Hello Regent Park! Redevelopment is about to enter Phases 4 and 5, converting the remaining historical apartments into high-rises, bringing many good and bad changes with it. However, like a game of musical chairs when the music stops, there is a rush to claim future spaces, which unfortunately leaves some without a spot. Loss of spaces for long-time residents is an issue particularly relevant to this year’s course theme of Economic Justice.
Our project seeks to explore past outcomes of Regent Park residents during redevelopment and examine ways that residents can enforce accountability in this process to guarantee positive futures.
Assembling the dream team
It started with a question that Eric asked one day in class: Hey Regent Park, what did you want to be when you grew up? This piqued the interest of Farhana, Jamie and Kaitlyn, and thus, a team was formed.
We took to the coffee shop to hash out some early ideas and many spirited discussions later, we came up with a tentative research question: what are Regent Park residents doing to ensure economic justice is delivered?
Left to right: Eric, Kaitlyn, Farhana, and Jamie at a coffee shop brainstorming ideas for the project.
It seemed like the structures around us were designed to preserve profits in the name of protecting people. We asked more questions like: what was being done to keep various actors accountable? Who is responsible when businesses close, when local hiring is ignored, when communities lose spaces that once made them feel at home? And more importantly—what can be done about it?
Defining economic justice
We spent a lot of time discussing what economic justice means to each of us. We finally agreed that economic justice means dismantling barriers that prevent people from accessing opportunities. It means ensuring that wealth is distributed in a way that allows communities to grow without being pushed out. It also means holding power structures accountable for decisions that disproportionately harm marginalized groups.
In our project, we hope to investigate how economic barriers impact Regent Parkers’ ability to aspire—to imagine a future where they belong, where their community remains intact.
Research ideas
We recognize that our team's background—as university-educated members who don’t live in Regent Park—affects how we approach our research. Having Farhana, a Regent Park resident, on our team has been a key factor. Her insights in our early meetings have helped shape our framework and ensure our research methods are thoughtful and effective.
We want this research to be as open-ended as possible, allowing our conversations with different community members to guide the findings rather than imposing rigid structures that might limit responses.
Next steps
Our immediate next step is to get out there and do some fieldwork using Farhana’s neighbourhood connections, in addition to collecting media. By starting informal conversations with some possible interviewees of interest, we hope to first understand the narratives behind the subjects of our research before we define the question we intend to answer. Throughout this process, we’ll be piecing together media and narratives we’ve collected to produce a unique finished product.
Catch you all in the next blog post!
The team members of Where did my neighbours go? are Eric, Farhana, Jamie, and Kaitlyn