Urban Form, Everyday Life, and Ideology: Support for Privatization in Three Toronto Neighbourhoods

R Alan Walks
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R Alan Walks: Department of Geography and Program in Planning, University of Toronto, 100 St George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada

Environment and Planning A, 2008, vol. 40, issue 2, 258-282

Abstract: One of the trends marking neoliberalism and the attack on the welfare state from the right is the move toward the privatization of public services. Recent research in both the United States and Canada suggests that residents of the suburbs of large urban regions are more likely to vote for political parties on the right and to support neoliberal policies such as privatization, while the opposite is true for inner-city dwellers. However, the reasons why such a spatial division should occur have received little academic attention. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the relationship between residential location, spatial factors, and attitudes toward privatization, using survey data collected in the Toronto region. Results suggest that the way urban space influences residents' daily routines and personal experiences may then mediate their perception of the uses of public services and the efficacy of government spending, factors which are found to affect spatial disparities in support of and/or in opposition to privatization. Thus, there is some evidence that urban spatial form is important for understanding the geographic unevenness of support for neoliberalism, and thus ultimately for the production of ideology.

Date: 2008
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:40:y:2008:i:2:p:258-282

DOI: 10.1068/a3948

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