Journal articles on the topic 'Brownfields – Economic aspects – Ontario'

This paper describes situation of brownfields in Lithuania. The brownfields analysis was made according to the main aspects influencing brownfields redevelopment process the most. This paper presents the existing legislation system relative to brownfields and economic possibilities; the cleaning methods and most popular technologies in Lithuania.

The creation of climate-neutral industrial ecosystems based on digital leadership determines the movement of advanced countries towards competitiveness on the global stage. Industrial ecosystems of most regions of Ukraine are characterized by a low technological level of key industries and lack of organizational routines that can ensure their transition to a higher technological and resource-efficient level. The problem of forming a modern policy in the field of revitalization of abandoned areas of former industrial use (brownfields), in particular in the field of industrial waste processing, needs an urgent solution. The article is aimed at highlighting the theoretical foundations and practical aspects of creating a new industrial path through the revitalization of brownfields in underdeveloped industrial ecosystems on the example of old industrial mining regions. The paper proposes the use of a bricolage approach to create a new path of development of old industrial mining regions. This approach focuses not on the breakthrough development of the new industry, which is almost impossible in the conditions of insufficient development of industrial ecosystems, but on the gradual process of strategic cooperation of many participants (local and non-local enterprises, research institutes, local authorities, community, national and regional authorities, other stakeholders), coordination and pooling of resources at different levels, which will eventually have to evolve together, thus leading to a favorable institutional environment for the new industry. The establishment of an enterprises for the processing of coal preparation within the framework of the brownfield revitalization project is a kind of a kludge, the temporary adaptation of the community to the complex socio-economic and environmental situation, which is a consequence of the cessation of intensive coal mining, which will make it possible to create new routines of business behavior of institutions and citizens, the best of which in the process of evolutionary selection will be able to adapt to the new challenges of global technological transformations in industry and ecology. The practical implementation of the given approach is primarily represented in the creation of special institutions that are alternatives to the institutional traps of industrial development on the principles of the circular economy and relate to the introduction of more strict measures when implementing European waste management standards in national legislation and additional taxes that force enterprises to recycle waste; emergence of special enterprises (scavengers and decomposers) that use new effective disposal measures to restore and further use brownfields; creation of special community development corporations that promote economic development and environmental sustainability of the territory and ensure broad community participation in the creation of initiatives and decision-making; use of opportunities for Ukrainian integration in the field of innovation, science and education under the Association Agreement signed with the European Union in order to make effective decisions on the revitalization of brownfields.

The career of Joseph Goodwin King (1844-1910), grain elevator operator at Port Hope and Port Arthur, Ontario, sheds light on many aspects of Canadian agricultural and economic history— the role of railway companies in the grain trade, the decline of Lake Ontario grain ports, the rise of Thunder Bay on Lake Superior as the major Canadian grain port for western Canada, as well as improvements in North American grain cleaning and drying methods, and grain elevator construction.

Commentary on FTAs and the Doha Round Agenda. Dan Ciuriak is Deputy Chief Economist at Canada’s Department of International Trade. He is co-editor of, and regular contributor to, the Department’s annual Trade Policy Research series and advises on a wide variety of international economic issues, including WTO and NAFTA trade litigation. In his personal capacity he has published a number of articles on various aspects of economic globalization, with a particular focus on the Asian Crisis and China’s economic integration into the global economy. From 1994-1998, Ciuriak served as deputy to the Chair of the APEC Economic Committee with principal responsibility for editing the annual APEC Economic Outlook and other Economic Committee publications. From 1990-1994, he served as Finance Counsellor at Canada’s Embassy in Germany, covering G-7 issues, German reunification, the Maastricht process, and the European Monetary crisis. Previously, he was with Canada’s Department of Finance where he was deeply involved in Canada’s federal financial institutions reforms. He studied at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

The article explores some of the connections between science and agribusiness in the history of pig factory farming in Ontario, Canada, between the 1950s and the present. The factory farm model of pig production submits animals to a very artificial way of life, which would not be possible without the inputs of scientific and technological innovations of the 20th century. Topics discussed include the use of antibiotics, swine nutrition, feed conversion (in)efficiency, and pork promotion and consumption. The primary sources utilized are a trade magazine, a census of agriculture, and other government and industry publications. The article sheds light on how notions such as “progress”, “improvement”, “modern” or “efficiency”, frequently used by scientists when referring to results of pig production, are restricted to narrow or internal considerations of the industry that, in turn, can be challenged by broader analysis of aspects (social, economic, environmental) of the food system. Scientists have not just produced scientific knowledge but in some cases have also promoted ideologies about animals and the food system. These ideologies of “progress”, “improvement”, “modern” or “efficiency”, as in the context of pig production in Ontario, only make sense if we understand the particular historical moment in the analysis, which since the 1950s has markedly been one of strong agribusiness interventionism.

