Martin Horak

Western University | UWO · Department of Political Science

Our knowledge of the institutional features of local government in Canadian cities is surprisingly fragmentary. The academic literature has long identified dominant tendencies in Canadian local institutions, but systematic empirical data has been missing. In this article, we address this gap in knowledge in two ways. We introduce the Canadian Munic...

During a community-wide crisis, practical help from others in the community can allow individuals to manage a variety of extraordinary household needs. In this article, we synthesize insights from research on disaster resilience, social support, social networks, and social exchange into a theoretical model of factors that shape individual access to...

Is the Right to the City (RTTC) still a useful framework for a transformative urban politics? Given recent scholarly criticism of its real-world applications and appropriations, in this paper, we argue that the transformative promise in the RTTC lies beyond its role as a framework for oppositional struggle, and in its normative ends. Building upon...

Canadian cities have seen a boom in the construction of rapid transit infrastructure in recent years, fueled by the rise of financial support for transit from the federal government and the provinces. However, the extent to which individual cities have been able to productively harness this new financial support varies greatly. This study compares...

This chapter presents an historical overview of public infrastructure spending in the US, with a particular emphasis on surface transportation infrastructure (highways, roads, transit, and rail). What our investigation reveals is a system shaped by 60 years of extensive and systematic federal involvement, which stands in stark contrast to the Canad...

Like many other globalizing cities, Toronto faces environmental and social sustainability challenges that stem from rapid economic, demographic and social transformation. Our main purpose in this chapter is to examine how the metropolitan governance system has responded to these challenges. In the second half of the 20th century Toronto was interna...

For decades, North American cities racked by deindustrialization and population loss have followed one primary path in their attempts at revitalization: a focus on economic growth in downtown and business areas. Neighborhoods, meanwhile, have often been left severely underserved. There are, however, signs of change. This collection of studies by a...

Deteriorating urban neighbourhoods often seem to defy government intervention efforts. Neighbourhood distress rarely tops local political agendas, and local governments find it difficult to muster the resources required to significantly improve distressed neighbourhoods. The few resources that exist are often spread thinly across large areas, makin...

This paper examines governance reform in the Toronto area through the lens of literature on state rescaling. Over the past 20 years, Toronto has been the site of numerous initiatives to shift the spatial contours of urban governance. Viewing these as varied manifestations of the practice of state rescaling allows for a broad analysis of empirical p...

Policies forged by all levels of government affect the lives of urban residents. Contributors to this volume explore how intergovernmental relations shape urban policies and how various social forces are involved in - or excluded from - the policy process. Focusing on diverse policy fields including emergency planning, image-building, immigrant set...

This article analyses the relevance of the concepts of neighborhoods and civic practice in relation to urban politics. It examines how the democratic potential of neighborhoods and the realities of sociospatial inequality can be reconciled, and highlights the interplay between policy, agency, and inequality at the neighborhood level. The article al...

When faced with the rapid and disorienting transition from communism to democracy, many eastern European leaders sought simple, immediately rewarding answers to complex policy problems. Undoubtedly, this hurried approach had a significant impact on the quality of democratic government in formerly communist countries. Through an analysis of urban po...

In this article I examine the dynamics and results of environmental policy reform in the Czech Republic between 1989 and 1998. The first section analyses the changing nature of the driving forces behind environmental policy reform in the post-communist Czech Republic. In the late 1980s the Czech lands (then part of the former Czechoslovakia) had so...

The indigenous peoples of the Brazilian Amazon are often viewed as the inevitable losers in the ongoing struggle over the fate of the region's natural resources. This article examines a recent case of conflict over resource use between the Gorotire Kayapo and external interests seeking to develop gold, timber, and hydroelectric resources on traditi...

Abstract will be provided by author.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the cities that are home to most people in North America and Western Europe are increasingly important sites for political activity. Local governments in cities deal with many of the core issues that affect our lives, ranging from economic development and housing to public transit and urban sprawl. This...

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2002. Includes bibliographical references.