Continued Community: Addressing the 'New' Regent Park Stigma

Addressing the Urban Problem

The general topic of our project began as ‘Regent Park representations’. As a broad starting point, we wanted to address the problems of the stigmatization of the neighbourhood. For decades, Regent Park’s image has been characterized by a stigma from outsiders who view the neighbourhood as a place of danger, social and economic distress, criminal activity, and social isolation (Brail & Kumar, 2017). This stigmatization and constructed image from outsiders – one that differs greatly from the lived experiences of residents – vilified the neighbourhood over time and thereby justified the socially mixed redevelopment (August, 2014).

The social mix model for public housing redevelopment assumes that there will be improved socioeconomic outcomes for low-income residents through the interaction between people of different economic statuses, and therefore information and resource sharing will come as a result and increase the social capital of low-income residents (Joseph et al, 2007). Also, Dunn (2012) states that the efforts of socially mixed public housing redevelopment attempt to work as a de-stigmatization strategy to eradicate the negative connotations associated with the housing and neighbourhood (p. 89).

Despite the model in theory, in practice it has shown not to provide these benefits. Condo units and subsidized-housing units occupy separate buildings, but there are supposedly no obvious physical traits defining the difference between buildings of different tenures (Rowe & Dunn, 2015, p. 1262). TCH claims that they have “broken down the wall between people who live in [subsidized housing] and people who live in market areas” (Starr, 2016). However, this is not completely true. In August’s work (2014), one interviewee references the differences in brick color between market rate units versus subsidized housing units. Additionally, several stories from Sumeya and Fazra, two Diva Girls, show otherwise. They highlight how you can see expensive new cars in certain areas and there is an influx of new white residents whom they do not usually interact with. Sumeya and Fazra’s stories, alongside academics such as Dunn (2012), show that social interaction or “mixing” does not necessary occur at the frequency that the planning model assumes. Ultimately, although social mixing may work to encourage capital accumulation and investment into the neighbourhood by condo owners and retailers, the premise of this planning model is problematic, as well as the model in practice has proven to not match up with its perceived benefits on paper.

Today, mid-redevelopment, we have found that there is this new stigma that is ever-growing and being placed on the neighbourhood. This is the belief that the revitalization has brought about a new feeling of connection between the neighbourhood and the city, that the revitalization has “restored community connections” (Starr, 2016; Hume, 2014; Ali, 2016; Artuso, 2017).

The park and aquatic centre by Sumeya

Exterior of Daniels Spectrum by Sumeya

Photograph from our neighbourhood tour by Sumeya

The new field by Michelle

Interior of Daniels Spectrum by Michelle

Format

For this project we have chosen the formats of photography and videography. First, we chose photography because it was something we were both comfortable with and had the needed technical skills. Also, Sumeya and Fazra both showed interest in this format. We aimed to use our photographs to contrast several stigmatizing quotes from news articles. We will also be putting quotes stated by Sumeya and Fazra to explain our photographs and contrast the media articles. Later, we added the video to the project to compliment our work and provide more in-depth answers to some questions we had.

With our media project, we recognized that in our creation and display, it is imperative to avoid misconceptions, something that has happened before when collaborating with youth. Danielle Laughlin and Laura Johnson’s work (2011) focuses on the interpretation of public spaces in the eyes of Regent Park youth. Laughlin and Johnson gave each youth a 27-exposure disposable camera to take pictures (2011, p. 443-4). Their aim was to make youth voices and perceptions of public space heard because they are usually not heard in the planning process. Adults usually look at a young person’s thoughts as “lack[ing] responsibility, experience, and interest” (Laughlin & Johnson, 2011, p. 441). However, instead of giving the youth involved in the study a louder voice, Laughlin and Johnson did the opposite and attempted to connect the photographs by Regent Park youth to their own arguments. For example, the authors explained how the revitalization led to temporary and permanent relocation. Further, the relocations caused degradation of the community, which, in turn, can make some individuals feel like they do not belong to Regent Park anymore (Laughlin & Johnson, 2011, p. 450). Although this is a real and relevant issue, their argument is undermined by the photograph that they use as evidence, specifically, Figure 10 in their paper. This photograph was taken by a 14-year-old girl and shows her skipping rope with friends (Laughlin & Johnson, 2011, p. 451). There was no further explanation telling the reason as to why the girl took the photograph. In this sense, Laughlin and Johnson used the photographs to fit into their argument without actually knowing if the young girl had the same reasoning as them when she took took that photograph. This could create distorted truths that do not reflect reality.