ABSTRACTThe oncoming retirement of baby boomers has governments worried. Will individual baby boomers demonstrate the ability to prepare financially for their retirement? Well-being in retirement depends largely on financial preparedness during working life. Those baby boomers who are the most vulnerable at the end of their working lives are more likely to become vulnerable during retirement. This study looks at the income of the first baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1956, aged 50 to 60, according to the 2006 Canadian census. First we establish the socio-economic categories for which members are most financially vulnerable. Then, we estimate how many baby boomers are vulnerable and to what extent. This study’s preferred approach is an interprovincial comparison between Quebec and Ontario, used to analyze individual aspects of baby boomers’ financial positions.

Historical zooarchaeologists have made significant contributions to key questions about the social, economic, and nutritional dimensions of domestic animal use in North American colonial contexts; however, techniques commonly employed in faunal analyses do not offer a means of assessing many important aspects of how animals were husbanded and traded. We apply isotopic analyses to faunal remains from archaeological sites to assess the social and economic importance of meat trade and consumption of local and foreign animal products in northeastern North America. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of 310 cattle and pigs from 18 rural and urban archaeological sites in Upper Canada (present-day southern Ontario, Canada; ca. A.D. 1790–1890) are compared with livestock from contemporary American sources to quantify the importance of meat from different origins at rural and higher- and lower-status urban contexts. Results show significant differences between urban and rural households in the consumption of local animals and meat products acquired through long-distance trade. A striking pattern in urban contexts provides new evidence for the social significance of meat origins in historical Upper Canada and highlights the potential for isotopic approaches to reveal otherwise-hidden evidence for social and economic roles of animals in North American archaeology.

Administrative databases in the Canadian health sector do not contain socio-economic information. To facilitate the monitoring of social inequalities for health planning, this study proposes a material and social deprivation index for Canada. After explaining the concept of deprivation, we describe the methodological aspects of the index and apply it to the example of premature mortality (i.e. death before the age of 75). We illustrate variations in deprivation and the links between deprivation and mortality nationwide and in different geographic areas including the census metropolitan areas (CMAs) of Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver; other CMAs; average-size cities, referred to as census agglomerations (CAs); small towns and rural communities; and five regions of Canada, namely Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies and British Columbia. Material and social deprivation and their links to mortality vary considerably by geographic area. We comment on the results as well as the limitations of the index and its advantages for health planning.

The Teachers’ Mining Tour is a professional development program for educators hosted at the Canadian Ecology Centre (CEC) located near Mattawa, Ontario. Each year in late summer for three years (2010–2012) approximately thirty Ontario teachers participated in a five day program that included presentations by mineral industry professionals, site visits to mines and mine manufacturing operations, and educational resource workshops. In 2013, to meet demand, the Tour program was expanded to include two tours, annually. The goal of the Tour is to provide teachers with the information and resources that they need to become more proficient Earth Science teachers and to educate their students about the mining industry and, through this increased knowledge and experience, to encourage their students to pursue post-secondary education and careers in Earth Sciences and mining-related disciplines. Additional objectives are to create and cultivate a network of teachers using mining as a theme in their classrooms, and to promote informed opinions amongst participants with regard to the economic, social and environmental aspects of mining. The Tour content focuses on modern mining techniques and technology, environmental responsibility, workplace safety, and mining careers. Tours consistently receive favourable reviews from teachers, industry participants and representatives from sponsor organizations. In addition to the feedback sought through evaluation forms at the conclusion of each Tour program, additional feedback is sought from participants in the following spring of each academic year. A formal survey is circulated, providing teachers with the opportunity to report back about how their Tour experience is influencing their teaching. Respondents report that they are satisfied with the information and resources that they received during the Tour, that the program is directly applicable to the subjects that they are teaching, and that their perceptions about mining changed because of their experience. RÉSUMÉLe Teachers’ Mining Tour est un programme de formation pour enseignants qui se tient au Centre écologique du Canada (CEC) situé à Mattawa, Ontario. Chaque année à la fin de l'été depuis trois ans (2010–2012) une trentaine d’enseignants d'Ontario ont participé à ce programme de cinq jours de présentations par des professionnels de l'industrie minérale, de visites de sites miniers et d’usines de transformation, et d’ateliers sur les moyens éducatifs. En 2013, pour répondre à la demande, le programme du Tour a été porté à deux sessions par année. L’objectif de ce Tour est de fournir aux enseignants les informations et les moyens éducatifs requis pour devenir des enseignants en sciences de la Terre mieux qualifiés pour instruire leurs élèves sur la réalité de l'industrie minière et, par là, d’encourager leurs élèves à poursuivre une formation postsecondaire et opter pour des carrières en sciences de Terre ou dans les disciplines de l’industrie minière. Ce programme vise aussi d’autres objectifs dont ceux de créer et promouvoir un réseau d'enseignants qui utilisent le thème minier dans leur enseignement, et faire en sorte que les participants en ressortent avec des opinions mieux éclairés sur les aspects économiques, sociaux et environnementaux de l'exploitation minière. Le contenu du Tour porte surtout sur les processus et la technologie de l’exploitation minière moderne, l’éco-responsabilité, la sécurité du milieu de travail et les opportunités de carrière dans l’industrie minière. Ce programme d’activités est systématiquement louangé par les enseignants, les participants d'industrie et les représentants des organismes de parrainage. Le niveau de satisfaction est établi par l’administration de formulaires d’évaluation à la fin de chaque session du programme d’activités, et par les réactions colligées auprès des participants au printemps suivant l’année scolaire. Un sondage formel est soumis aux enseignants dans le but d’évaluer l’impact des activités du Tour sur leur enseignement. Les répondants se disent satisfaits des informations reçues et des moyens éducatifs enseignés pendant le Tour, confirment que le programme d’activités est directement applicable aux sujets qu'ils enseignent, et que leurs perceptions de l'exploitation minière en ont été changées.

