GEO

Question 1

Why do we need geography now? What is it’s goal? Example?

Answer 1

We need geography now to ground and explain the complexities of everyday life, uniquely with interdisciplinary approaches.

Geography works in service of a better world by organizing society, people, environment, politics, etc, in the aim of solving everyday problems

Ex. Raffi’s Research: Heat Domes increasing negative effect on livability & affordability of Vancouver’s housing crisis by eviction of tenants to install AC, increasing prices. To solve this problem, AC was proposed to be an essential utility, such as water, electricity, etc.

Question 2

What is Critical Geographical Approach? Example?

Answer 2

Describing the (1) proximate drivers and identifying their multiple (2)
structural drivers through (3) research and the careful consideration
of how the claim might (4) shape the bounds of the problem and its
possible solutions.

Question 3

What are proximate causes? Example?

Answer 3

The cause of the everyday challenge; the seemingly obvious, direct, close.

The bus is late; proximate causes could be traffic, construction, weather, etc.

Caribou at risk of extinction due to forestry, oil, gas mining developments that cause habitat degradation.

Question 4

What are structural causes? Example?

Answer 4

Root causes driving or contributing to the challenge; the historical, political, geographical causes that have become assumed normal everyday happenings.

Government still approves developments by deriving legitimacy from economic growth and benefits of growth. Overprediction and uneven distribution of economical benefits for Indigenous communities.

Question 5

What are evidence gathered by research that support structural causes?

Answer 5

Historical examples (ex. Government has passed numerous projects, subsidies and tax breaks to development projects), geographical analysis (ex. melting of glaciers), economic institutions/actions (ex. REIT, car lobbying)

Question 6

What are implications for social and political change after analyzing causes?

Answer 6

The ways in which we can have agency over our everyday life and the challenges we face.

Ex. Reporting misconceptions of industrial development through news outlets, transferring SROs to public hands for higher standards of living, etc.

Question 7

What is Henry Lefebvre’s perspective of the everyday life? Example?

Answer 7

The everyday is not just a familiar experience, but a paradox or a contradiction, something that is known and unknown, the everyday is a problem of research. Looking closely at the everyday can reveal wider social and political patterns and dynamics.

A women buying a bag of sugar speaks to the economical state of her country, her habits, culture, class, income level, the political state, etc.

Question 8

Settler Colonialism

Answer 8

A structure that did not leave or succeed Indigenous assimilation, used to occupy Indigenous lands and replicate Euro-Canadian political and economic institutions, facing continuous resistance.

Ex. Musqueam history, Pacific Spirit Park, Resource extraction

Question 9

Indigenous Self-Determination & Agency

Answer 9

Indigenous Self-Determination: ability of Indigenous nations to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

Ex. Indigenous nations are not homogenous, they have diverse opinions, political positions & diverse experiences with colonial and capitalist structures. Opposing or participating in colonial activities, the Indigenous are trying to achieve self-determination with tremendous structural constraints.

Agency: capacity to act, to shape structures & conditions under conditions not of our own choosing

Question 10

Key Structural Forces with Housing

Answer 10

Land

1. Enclosure+Neoliberal Capitalism

Property

2. Commodification: hypercommodification, deregulation, globalization

Real Estate

3. Financialization: decoupling of residential needs, Delta Rent, Gentrification-Rent Gap

Asset

Question 11

Neoliberal Capitalism

Answer 11

Instead of providing essential social and public services (healthcare, education, clothing, food, etc.) they are placed into the hand of private markets

Question 12

Enclosure

Answer 12

The process of policy of fencing in waste or common land so as it to make it private property, pursued in Britain 18th-early 19th centuries.

Question 13

Commodification & Hypercommodification + Implications

Answer 13

Commodification: general process by which the economic value of a thing dominates its other uses. Products are only commodities because they have a dual nature, exchange value & use value

Hyper Commodification: all material + legal structures of housing turned into commodities: land, labour, etc

Implications: housing is no longer a right, social/cultural/emotional values ignored, living space becomes distributed based on ability to pay and produce profit, but ability to pay is unequal

Question 14

3 Structures Speeding Up Commodification

Answer 14

1. Deregulation: weakening or abolishing of regulations, customs & rules governing residential property making real estate a more liquid commodity, but still deeply involved.
2. Financialization: increasing power and prominence of actors and firms that engage in profit accumulation through the servicing and exchanging of money and financial instruments. Don’t ever see the building, causing serious consequences for those who live there
3. Globalization: foreigner involvement, symptomatic decoupling of housing from residential needs & people, attracting to global investor’s needs & people

Question 15

Use Value vs Exchange Value

Answer 15

Use Value: utility/use to satisfy a human need related to physical material properties, diverse & not always what producer intends them to be

Exchange Value (price that one pays for commodity): ratio/value at which a commodity can be exchanged for other commodities on a market, expressed through money