Given Laughlin and Johnson’s work, we tried as much as possible to follow along with what Sumeya and Fazra were showing and telling us before actually shaping our final format and argument. Sumeya expressed that she wanted to show the good parts about Regent Park, and not focus on the negative. We took this advice to, first, aid in our project to make it cohesive and, second, create something both Sumeya and Fazra wanted to contribute to.

The park by Fazra

Old versus new buildings by Fazra

St David Street by Fazra

260 Sumach by Shayla

At the park at sunset by Shayla

Our Goal

As stated earlier, the goal of our project is to combat this 'new’ stigma of Regent Park, which believes that the mixed income revitalization of the neighbourhood has created a newfound sense of community. In the mainstream media, there are claims of Regent Park previously lacking a sense of community, being dangerous, and socially isolated (Hume, 2014; Ali, 2016). Articles tend to highlight that Regent Park needs the revitalization in order to be more vibrant and a connected neighbourhood (Starr, 2016). These sources make generalizations and state that the revitalization has given the neighbourhood an opportunity to finally have a sense of community. In reality, we know from the Divas Girls and our own time spent in the neighbourhood that this is false. Long-time residents, like Sumeya and Fazra, who have seen the changing neighbourhood first hand, treasured their diverse community before the revitalization. Our goal is to combat this revitalization stigma and show how Regent Park has long had a flourishing community.

Learning About the Middle Ground

Although the stigma of ‘social mix’ being a ‘community fix’ permeates much media (Ali, 2016; Hume, 2014; Starr, 2016; Artuso, 2017), we do not deny there are also benefits to the revitalization, such as the new amenities provided to the neighbourhood. It is imperative to state that the revitalization did not create a sense of community, Regent Park’s community has long existed. The various new amenities constructed here merely bring the togetherness of Regent Park into the mainstream media. We are not here to say that redevelopment is bad, but obviously the premise of social mixing is. From the weeks spent at Regent Park Focus and working with Sumeya and Fazra, we have found that many amenities and new facilities are valued and praised by the girls. Community and togetherness existed prior to the revitalization, the new amenities simply help to reinforce this sense of community by bringing people out to the park, Daniel’s Spectrum, the aquatic centre, and more.

Our video, featuring audio interviews of Fazra and Sumeya.

Brail and Kumar (2017) state, “rebuilding alone is insufficient to address broader structural inequalities” however, the rebuilding has brought with it “numerous opportunities for building partnerships, community facilities, social capital, education, cultural and arts-based opportunities, and resident empowerment” (p. 3785). Capital and redevelopment did not foster this sense of community, it long existed, the redevelopment just gave the community a new space to play and be seen.

References

Ali, A. (2016, March 18). Residents patiently await rebranding of Toronto’s Regent Park. The Globe and Mail.

Artuso, A. (2017, September 18). Deadly shooting in Regent Park ‘extremely discouraging’. The Toronto Sun.

August, M. (2014). Challenging the Rhetoric of Stigmatization: The Benefits of Concentrated Poverty in Toronto’s Regent Park. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 46(6), 1317–1333.

Brail, S., & Kumar, N. (2017). Community leadership and engagement after the mix: The transformation of Toronto’s regent park. Urban Studies, 54(16), 3772-3788.

Dunn, J. R. (2012). “Socially Mixed” Public Housing Redevelopment As A Destigmatization Strategy In Toronto’s Regent Park. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 9(01), 87-105.

Hume, C. (2014, June 23). Regent Park’s new park destined for success. The Toronto Star.

Joseph, M. L., Chaskin, R. J., & Webber, H. S. (2007). The Theoretical Basis for Addressing Poverty Through Mixed-Income Development. Urban Affairs Review, 42(3), 369-409.

Laughlin, Danielle Leahy and Laura C. Johnson. (2011). Defining and exploring public space: perspective of young people from Regent Park, Toronto. Children’s Geographies, 9(3-4), 439-456.

Rowe, D. J., & Dunn, J. R. (2015). Tenure-mix in toronto: Resident attitudes and experience in the regent park community. Housing Studies, 30(8), 1257-1280.

Starr, R. (2016, May 9). 5 ways Regent Park’s revitalization is a game-changer. The Toronto Star.

Shayla, Michelle, Sumeya and Fazra are the Legacy Leavers.