Emissions and pollution from the transportation sector due to the consumption of fossil fuels by conventional vehicles have been negatively affecting the global climate and public health. Electric vehicles (EVs) are a cleaner solution to reduce the emission and pollution caused by transportation. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are the main type of energy storage system used in EVs. The Li-ion battery pack must be considerably large to satisfy the requirement for the vehicle’s range, which also increases the cost of the vehicle. However, considering that most people use their vehicles for short-distance travel during daily commutes, the large pack is expensive, inefficient and unnecessary. In a previous paper, we proposed a novel EV powertrain design that incorporated the use of a zinc–air (Zn–air) battery pack as a range-extender, so that a smaller Li-ion pack could be used to save costs. The design and performance aspects of the powertrain were analyzed. In this study, the environmental and economic benefits of the proposed dual-battery powertrain are investigated. The results from the new powertrain were compared with values from a standard EV powertrain with one large Li-ion pack and a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) powertrain. In addition, an air pollution model is developed to determine the total amount of pollution released by the transportation sector on Highway 401 in Ontario, Canada. The model was then used to determine the effects of mass passenger EV rollout on pollution reduction.

SUMMARY ABSTRACTThis volume is the third in the recent series, jointly published by Simon Fraser University and the CA.G., and presents background information and observations on the growing diversity of housing options resulting from seniors expressing a desire to remain in their own homes. Aspects explored in the first part of the book include trend identification in the 55+ housing market, a general socio-demographic overview, discussions of changing migration patterns of seniors within Canada, and various housing alternatives. The second part of the book deals with existing Federal and Provincial Shelter-Related' programs and initiatives, designed to assist seniors in ‘aging in place’, in the community. This book benefits from being read in conjunction with its companion volumes, and the reader is advised to utilize financial data with prudence particularly in the light of current economic changes.Aging in Place: Housing Adaptions and Options for Remaining in the Community, edited by Gloria Gutman and Norman Blackie, is a selection of papers originally presented at two symposia, held in conjunction with the 14th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Gerontology, in Hamilton, Ontario, in the fall of 1985.

This article aims at describing both the studies and results implemented in the framework of the H2020-EU research project “RECOVER: New bio-recycling routes for food packaging and agricultural plastic waste” which deals with the sustainability of innovative biodegradation processes for plastic waste and production, in any environmental, social, economic and safety matters. In such a framework, the POLOG University Centre (Livorno, Italy), reconstructed and analyzed the actual farm plastic waste supply chain, as described in the following sections. The first section is introductive and it has been intended as a primer to the most common different types of plastic materials. The second section has deserved to be a state of the art on the most relevant issues raised in plastic waste management. The third section deals with suitable approaches to address the environmental side effects of rapidly growing plastics production, use, and disposal. Some of these approaches were listed, such as physical treatment of the polymeric components, plastic reduction use and employment as much as mechanical and/or chemical recycling and energy recovery. The fourth section shows how some of the above main issues, which raise coping with plastic reduction and recycling, are suited to be coped with from a logistics perspective. Such logistics belong to the basic needs due to tackling any plastic waste supply chain, i.e. collection and transport to intermediate stock and final delivery to recycling plants and/or brownfields, applying the set of methodologies and techniques drawn from the well-known field of pick-up-and-delivery models. These last tasks become crucial when the main effort has addressed the enforcement of any feasible changes from the use of items made in old high environmental intrusive to their replacement with new agricultural and biodegradable plastics. The paper goes to end presenting shortly of a few suitable solutions that could be proposed and applied to the entire plastic waste supply chain. Finally, some concrete aspects of each phase of the supply chain were discussed and it was highlighted how much each of these can be best used in addressing the problem known throughout the world as the problem of the emergency of old plastic waste.

The depletion of natural resources, the increase in environmental problems and land use - the advancing urbanization brings with it a series of challenges that must be solved by sustainable and innovative approaches. In this context, it is particularly important to make use of existing potential in spatial and environmental planning, in order to guarantee sustainable and socially responsible urban development in the future. In particular, the revitalization of brownfields as Green Innovation Areas offers potential for the sustainable use of former industrial sites and for strengthening bio-economic management. Urban gardening is to be understood as a form for the use of inner-city brownfields as Green Innovation Areas, which can significantly contribute to a sustainable urban development. The urban gardening project Kölner Neuland serves as an example to show how a part of a 44,000 m² industrial brownfield in Cologne's Bayenthal district was revitalized by an urban garden. First, there will be an overview of the basic framework conditions based on the evaluation of existing technical literature. Subsequently, the topic of urban gardening will be treated as a form of Green Innovation Areas. In this context, it is also explained how urban gardening can promote a more sustainable and socially just urban development. In order to understand and evaluate the background of the urban gardening project Kölner Neuland, a detailed analysis of the project is required. For this reason, the historical course, financial aspects, current marketing measures as well as goals and visions of Kölner Neuland are explained after an overall view of the city. On the basis of the gained and evaluated insights of an expert interview, the urban gardening project Kölner Neuland will be examined for its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It was found that the urban garden Kölner Neuland is to be evaluated quite positively however, some aspects show the need for action. As a result of this work, recommendations for the future development of the urban gardening project Kölner Neuland are formulated. A distinction can be made between recommendations for action in the areas of financing, public perception, and control. In addition, the central conditions for a successful revitalization of inner-city brownfields through urban gardening are defined.

