High-rise living, public space, and COVID-19 in the Greater Toronto Area

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About

Overview

High-rise buildings have long been a significant form in urban development. But this form of living comes with its own challenges and the COVID-19 pandemic of the last two years has magnified some of the problems for life in close proximity.

Recent events disrupted and altered the everyday routines of everyone and exposed how vital access to public space is. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic public space was paramount in providing a physical space where high-rise residents could implement a safe distance from one another, and as a location of metamorphosis for human interaction and interconnection.

High-rise living, public space, and COVID-19 in the Greater Toronto Area looks to analyze the lived experience of high-rise residents and explore interventions in urban planning and building management that can improve vertical living. We will focus on two types of high-rise buildings within the Greater Toronto Area: the condominium tower and the rental complex.

Founded on French critical thinker Henri Lefebvre’s (1991)✤ theory on the social production of space, we are interested in how people have experienced shared space and amenities in residential high-rise towers, and how people have developed new places and processes for social interaction within high-rises in the constrained context of COVID-19.

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Features

Objectives

We look to advance the understanding of the high-rise experience with five key objectives:

to investigate the hybrid physical and social aspects of shared spaces in high-rise living

to assess how different ownership and management structures of condominium and rental towers might affect shared spaces and amenities, and the ability to adapt to a public health crisis

to use the demography of high-rise towers to analyze potential inequalities and inequities in access to public space and amenities in the buildings and beyond

to collect and analyse data about residents' experiences in the context of COVID-19 in order to propose interventions in the planning, design and management of shared spaces in high-rise buildings

to make an original contribution to the debate on density through the lenses of public space and pandemic

Meet the Team

High-rise living, public space, and COVID-19 in the Greater Toronto Area is a three-year Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funded project, in a collaboration between York University’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Studies and the University of Waterloo’s School of Planning.

Ute Lehrer

Ute Lehrer is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Urban and Environmental Change, York University.

With degrees from University of Zurich, Switzerland, and University of California, Los Angeles in urban planning, art and architectural history, sociology and economic and social history, Ute Lehrer has previously taught at Brock University and SUNY Buffalo, was a researcher at the Swiss Federal University of Technology in Zurich, and held Visiting positions at Université de Montpellier, France, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and University of Manchester, UK.

She was the recipient of several awards, including UCLA's Chancellor Fellowship, UC Berkeley's Research Fellowship and the American Institute for Certified Planners. She was the Vice-President North America of the Research Committee 21, ISA, and is a former Editorial Board Member of the International Journal for Urban and Regional Research.

Taking a critical and comparative approach, her research interests include urban design and land use; housing, gentrification and the condominium boom; discourse and mega-projects; as well as the social construction of public space. She held several SSHRC-funded research projects and has published widely in social science journals and edited books.

Lehrer is the Principal Investigator of the SSHRC project “High-rise living, public space and COVID-19 in the Greater Toronto Area”.

Katherine Perrott

Katherine Perrott, PhD, RPP, MCIP is the Associate Director, Professional Practice and a full time Lecturer at the University of Waterloo’s School of Planning, Ontario.

She has 15 years of experience as a planning practitioner, lecturer, and researcher. As a planning consultant, she worked across the urban to rural spectrum on a range of public- and private-sector projects throughout Canada.

She holds a master’s degree in planning from Dalhousie University and a PhD in planning from the University of Toronto.

Martine August

Martine is an Assistant Professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo.

Her research focuses on the political economy of housing and the pursuit of urban social justice, exploring themes related to gentrification, displacement, community organizing, public housing redevelopment, and the politics of social mix.

Her current research focuses on the financialization of real estate in Canada, including multi-family apartments, student housing, and seniors housing.

She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University, and worked as a housing policy advisor at the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, in the Housing Policy Branch and Homelessness Secretariat.

Markus Moos

Dr. Markus Moos is Professor and a Registered Professional Planner in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo.

He formerly held roles as associate director graduate studies and director of the School. Moos holds a joint-honors bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and economics from Waterloo, a master’s degree in planning from Queen’s, and a PhD in urban and economic geography from UBC.

Professor Moos researches the changing economies and social structures of cities, housing and land markets, generational change, imagination, and the nature of different types of knowledge. Moos is fundamentally interested in these topics in an integrated way as means to gain a better understanding of how and why societies change, the role of public policy and planning, and the sustainability and social equity implications. He has been credited for developing “youthification” as a new concept to help explain neighborhood change.

Professor Moos’ research is published widely in peer-reviewed articles, books, policy reports, and the press. He is currently an Editor at Urban Studies Journal, a leading academic publication in his field.

Madison Stirling

Madison Stirling is a student in the Master of Environmental Studies program in the Environmental and Urban Change Faculty at York University.

She is interested in the ways in which sustainable development may be brought about through progressive policy, planning, and research methods.

She has been working on this project as a Research Assistant since May 2023, taking on an administrative role while conducting policy research on various documents across the Greater Toronto Area.

Her research explores the ways in which policies and regulations define and standardize amenity spaces.

Ian Weir

Ian is currently an undergraduate student completing his Bachelor of Environmental Studies at York University and will be continuing at York in their Master of Environmental Studies program.

Ian is interested in public/social housing and how this form of housing can contribute to human flourishing. He enjoys tall buildings and lives vertically downtown Toronto with his wife and two daughters.

Ian has been with the High-rise living, public space, and COVID-19 in the Greater Toronto Area project since Spring 2023, and will be actively contributing until Fall 2026.

Nataliya Murzenko

Nataliya is an undergraduate student completing her Bachelor of Environmental Studies in the Cities, Regions and Planning stream.

She is interested in the intersections of community well-being and city design, particularly in densifying neighborhoods.

Nataliya will be working as a research assistant on the SSHRC High Rise project from Spring 2023 until her graduation in Spring 2024.

Kaja Bittner

Kaja is an undergraduate student completing her Bachelor’s of Science in Geography at the University of Münster in Germany.

She is interested in the Condo-Lifestyle and social housing issues and how this can be improved in major cities.

Kaja has been with the High-rise living, public space, and COVID-19 in the Greater Toronto Area project since Spring 2023.

Apartment buildings seen from below in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

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High-rise living, public space, and COVID-19 in the Greater Toronto Area

In partnership with:

Overview

Objectives

Meet the Team

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