The Legacy We Want to Leave: Regent Park Has a Community, Always Has and Always Will

As the semester comes to a close, this is our last project chronicle before the final showcase on Monday April 8th. In terms of our progress, we are on schedule and we are satisfied with what we have achieved thus far. This week we finalized and selected the photos that we are going to use for the showcase. Each of us chose two to three pictures we captured that contributed to our main argument, making a total of 10 pictures for our exhibition. Regarding the format for the showcase, we hope to align the images side by side on the wall, and have the stigmatizing quotes from news articles juxtaposed next to the quotes from Fazra and Sumeya. Together both kinds of quotes will be branching out from the photos.

Random scribbles from when we were discussing our exhibition format.

Before we continue to explain our progress, there are a few things worth mentioning about the changes we made since the last project chronicle. The first being that we have narrowed down the main argument and goal of our project. Shayla managed to narrow down the notion of stigma further. We recognized that in the media and some scholarly studies, there is this narrative which implies that ‘community’ only emerged after the revitalization happened. Through the stories shared by the Diva Girls and our time at Regent Park Focus, we know that this is not true. Life before revitalization, as shared by Sumeya and Fazra, was good and they certainly do have a community that they cherished. Our goal is to combat this misconception that there was no community before the revitalization in Regent Park, and also channel it in the right way through our media project.

This is not to say that the revitalization was all bad; it certainly also brought some benefits. A few days ago, the U of T students had a reflection session together. Our classmates, along with Aditi, gave us some great advice and raised an important point about the duality of revitalization. Like any other developments, the Regent Park revitalization has its own pros and cons. This inspired an idea, where our group can act as the middle ground and showing both the bad and good sides to combat the stigma, while also giving the revitalization some acknowledgements at the same time. When we asked Sumeya and Fazra’s opinion on this, they also supported the notion and admitting that they did receive better amenities (Sumeya in particular really loves the new Wendy’s that opened nearby recently). In addition, Aditi has also shown us a project she did before in Khirkee Village in India. Khirkee was an unplanned urban village in New Delhi, where some parts of the area experienced urban development from the government. As a result, residents feared that their village’s identity or territory would diminish. There is also the fear of gentrification because new buildings, such as a huge mall, was built in the area. At the same time, the residents who live in the Village also enjoy the services that the mall had brought. Some people even get access and income by selling hand embroidery or woven fabrics. Her project shows the complexity that a development brings into the neighbourhood. It is not merely a matter of bad or good. This is a similar case with the revitalization in Regent Park. There are both advantages and disadvantages, and we plan to keep this in mind as we are making our final product.

Exclusive: here’s one of our footage, stay tuned to see this time-lapse being embedded in the form of a final video!

What is left to do for the making of our media project is the video that compliments the photographs. For now, we decided that the format will look something like a 1:30 to 2 minute video, where we display the videos that we have taken on the different walking tours, led by Sumeya and Fazra, through the neighbourhood. We will combine the video with audio recordings of Sumeya and Fazra answering some questions, which we recorded in our session this week. The video will focus on trying to give an insight about Regent Park and its community.

Our final project is slowly being moulded into shape, and we are so excited to show it to everyone real soon!

Shayla, Michelle, Sumeya, and Fazra are The Legacy Leavers.

Live Up to Our Name: Can Our Media Project Leave a Legacy?

This week, we went on another tour. Sumeya, Fazra, Michelle, and I headed out with our cameras to document the neighbourhood again. Due to the sun and the warmer weather, we saw more residents walking, cycling, and utilizing the neighbourhood.

Fazra taking photos at the park, photographed by Shayla.

Earlier this week, Michelle and I met up on our own and narrowed down our project. We found that quotes and headlines from articles cannot be so linearly combatted with visuals. The different stigmas that continue to permeate peoples ideas of the neighbourhood are intertwined with one another. Because of this, we realized that our photography and videography will also be intertwined. I think we originally saw this project going like this: stereotypical/stigmatizing headline in the news, combatted with a photo displaying the opposite and showing the reality of Regent Park. We now know that this quote versus photo approach is not so simple. Last week, Sumeya said that she wanted to show all the good things about Regent Park, so in the narrowing down of our project we realized we can and should do exactly that. Instead of having one photo directly address one quote, we are making our photos and video work as a unified tool to combat the stigmatization. Michelle suggested that at the showcase we should not bind one quote or headline to one photo, but rather surround the quotes with our photos to visually show that our photographs collectively fight these negative connotations. We will use our different pieces of media as a whole.

Walking through the neighbourhood, photographed by Sumeya.