Question 16

Financialization + Implications

Answer 16

Financialization: increasing power & prominence of actors & firms that engage in profit accumulation through the servicing & exchanging of money & financial instruments = goods become solely for profit as economic framework is placed around it

Impacts: decoupling of housing-disembodiment from local experience, unaffordable, studentification, ren-eviction, residential alienation: empty units = empty communities, closing down schools, shops, restaurants

Question 17

REITs & PBSA

Answer 17

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs): large companies that own large portfolios of income-producing stocks of real estate, not with the goal first and foremost to provide housing, but instead provide income for their shareholders. Instead of investing in an individual property, risk is spread out over diverse assets and geography areas, eliminating the need for investors to have local knowledge and expertise

Purpose Built Student Accommodations (PBSAs): expensive out of reach for everyone, extra amenities escalating rent, high investment return, rapidly changing neighborhoods through studentification; neighborhood transforms to cater the students & political representation turns over for the young, leaving all others behind (elderly, families, etc.)

Question 18

Historicize Vancouver’s Central Contradiction

Answer 18

Vancouver is the most expensive yet livable city.

1. 1800s Land Speculation: treating land meant for economic growth (farming) as assets to let appreciate and to sell at a later time to make profit
   - CPR made this a very profitable way of using land, a piece of land worth$200 - $20,000 in less than 10 years as it was next to a CPR station
2. 1986 World Expo: large urban, economic and population boom generating large displacement (23 million descended onto city), lack of livability and extreme inequality
   - Olaf Sohan, the face of victims of Vancouver’s urban development, died 2 weeks after been evicted from his 10x10 foot room for the Expo, illustrating the value of profit over competing the social value of everyday life varying from individual to individual
3. 2010 Winter Olympics: boom in luxury condos not meeting the needs or affordability

Question 19

Preconditions of Commodification

Answer 19

1. Feudal Relations: housing, land, and labor were intimately entwined, was not a source of profit
2. The Commons: dissolution of feudal relations left common uses of land
   - Primitive Accumulation: peasants suddenly/forcibly torn from their mode of subsistence, hurled onto labor market as free unprotected & rightless proletarians
3. Enclosure=early development of capitalism: common land become private
   - Under the justification that it was not efficiently used
   - Alienated from the land, people had to find work to support themselves and families which meant moving to rapidly growing cities requiring housing
   - Housing was detached from other relations & became its own market

Question 20

2 Views on Housing

Answer 20

1. Landlord View: landlords are not responsible for solving large public issues & are not trying to provide public good but focusing on their own investments, interests, obligations, profit, etc.
   - Vacant unit’s rent is open to market price, while sitting tenent’s rent goes up by inflation, so they are pressured by increased fees for amenities to leave
   - Repairing and upgrading affordable old units is necessary, however hikes up ren harming the lowest income families most
2. Tenant’s View: there has never been a crisis, only an unchanged status quo of housing bringing about public issues created by landlords. It’s not that the tenants don’t have enough money to pay rent, the landlords are charging too much rent earning more wealth than fair
   - Vacant asset growing in value over time → more empty units yet higher rent
   - Exploitation: group/class appropriating an unfair share of the fruits of the labor of another class
   - Solution: political powers must decide how housing is valued, is it a commodity or a right? Organizing, resisting & confronting

Question 21

2 Dynamics of Vancouver

Answer 21

1. Debtscape: debt fuels housing market, large residential mortgages
2. Hedgecity: shelter & investment

Combination: Investor Occupied Parcel/Laneway Housing - Landlords take out a big mortgage and rent out surrounding units to payback mortgage

Question 22

Multiple Levels of Government Involvement with Crisis

Answer 22

• Local level solutions were curtailed by upper government
  Vacancy Control: rates must stay the same as past tenant
• Provincial/Federal: complete withdrawal of their leader like power, resulting in no funding to public housing
• Transnational players enter Vancouver to invest in housing as a commodity

Question 23

Technical Solutions vs Political Solutions

Answer 23

Technical (band aid) Solutions:
- Supply-Side Argument: building more housing to fulfill the demand and lower prices does not solve the issue as the wealthy buy them up as assets, leaving them vacant, the price grows either way due to the land’s increasing value

Political Solution:
- Organizing the tenant class to resist & strike: similar to Marxism’s observations, where labor unions formed by the proletarians to resist & end the exploitation of the bourgeoisie who take an unfair share of the profit
- De-financialization of housing market, reducing the neoliberalism, more government regulation, social/non-profit housing

Question 24

Vancouver Broadway Plan

Answer 24

Controversial 30 year transit-oriented development project along Broadway/Skytrain from Arbutus to Clark Street, between 1-16th avenue, 500 blocks.

