New Westminster, British Columbia, held the official opening for a piece of public art that is intended to be a permanent fixture on the city’s redeveloped waterfront. The ribbon cutting was attended by approximately forty people, of whom most were either city officials or invited dignitaries. While waiting for the ceremonies to begin, one dignitary – a representative of the local rail operator, a donor to the project – turned to his neighbour and repeated what has become the hopeful mantra about nearly all development in this Metro Vancouver city of sixty-five thousand on the north bank of the Fraser River, ‘This is really going to put NewWestminster on the map!’ The artwork, entitled ‘WOW! Westminster’, consists of four 40 feet shipping containers, balanced and suspended to form the letter W, with the W reported to stand for Westminster. Public discussions around the installation of WOW! Westminster occurred while we were engaged in research, and the curation of a temporary museum exhibit, about New Westminster’s working waterfront. The contrast between these concurrent, independent initiatives illustrates some of the challenges to opening up public conversations about waterfront and transport history. Our project, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and entitled (Re)Claiming the New Westminster Waterfront, was a research partnership among faculty and students from Simon Fraser University, the New Westminster Museum and Archives (a municipal department), retired longshoremen who began their careers on New Westminster docks before containerization, local teachers and individual residents. The four-year research partnership documented post – World War II changes to the city’s waterfront as it shifted
ABSTRACT As formerly industrial urban waterfronts are redeveloped worldwide, a common claim of th... more ABSTRACT As formerly industrial urban waterfronts are redeveloped worldwide, a common claim of these projects is that they preserve the historical distinctiveness of their sites. This essay presents an industrial waterfront redevelopment in a suburban context, namely the Queensborough neighborhood of New Westminster, British Columbia. We note that Queensborough, past and present, is presented as “distinctive,” though with different connotations for different time periods. In the past, Queensborough’s distinctiveness was a neutral term meant to mask perceived problems. Currently, distinctiveness is a positive term meant to signal a desirable address. Ironically, the historical characteristics that gave the neighborhood its unique flavor have been largely erased with the demolition of the industrial buildings and sites. The rapid redevelopment of the industrial waterfront for residences has led to the adoption of building styles and forms similar to those found in widely dispersed places.
Recently, scholars have begun to explore questions of regionalism and regionalization in rural co... more Recently, scholars have begun to explore questions of regionalism and regionalization in rural contexts. Regionalism is often understood and presented as a pragmatic solution to intractable problems of fragmentation, inefficiency, accountability, spillover and neglect in the face of economic restructuring and other external threats. These arguments have long been deployed in the top-down restructuring of rural public administration; for example, the amalgamation of service districts to keep schools, hospitals and other facilities open in the face of declining population. At the same time, regionalization may be understood as a ‘means’ or process of becoming through the formation of new and shared regional identities, “structures of expectation” and institutions. Between 1996 and 2004 the number of municipalities in the Canadian Province of Ontario was reduced by more than 40 percent from 815 to 445. Evidence suggests that many of these amalgamations were undertaken reluctantly. In this paper we examine the issue of regionalism from the perspective of one rural municipality—the former silver mining centre of Cobalt, Ontario—that has resisted amalgamation. We argue that its resistance to amalgamation is a consequence of the conflictual social relationships that have been inscribed into the landscape over the past century. Using documentary and archival materials, supplemented by contemporary survey and ethnographic data, we trace how successive generations of miners, mine-owners, government officials, politicians and residents have constructed Cobalt as a distinct place. We show that this oppositional identity belies the extent to which the town and its citizens are embedded in regional housing, labour and consumer markets.
Place branding in heritage tourism development is presented as a strategy that opens up new possi... more Place branding in heritage tourism development is presented as a strategy that opens up new possibilities for attracting investors and visitors by distilling, capturing and shaping what is distinctive about a place. This representational fix is an efficient marketing device in the sense that it represents places through widely intelligible symbols. Branding is also a limiting activity that locks places in time and class relations. While place branding has always had this dual effect, we argue that it has particularly insidious and limiting consequences for local development under current conditions of roll-out neoliberalism. Beginning in the 1960s, several prominent residents and outsiders initiated efforts to transform the Town of Cobalt, Ontario, into a mining heritage tourism destination. In 2001, the town entered and won a contest to be named Ontario's Most Historic Town. The following year it persuaded Parks Canada to designate it as a national historic site. These two events provided renewed external validation for the efforts to brand Cobalt as a heritage site and began a new cycle of mining heritage tourism development. However, instead of breaking the dependency relationships that characterize resource regions, the current round of place branding has acted to circumscribe the range of possible economic development options.Les limites de l'histoire : la réduction des possibilités dans le « plus historique des villages de l'Ontario »L'identité distinctive d'un lieu dans la promotion du tourisme patrimonial constitue une stratégie qui accroît les possibilités d'attirer les promoteurs et les visiteurs en exprimant, captant et déterminant l'essentiel de ce qui fait le charme d'un lieu. L'utilisation d'une image de marque se veut un outil de commercialisation qui s'articule autour de représentations des lieux au moyen de symboles largement lisibles. L'image de marque impose toutefois des limites qui impliquent que les lieux restent figés dans des rapports temporels et de classe. Ces deux conséquences de l'image de marque locale ont toujours existé et c'est pourquoi nous soutenons qu'elle entraîne une série de répercussions particulièrement subtiles qui comportent des effets limitatifs sur le développement local en ces temps de néolibéralisme débridé. À partir des années 1960, de nombreux résidents et non-résidents influents ont soutenu des initiatives visant à transformer le village de Cobalt, Ontario, en une destination touristique du patrimoine minier. C'est dans ce contexte que le village s'est inscrit en 2001 à un concours pour désigner le village le plus historique en Ontario. Ces efforts ont été fructueux, car le village a été déclaré site historique national par Parcs Canada, l'année suivante. Le village de Cobalt a profité de l'engouement suscité par ces deux événements et de la reconnaissance officielle comme lieu patrimonial pour lancer un nouveau programme de promotion touristique de son patrimoine minier. Toutefois, se doter ainsi d'une image de marque ne permet pas de rompre la relation de dépendance dans laquelle se retrouvent les régions ressources. Au contraire, un tel programme limite les possibilités de développement économique.
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Papers by Pamela Stern