Urban intensification seems to be a growing trend, especially in the context of severe land scarcity. Brownfields offer great potential in meeting the increasing demand for housing in major cities worldwide. Redevelopment projects appear to provide immediate solutions to housing shortages that are being experienced due to population pressures in large metropolitan areas. The paper explores the range of factors that property developers need to consider in their decision-making process when assessing the viability of brownfield redevelopments. This research, which employed a comparative case study approach, and examined two brownfield redevelopments in Auckland, focused on the economic, social, and environmental criteria that were utilised in the decision-making process. Document analysis of the two case studies, site observations, and semi-structured interviews with the property developers were the main data collection methods. The results suggested that the economic aspects of a brownfield redevelopment are the most important criteria that developers consider during the feasibility assessment of proposed projects. Projects that offer the potential for quick investment returns for all stakeholders are the preferred choice for developers. Brownfield redevelopments offer significant potential for invigorating local areas through urban intensification which boosts local businesses and encourages community revitalisation. The environmental concerns appear to be the lowest priority and little consideration is given to reducing the environmental impacts or incorporating green building practices in the new developments. A major shift from a purely economic focus toward a comprehensive environmental approach to new developments is needed to ensure the sustainable development of cities.

Most studies of transit-induced gentrification rely on statistical analysis that measures the extent to which gentrification is occurring. To extend and enhance our knowledge of its impact, we conducted sixty-five interviews with residents living along the light rail transit (LRT) corridor in Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada, shortly before the system opened. There was already strong evidence of gentrification, with more than $3 billion (Canadian dollars) worth of investment, largely in condominiums, before a single passenger was carried. In line with contemporary critical conceptualizations of gentrification, our interviews identified new and complex psychological, phenomenological, and experiential aspects of gentrification, in addition to economic- or class-based changes.

Abstract Background Immigrant children exhibit significant variation in their mental health outcomes despite disproportionate exposure to socio-economic adversity compared to their non-immigrant peers. Identifying aspects of neighbourhood and family contexts that are most salient for immigrant children’s mental health can help to inform and target interventions to prevent mental disorder and promote mental well-being among this population. Methods The study analyzed multi-informant data from 943 first- and second-generation immigrant caregiver and child dyads from the Hamilton Youth Study, a representative sample of immigrant and non-immigrant families in Hamilton, Ontario. Multivariate multilevel regression models examined associations between neighbourhood and family characteristics and processes, and parent and child self reports of internalizing and externalizing problems. Results Positive and negative parenting behaviours were significantly associated with internalizing and externalizing problems, with negative parenting demonstrating associations with externalizing problems across both parent and child reports (b = 0.26–1.27). Neighbourhood social disorder and parental trauma exposure were associated with greater internalizing and externalizing problems, and neighbourhood immigrant concentration was associated with fewer externalizing problems for parent reports only. Adding parental distress and parenting behaviour to the models reduced the coefficients for parental trauma exposure by 37.2% for internalizing problems and 32.5% for externalizing problems and rendered the association with neighbourhood social disorder non-significant. Besides the parenting variables, there were no other significant correlates of child-reported internalizing and externalizing problems. Conclusions Results highlight the importance of parenting behaviour and parental experiences of trauma and distress for immigrant children’s mental health. While not unique to immigrants, the primacy of these processes for immigrant children and families warrants particular attention given the heightened risk of exposure to migration-related adverse experiences that threaten parental and family well-being. To prevent or mitigate downstream effects on child mental health, it is imperative to invest in developing and testing trauma-informed and culturally responsive mental health and parenting interventions for immigrant families.