After digging through the news, we have seen that articles, reporters, and quotes from different City of Toronto staff members often frame the neighbourhood as crime filled, lacking a sense of community prior to revitalization, and becoming ‘fully integrated’ post phases 1-3 of the redevelopment. One article we looked at goes on to say that Regent Park has been converting from an “ill-fated enclave to flourishing downtown hub.” Through different stories shared by the Diva Girls and our class’s experiences in the neighbourhood so far, we know these stereotypes are not the truth. So this week when we went out to take photos, our driving question behind what and who to photograph was, what represents community in the neighbourhood across time? To visually represent the answers to this question, we photographed the old Regent Park buildings, the large number of cars parked outside these old buildings, the park, the outside of RP Focus, and we also took photos of each other.

In this week of content creation, we did not really face any challenges. We finished capturing both our photos and videos, and what remains is the audio capturing and all the editing. I have noticed that each week something new is learned. Whether it’s where Fazra and Sumeya go to school, or if it’s them showing us how different public and neighbourhood spaces are used, knowledge is being passed down in non-conventional ways each week that we work together.

Shayla, Michelle, Sumeya, and Fazra are The Legacy Leavers.

Delving into the Reality in Regent Park

Our group’s activities this week was comprised of two parts: the articles and the tour. Elaborating on the former, we used the first half of our time together discussing articles that we can use to help shape what pictures we are going to take. Over the weekend, Michelle and Shayla compiled a total of nine news articles from sources such as The Star, The Globe and Mail, and The Toronto Sun. These articles touch upon different aspects of Regent Park. What draws them together, in terms of our project, is that they all have some hints of stigma and/or do not align with the residents’ lived experiences. One interesting conversation that happened during our article discussion relates to the restaurant, Paintbox Bistro. Early on in the semester before coming to Regent Park, the U of T students read an article by David Hayes, which highlighted the bistro as one of the signs that revitalization is working in Regent Park. Shayla also mentioned how Paintbox Bistro is talked about everywhere because it is one of the popular examples for a social enterprise in Toronto. Sumeya said that she and her friends never visited the bistro. Sahara, who is part of the Remember Regent group, also joined in and said that food there is very expensive. Both girls do not find it worthy of going to eat there, and they do not have an all too positive outlook about it. From this story, we get a sense that the media and the girls who live in the area have very contrasting opinions. This also highlights something we were seeing across different media articles — the news can be a powerful source of information and can make the public aware of a variety of different issues, but what is said in the media may not always be one hundred percent accurate.

After reviewing the articles, we asked Sumeya which places that she wanted to show us in reaction to the article that we had gone through. Unfortunately, Fazra was not able to join us this time because she had to go to a doctor’s appointment. After listing a few notable ones, the three of us are on our way to tour around Regent Park. One unique place we visited is called the “Art Wall.” It is a graffiti wall made in 2015 by Clandestinos as marked on the bottom right portion of the wall. After typing the name on Google, we found out that Clandestinos Art is an award-winning couple, who is very well known for their contribution in creating murals all over the world! The couple’s pseudonym is Smoky and Shalak. (Here’s Shalak’s website: https://www.shalakattack.com/, which includes the Clandestinos Art bio also). In the case of their creation at the Art Wall, it consisted of a few objects, including what is known as the Regent Park Eagle. What makes this eagle different is that it is blue. Sumeya also added that the eagle was said to come to Regent Park every summer (which she then, later on, stressed was only a story and that the eagle never really comes). We then also visited a field on the east end of the neighbourhood, she explained that it is always packed with activities during the summer. They hosted soccer matches there and even used the area for Eid last year. It was difficult to capture significant pictures that depict these positive stories because we are still enduring winter, harsh winds, and the cold weather. Although winter is ending, the cold weather still made it hard for us to see residents coming out to enjoy the field.

Here’s a little sneak peek of our progress, stay tuned for more!!

We then went back (before we froze to death!), and it gave us a short amount of time to discuss what we had obtained from this session. In regards to our intended audience for this media project, Sumeya’s answer was only one word: everyone. Instead of focusing on specific demographics, we aim to focus more on getting many people to see our media project and make Regent Park better known. This, in a way, is another goal that we hope to achieve, in addition to combating the stigmas that the mainstream media has depicted. Moving forward, Shayla and Michelle agreed to concentrate more on how to connect the news articles to the pictures that have been taken up to this point.

Shayla, Michelle, Sumeya, and Fazra are The Legacy Leavers.