Question 25

Support for Broadway Plan

Answer 25

1. Addresses housing crisis:
   - Increases housing supply
   - No luxury condos
2. 2nd downtown vibrant exciting neighborhood in country
3. Strongest renter protections in North America
4. Focusing on commercial & transit hubs, no displacement

Question 26

Opposition for Broadway Plan

Answer 26

1. Continues housing crisis:
   - Raises land values & rent
   - No real data on how much people are actually paying
   - Displaces long-time renters
   Pressures landlords to evict to raise rent
2. Changes character of area
3. Renter protections have no enforcement body behind them, lip service
4. It’s an election year, plan might land on new mayor so promises won’t be met

Question 27

Rent-Gap Theory

Answer 27

Neil Smith 1970s explains the structural forces of gentrification - redevelopment→higher valuation, a root cause of displacement

Rent Gaps: incentive/evict+redevelopment profitability measures economic opportunity/incentive for developers = potential value - actual value, VTU: median market rent - median surveyed rent

Question 28

Delta Rent

Answer 28

Delta Rents: incentive/eviction profitability without development, gap between current return & redevelopment return = max current rent(newer tenant pay) - minimum current rent(old tenant)

Question 29

Incentives Set Up Against Tenants + Implications

Answer 29

Rent Gap & Delta Rent - “renters put at risk of displacement, as any rent that is below the median market rate is considered unrealized profit for landlords and real estate investors.”

Question 30

VTU 3 Principles & 1 Policy

Answer 30

1. A city is its people
2. Eviction shouldn’t be profitable
3. Tenants are stakeholders,

Policy: Rental Transparency
- Public facing landlord registry, required list of historical rents on units, to identify unfair & abusive practices by landlords, more data to analyze & enforcement on rent control & tenant protection.
- Opposition would find it more tedious for BP, violation of privacy, more constraints on landlords.

Structural Drivers it Hinders:
- Commodification-A record of the exchange value, to monitor if it has dominated its use value
- Financialization-power of big actors reduced as held accountable by the public. Rent gap + Delta rent reduces.
- Deregulation: more regulation, significantly less liquid asset
- Globalization: international investment can be captured & regulated quicker
- Neoliberalism: more power placed into the hands of the public with public registry, less private

Question 31

Vacancy Control + Why BCGEU + Opposition

Answer 31

Vacancy Control: rent is tied to unit, not tenant, prevents further harm from changing market forces as incentives to evict are eliminated & rent control can effectively limit the actual rent tenants are paying.

Endorsed by largest labor union (BCGEU) as even if wages are raised successfully by the union it is all lost if housing raises even higher as wages can no longer cover their cost of living

Stops all construction, purpose built homes, housing supply or investments

Question 32

BCGEU Report 4 Main Arguments & 7 Solutions

Answer 32

Report Argues
1. No consensus exists about rent control among economists
2. Long standing problems with data plague all rent control research
3. Econometric approaches are based on inappropriate methods
4. No evidence that unregulated markets are the most efficient providers of housing

Report Solutions
1. Approach rent control as evidence-based social policy, no targeted policies
2. Enact interventions directed against institutional investors
3. Nest regulatory approaches alongside complementary policies
4. Eliminate cost-pass through and above-guideline provisions
5. Develop multi jurisdictional legislation and enforcement
mechanisms
6. Focus policy development on those most impacted and with the
least power
7. Invest deeply in the non-market supply of housing

Question 33

Madden & Marcus + Tranjan + Gurstein & Yan Main Thesis

Answer 33

Madden & Marcus: system of commodification, financialization currently running the market does not serve people who need housing, should be regulated to ensure housing is a right - commo., financialization REIT, globalization

Tranjan: current housing transfers the wealth from the poor to the rich, thus social classes must be defined & organizing political power must occur - tenant POV, social class, political power

Gurnstein: historicizing Vancouver’s housing market, there is no crisis but continual income inequality shown through housing inequality

Question 34

Student Housing Crisis Proximate Causes

Answer 34

Worsening low-vacancy/supply, high cost/unaffordable, commutable, good quality, credible & stable housing in Can., risking tuition/food, due to rising stud. #, impacting studs choices on post-secondary edu

1. More studs in Uni as labor markets require higher edu, diversification, accessibility
2. More international stud. accepted & attracted to make up for loss revenue from gov funding cuts & framed as scapegoats, invisible in housing data & they have no family to bunk with
3. Pre-pandemic to early pandemic virtual downsized & now current aftermath of pandemic in-person shift market overwhelmed, slowly returning to normalcy
4. Stud. housing most stable market during recent times of econ.uncertainty increasing the process of Finan. leading to a worsening housing crisis for studs.

Question 35

Building More Not an Option?

Answer 35

Who (government, non-profit-initial funding difficult, university-lack of land+funding, private sector-profit oriented, private+uni-not eager, mom&pop-exploitative relationships) builds (financing, construction) what (types of units, new, hotel) where (off or on campus, studs effect on communities)

Wealthy buy them up as assets, leaving them vacant, the price grows either way due to the land’s increasing value. Does not address root players, benefactors & power holders