In 2011, Queen’s Engineering began rollout of its "Engineering Design and Practice Sequence (EDPS)". The EDPS is a "professional spine" sequence of courses over four years, meant to address and incorporate into all of its engineering programs the majority of the 12 Graduate attributes required by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB). In year 1, the first EDPS course – Engineering Practice I - introduces students to engineering design and problem solving, but with little formal instruction in the design process and engineering tools. Formal instruction in these aspects comes in second year, in Engineering Design and Practice II (course number APSC200). Finally, in third and fourth year, students undertake significant design projects in their discipline. The second-year version of the professional spine, APSC200, is a one-term course taken by all students. This begins with a 6-week Faculty-wide course module, followed by a 6-week program-specific module. In the first Faculty-wide segment, students learn the design process – problem definition and scope, idea generation and broadening tools, decision-making tools, economic analysis, stakeholders, risk, and safety. Students are exposed to the necessity of formal design techniques via a zero-level "P0" project, and taught these techniques during a more extensive P1 project. The second 6 weeks of APSC200 involves a discipline-specific project (P2) in which the student teams practice the skills introduced in the earlier portion of the course while working through a design project chosen to emphasize the skills of their program. This paper focusses on the development and implementation of the P2 project for students in the Queen’s Engineering Physics program. The goal of this project is to introduce discipline-specific tools and techniques, to excite students in their chosen engineering discipline, and to put into practice the formal design techniques introduced earlier. The P2 project developed for Engineering Physics was entitled a "Compact Environmental Monitoring Station". The premise was that the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) issued an RFP for small, cheap sensor devices that could be provided to every Ontario household, and set up to "crowdsource" environmental data for the MOE. Student teams were required to research and justify which environmental parameters would be appropriate for their monitoring device, decide on parameters to monitor, design the device, and build a working prototype of the device. The device specifications required the use of an Arduino-based platform, interfacing the chosen sensor(s) to a laptop computer using MatLab. Since only some students were familiar with Arduinos and MatLab, two "just in time" workshops were delivered on these topics, using a "flipped lab" approach. For the prototype design and build, students had only 4 weeks and a budget of $100. Arduino boards and some basic sensors were supplied, with students able to source and purchase other components within their budget. The prototype-build provided the students with a valuable hands-on experience and also helped them to fully appreciate unexpected practical design constraints. Given the short timeframe (4-weeks) for the design and build, prototypes were very impressive, with many including solar power or rechargeable batteries, Bluetooth connectivity, 3-D printed packaging, IPhone or Android apps, as well as calibration functions. This paper will summarize the development of this Engineering Physics P2 module, and will report on the first year of offering it in its current format.

ABSTRACT IntroductionThere is little argument that integrated data can provide a valuable resource for improved health system management, planning, and accountability as well as discovery and commercial use, but policies to enable and support integrated data fall short of the potential represented by integrated data. To understand the current level of progress on policy for integrated data, we looked at two successful and two unsuccessful efforts to support the creation and use of integrated data in health systems. Methods/ApproachWe used document and literature analysis to develop descriptions of the Icelandic Health Sector Database Act, the creation of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Ontario (Canada), the care.data initiative in the United Kingdom, and the Health Datapalooza initiative in the US and used an Ideas, Institutions and Actors framework to compare the experience with integrated data policy and politics. Results and discussionOur analysis suggests that institutions around integrated data remain under-developed and largely focused on specific aspects of integrated data policy or use. There are at least two sets of dominant ideas around integrated data – data as a tool for economic development and health system performance and data as a threat to privacy and liberty – that are often diametrically opposed in different jurisdictions. To a great extent, powerful actors remain disengaged from integrated data discussions and leadership engaged in integrated data policy and politics remains isolated from larger policy and political discussions. The medical profession along with civil society groups can mount effective opposition to integrated data initiatives, although potentially for different reasons (accountability and privacy concerns respectively). ConclusionsOur analysis suggests several key issues around successful integrated data policy and politics that support the importance of strong leadership, an incremental approach to institution building that focuses on public benefits, strongly alignment to missions that are congruent with societal values, and stronger attention to effective and rapid implementation of policy. In addition to the cases studied here, the success of smaller sub-national (e.g. state or provincial) efforts suggests that smaller efforts tend to work better although their success may not receive the attention that could support larger efforts to integrate data on the national level. Further work should focus chiefly on the extension of these arguments to non-health sectors to realize the full value of integrated data.