Road to Combatting Stigmas in RP

The group meeting that we had ended up being a success for us as it helped to create a working outline for our media project. Initially when we gathered, we did not really have a strong preference as to which direction we wanted to take. We now know that we want to focus on the stigmatization of Regent Park, but the debate remained on whether we should only showcase these negativities, or if we are able to step up more by using our media project to combat these wrong perceptions. With Aditi’s help, we were able to come up with a solid plan to focus on the latter and we will use our media project as a tool to combat the stigmas. Our next step was trying to narrow down our project format. From the start, we knew that we wanted to do photography. At this point, we plan to complement these photographs with short videos that we could take around the area. Our Diva Girls, Sumeya and Fraza, also suggested creating a time-lapse video while riding the bus, because it shows the transition of the revitalization as we pass through buildings along the street. We hope that we are able to achieve these goals without any adjustments, but we are also open to adding writings with our photographs as an alternative should the videos not work out the way we had hoped.

More specifically, in combatting the stigmas of the neighbourhood, we decided that we will focus on how mainstream media has depicted Regent Park. Our way of doing this will be by finding news articles that embody negative connotations towards Regent Park and our photographs will act as a response by revealing the reality of life in the neighbourhood. We hope that through the photographs, people can find more positive thoughts about Regent Park and recognize that the stigmas one may hold in their mind do not reflect the lived experiences of neighbourhood residents. This will highlight that what is stated in the media can sometimes be misleading. To reach this objective, we came up with a weekly schedule that has goals we have to achieve by the end of the week. For this week in particular, we hope to be able to gather most of the news articles we need. So that in the next session, we can discuss what places, people and things we can photograph to support our revelation. Sumeya and Fazra have an important role in being our neighbourhood guides to make this happen. In addition, the rest of the meetings after that will be for the creation of our photos and videos. In these weeks we will be putting a focus on video and photo editing together with creating the write-up. We also set aside time to start thinking about the best way to display our media project later on during the showcase.

We have done some initial research thus far. In particular, Fazra showed us an article by The Star that the Diva Girls disliked because of the way it was written. Shayla pointed out how the article described Regent Park’s redevelopment as bringing “awesome amenities”, but in reality, we know that most of the residents, such as our Diva Girls, do not get priorities to these services. Michelle found an article published in the Toronto Sun that gives an overly positive remark about the need to push revitalization further to fix problems, such as gang violence. We have learned in class that the Diva Girls do not support the revitalization, and crimes still happen even as new buildings are coming to the neighbourhood. These are the initial results, and we will continue to refine it as we go along with the project. Below is a short time-lapse of us creating our project timeline and refining our topic!

Shayla, Michelle, Sumeya, and Fazra are The Legacy Leavers.

Legacy Leavers

In this session, the process of story telling and meme creation helped us to hone in on our topic of representations. In our conversation, Fazra, one of the Diva Girls, mentioned that she went to the doctor with her mom, and when the doctor asked where they lived her mom said, “Regent Park”, and the doctor responded with references to gun violence, crime, and Regent Park being a “dangerous” neighbourhood.

From this story, we can gather that people who do not live in Regent Park have these stigmatized narratives of the neighbourhood in their head. Stories like this one can be common occurrences for residents of the neighbourhood — as Fazra was telling this story, Sumeya was nodding in agreement as she has experienced this as well.

During this week’s class, a challenge was staying on topic with the activities and discussion. We were unable to come up with a team name we are firmly decided on, so for now, our pending team name is the “Legacy Leavers.” On the other hand, we also had a large success, we made great progress on our topic. In the previous week, we were unsure of where we wanted to go with the topic “representations”, this week it became clear we would like to focus on neighbourhood stigmas and how these differ greatly from lived experiences in Regent Park. We also figured out that for our formats, photography and videography, we will largely be able to support ourselves with the equipment and learning because we each have past experiences with both formats. However, we did state that some training with videography by Regent Park Focus staff would be helpful if it is available to us.

In regards to our project topic, we already know that the neighbourhood is stigmatized by Torontonians who are not from there, so it will be important to not focus solely on the stigmas and outsider representations in our media project. Although important to address the stigmas that exist, we will focus the majority of our project on representations of the neighbourhood to its residents and to the Diva Girls — to people who consider the neighbourhood a home or community. Thinking through what to focus on also led us to start planning ahead by asking ourselves, what is the purpose of our media project? Will our project highlight the issues at hand (ie: the stigmas of the neighbourhood)? Or will it be used as a tool to combat stigmatization? For now, we agreed that maybe it should do both. As we dive further into research and media creation we are staying open minded as this may change. Interestingly, when we asked how do we get rid of the negative perceptions? how do we change the stigma? Sumeya said, “only the youth can.”

Shayla, Michelle, Sumeya, and Fazra are The Legacy Leavers.