IntroductionTraditionally, suburbs have been conceived as dormitory – in binary opposition to the inner-city (Powell). Supporting this stereotypical view have been gendered binaries between inner and outer city areas; densely populated vs. sprawl; gentrified terraces and apartment culture vs. new estates and first home buyers; zones of (male) production and creativity against (female) sedate, consumer territory. These binaries have for over a decade been thoroughly criticised by urban researchers, who have traced such representations and demonstrated how they are discriminatory and incorrect (see Powell; Mee; Dowling and Mee). And yet, such binaries persist in popular media commentaries and even in academic research (Gibson and Brennan-Horley). In creative city research, inner-city areas have been bestowed with the supposed correct mix of conditions that may lead to successful creative ventures. In part, this discursive positioning has been borne out of prior attempts to mapthe location of creativity in the city. Existing research on the geography of creativity in the city have relied on proxy data forms: mapping data on firms and/or employment in the creative industry sectors (e.g. Gibson, Murphy and Freestone; Markusen et al.; Watson). In doing so, the focus has rested on “winners” – i.e. headquarters of major arts and cultural institutions located in inner city/CBD locations, or by looking for concentrations of registered creative businesses. Such previous studies are useful because they give some indication of the geographical spread and significance of creative activities in cities, and help answer questions about the locational preferences of creative industries, including their gravitational pull towards each other in an agglomerative sense (Scott). However, such studies rely on (usually) one proxy data source to reveal the presence of creative activities, rather than detail how creativity is itself apparent in everyday working lives, or embedded in the spaces, networks and activities of the city. The latter, more qualitative aspects of the lived experience of creativity can only at best be inferred from proxy data such as employment numbers and firm location. In contrast, other researchers have promoted ethnographic methods (Drake; Shorthose; Felton, Collis and Graham) including interviewing, snowballing through contacts and participant observation, as means to get ‘inside’ creative industries and to better understand their embeddedness in place and networks of social relations. Such methods provide rich explanation of the internal dynamics and social logics of creative production, but having stemmed from text-based recorded interviews, they produce data without geographical co-ordinates necessary to be mapped in the manner of employment or business location data – and thus remain comparatively “aspatial”, with no georeferenced component. Furthermore, in such studies relational interactions with material spaces of home, work and city are at best conveyed in text form only – from recorded interviews – and thus cannot be aggregated easily as a mapped representation of city life. This analysis takes a different tack, by mapping responses from interviews, which were then analysed using methods more common in mapping and analysing proxy data sources. By taking a qualitative route toward data collection, this paper illustrates how suburbs can actually play a major role in creative city economies, expanding understandings of what constitutes a creative workplace and examining the resulting spatial distributions according to their function. Darwin and the Creative Tropical City Project This article draws on fieldwork carried out in Darwin, NT a small but important city in Australia’s tropical north. It is the government and administration capital of the sparsely populated Northern Territory and continues to grapple with its colonial past, a challenging climate, small population base and remoteness from southern centres. The city’s development pattern is relatively new, even in Australian terms, only dating back to the late 1970s. After wholesale destruction by Cyclone Tracy, Darwin was rebuilt displaying the hallmarks of post-1970 planning schemes: wide ring-roads and cul-de-sacs define its layout, its urban form dominated by stout single-story suburban dwellings built to withstand cyclonic activity. More recently, Darwin has experienced growth in residential tower block apartments, catering to the city’s high degree of fly-in, fly-out labour market of mining, military and public service workers. These high rise developments have been focussed unsurprisingly on coastal suburbs with ample sections of foreshore. Further adding to its peculiar layout, the geographic centre is occupied by Darwin Airport (a chief military base for Australia’s northern frontier) splitting the northern suburbs from those closer to its small CBD, itself jutting to the south on a peninsula. Lacking then in Darwin are those attributes so often heralded as the harbingers of a city’s creative success – density, walkability, tracts of ex-industrial brownfields sites ripe for reinvention as creative precincts. Darwin is a city dominated by its harsh tropical climate, decentralised and overtly dependant on private car transport. But, if one cares to look beyond the surface, Darwin is also a city punching above its weight on account of the unique possibilities enabled by transnational Asian proximity and its unique role as an outlet for indigenous creative work from across the top of the continent (Luckman, Gibson and Lea). Against this backdrop, Creative Tropical City: Mapping Darwin’s Creative Industries (CTC), a federally funded ARC project from 2006 to 2009, was envisaged to provide the evidential base needed to posit future directions for Darwin’s creative industries. City and Territory leaders had by 2004 become enchanted by the idea of ‘the creative city’ (Landry) – but it is questionable how well these policy discourses travel when applied to disparate examples such as Darwin (Luckman, Gibson and Lea). To provide an empirical grounding to creative city ideas and to ensure against policy fetishism the project was developed to map the nature, extent and change over time of Darwin’s creative industries and imagine alternate futures for the city based on a critical appraisal of the applicability of national and international creative industry policy frameworks to this remote, tropical location (Lea et al.). Toward a Typology of Darwin’s Creative Workplaces This article takes one data set gathered during the course of the CTC project, based around a participatory mapping exercise, where interviewees responded to questions about where creative industry activities took place in Darwin by drawing on paper maps. Known as mental maps, these were used to gather individual representations of place (Tuan), but in order to extend their applicability for spatial querying, responses were transferred to a Geographic Information System (GIS) for storage, collation and analysis (Matei et al.). During semi-structured interviews with 98 Darwin-based creative industry practitioners, participants were provided with a base map of Darwin displaying Statistical Local Area (SLA) boundaries and roads for mark up in response to specific questions about where creative activities occurred (for more in depth discussion of this method and its varied outputs, refer to Brennan-Horley and Gibson). The analysis discussed here only examines answers to one question: “Where do you work?” This question elicited a total of 473 work locations from 98 respondents – a fourfold increase over statistics gleaned from employment measures alone (Brennan-Horley). Such an increase resulted from participants identifying their everyday work practices which, by necessity, took place across multiple locations. When transferring the spatial location of workplaces into the GIS, each site was coded depending on whether it was cited by the interviewee as their “major” or primary place of work, or if the place being discussed played a secondary or “minor” role in their creative practice. For example, an artist’s studio was categorised as major, but other minor sites also featured in their mental maps, for example, galleries, supply locations and teaching sites. Each worksite was then assigned to one of four categories: Front, Back, Networking and Supply (Table 1). In a similar fashion to McCannell’s work on the “front and back regions” of tourist towns (597), the creative industries, predicated on the production and exchange of texts, objects and ideas also display front spaces of sorts – sites that facilitate interactions between practitioner and audiences, spaces for performance and consumption. Operating behind these front spaces, are sites where creative endeavours take place – perhaps not as so readily seen or engaged with by wider publics. For example, a rehearsal room, artist’s studio or a theatre company’s office may not be key sites of interaction between creator and audience but remain nonetheless important sites of creative work. However, a binary of Front versus Back could not encapsulate the variety of other everyday, prosaic work sites evident in the data. Participants indicated on their maps visits to the post office to send artworks, going to Bunnings to buy paint (and inadvertently networking with others), through to more fleeting spaces such as artist materials fossicked from parklands to photoshoot locations. These supply sites (each themselves positioned along a continuum of “creative” to “mundane”) were typified as supply locations: sites that act as places to gather inputs into the creative process. Finally, sites where meetings and networking took place (more often than not, these were indicated by participants as occurring away from their major work place) were assigned under a heading of networking spaces. Table 1: A typology of creative workplaces Space Definition Coded examples Front A space for consumption/exchange of creative goods, outputs or expertise. Performance space, Market, Gallery, Client Location, Shopfront, Cinema, Exhibition space, Museum, Festival space Back A site of production, practice or business management Office, Studio, Rehearsal Space, Teaching Space, Factory, Recording Studio Networking A space to meet clients or others involved in creative industries Meeting places Supply Spaces where supplies for creative work are sourced Supplier, Photoshoot Location, Story Location, Shoot Location, Storage Coding data into discrete units and formulating a typology is a reductive process, thus a number of caveats apply to this analysis. First there were numerous cases where worksites fell across multiple categories. This was particularly the case with practitioners from the music and performing arts sector whose works are created and consumed at the same location, or a clothing designer whose studio is also their shopfront. To avoid double counting, these cases were assigned to one category only, usually split in favour of the site’s main function (i.e. performance sites to Front spaces). During interviews, participants were asked to locate parts of Darwin they went to for work, rather than detail the exact role or name for each of those spaces. While most participants were forthcoming and descriptive in their responses, in two percent of cases (n=11) the role of that particular space was undefined. These spaces were placed into the “back” category. Additionally, the data was coded to refer to individual location instances aggregated to the SLA level, and does not take into account the role of specific facilities within suburbs, even though certain spaces were referred to regularly in the transcripts. It was often the case that a front space for one creative industry practitioner was a key production site for another, or operated simultaneously as a networking site for both. Future disaggregated analyses will tease out the important roles that individual venues play in Darwin’s creative economy, but are beyond this article’s scope. Finally, this analysis is only a snapshot in time, and captures some of the ephemeral and seasonal aspects of creative workplaces in Darwin that occurred around the time of interviewing. To illustrate, there are instances of photographers indicating photo shoot locations, sites that may only be used once, or may be returned to on multiple occasions. As such, if this exercise were to be carried out at another time, a different geography may result. Results A cross-tabulation of the workplace typology against major and minor locations is given in Table 2. Only 20 per cent of worksites were designated as major worksites with the remaining 80 per cent falling into the minor category. There was a noticeable split between Back and Front spaces and their Major/Minor designation. 77 per cent of back spaces were major locations, while the majority of Front spaces (92 per cent) fell into the minor category. The four most frequently occurring Minor Front spaces – client location, performance space, markets and gallery – collectively comprise one third of all workplaces for participants, pointing to their important role as interfacing spaces between creative output produced or worked on elsewhere, and wider publics/audiences. Understandably, all supply sites and networking places were categorised as minor, with each making up approximately 20 per cent of all workplaces. Table 2: creative workplaces cross tabulated against primary and secondary workplaces and divided by creative workplace typology. Major Minor Grand Total Back Office 44 1 45 Studio 22 - 22 Rehearsal Space 7 11 18 Undefined - 11 11 Teaching Space 3 1 4 Factory 1 - 1 Recording Studio 1 - 1 Leanyer Swamp 1 - 1 Back space total 79 24 103 Front Client Location - 70 70 Performance Space 2 67 69 Market 1 11 12 Gallery 3 8 11 Site - 8 8 Shopfront 1 3 4 Exhibition Space - 3 3 Cinema 2 1 3 Museum 1 1 2 Shop/Studio 1 - 1 Gallery and Office 1 - 1 NightClub 1 - 1 Festival space - 1 1 Library 1 - 1 Front Space total 14 173 187 Networking Meeting Place - 94 94 Networking space total - 94 94 Supply Supplier - 52 52 Photoshoot Location - 14 14 Story Location - 9 9 Shoot Location - 7 7 Storage - 4 4 Bank - 1 1 Printer - 1 1 Supply Space total - 88 88 Grand Total 93 379 472 The maps in Figures 1 through 4 analyse the results spatially, with individual SLA scores provided in Table 3. The maps use location quotients, representing the diversion of each SLA from the city-wide average. Values below one represent a less than average result, values greater than one reflecting higher results. The City-Inner SLA maintains the highest overall percentage of Darwin’s creative worksites (35 per cent of the total) across three categories, Front, Back and especially Networking sites (60 per cent). The concentration of key arts institutions, performance spaces and CBD office space is the primary reason for this finding. Additionally, the volume of hospitality venues in the CBD made it an amenable place to conduct meetings away from major back spaces. Figure 1: Back spaces by Statistical Local Areas Figure 2: Front spaces by Statistical Local Areas Figure 3: Networking sites, by Statistical Local Areas Figure 4: Supply sites by Statistical Local Areas However this should not deter from the fact that the majority of all worksites (65 per cent) indicated by participants actually reside in suburban locations. Numerically, the vast majority (70 per cent) of Darwin’s Front spaces are peppered across the suburbs, with agglomerations occurring in The Gardens, Fannie Bay, Nightcliff and Parap. The Gardens is the location for Darwin’s biggest weekly market (Mindl Beach night market), and a performance space for festivals and events during the city’s long dry season. Mirroring more the cultures of its neighbouring SE Asian counterparts, Darwin sustains a vibrant market culture unlike that of any other Australian capital city. As the top end region is monsoonal, six months of the year is guaranteed to be virtually rain free, allowing for outdoor activities such as markets and festivals to flourish. Markets in Darwin have a distinctly suburban geography with each of the three top suburban SLAs (as measured by Front spaces) hosting a regular market, each acting as temporary sites of networking and encounter for creative producers and audiences. Importantly, over half of the city’s production sites (Back spaces) were dispersed across the suburbs in two visible arcs, one extending from the city taking in Fannie Bay and across to Winnellie via Parap, and through the northern coastal SLAs from Coconut Grove to Brinkin (Figure 1). Interestingly, 85 per cent of all supply points were also in suburban locations. Figure 4 maps this suburban specialisation, with the light industrial suburb of Winnellie being the primary location for Darwin’s creative practitioners to source supplies. Table 3: Top ten suburbs by workplace mentions, tabulated by workplace type* SLA name Front Back Networking Supply Workplace total Inner City/CBD City - Inner 56 (29.9%) 35 (36%) 57 (60.6%) 13 (14.8%) 162 (34.3%) Inner City Total 56 (29.9%) 35 (36%) 57 (60.6%) 13 (14.8%) 162 (34.3%) Top 10 suburban The Gardens 30 (16%) 3 (2.9%) 6 (6.4%) 5 (5.7%) 44 (9.3%) Winnellie 3 (1.6%) 7 (6.8%) 1 (1.1%) 24 (27.3%) 35 (7.4%) Parap 14 (7.5%) 4 (3.9%) 6 (6.4%) 9 (10.2%) 33 (7%) Fannie Bay 17 (9.1%) 5 (4.9%) 4 (4.3%) 2 (2.3%) 28 (5.9%) Nightcliff 14 (7.5%) 7 (6.8%) 2 (2.1%) 4 (4.5%) 27 (5.7%) Stuart Park 4 (2.1%) 8 (7.8%) 4 (4.3%) 4 (4.5%) 20 (4.2%) Brinkin 1 (0.5%) 8 (7.8%) 9 (9.6%) 2 (2.3%) 20 (4.2%) Larrakeyah 5 (2.7%) 5 (4.9%) 1 (1.1%) 3 (3.4%) 14 (3%) City - Remainder 5 (2.7%) 2 (1.9%) 0 (0%) 6 (6.8%) 13 (2.8%) Coconut Grove 3 (1.6%) 4 (3.9%) 1 (1.1%) 4 (4.5%) 12 (2.5%) Rapid Creek 3 (1.6%) 6 (5.8%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 9 (1.9%) Suburban Total** 131 (70.1%) 67 (65%) 37 (39.4%) 75 (85%) 310 (65.7%) City-Wide Total 187 103 94 88 472 *All percentages calculated from city- wide total **Suburban total row includes all 27 suburbs, not just top tens Discussion There are two key points to take from this analysis. First, the results show the usefulness of combining in-depth qualitative research with GIS mapping methods. Interviewing creative workers about where activities in their working days (or nights) take place, rather than defaulting to incomplete industry statistics can reveal a more comprehensive view of where creative work manifests in the city. Second, the role that multiple, decentred and often suburban facilities played as sites of supply, production and consumption in Darwin’s creative economy leads theories about the spatiality of creativity in the city in new directions. These results clearly show that the cultural binaries that theorists have assumed shape perceptions of the city and its suburbs do not appear in this instance to be infusing the everyday nature of creative work in the city. What was revealed by this data is that creative work in the city creates a variegated city produced through practitioners’ ordinary daily activities. Creative workers are not necessarily resisting or reinventing ideas of what the suburbs mean, they are getting on with creative work in ways that connect suburbs and the city centre in complex – and yet sometimes quite prosaic – ways. This is not to say that the suburbs do not present challenges for the effective conduct of creative work in Darwin – transport availability and lack of facilities were consistently cited problems by practitioners – but instead what is argued here is that ways of understanding the suburbs (in popular discourse, and in response in critical cultural theory) that emanate from Sydney or Los Angeles do not provide a universal conceptual framework for a city like Darwin. By not presuming that there is a meta-discourse of suburbs and city centres that everyone in every city is bound to, this analysis captured a different geography. In conclusion, the case of Darwin displayed decentred and dispersed sites of creativity as the norm rather than the exception. 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