This paper interrogates the complex role of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in securing and shaping conduct in public retail and ‘entertainment’ spaces in Canadian cities. Adopting a Foucault-inspired sociology of governance perspective, this paper uncovers key features of the role of BIDs therein and casts doubt upon assumptions evident in previous research, including in relation to urban neo-liberalism. BIDs seek to exclude obstacles, which include ‘panhandlers’ and the homeless, from public spaces. Yet, other barriers are placed into relief by a proliferating ‘clean and safe’ rationality and are deemed to interfere with consumption conduct and pedestrian flow. These include BID members engaged in moralized enterprises. Some BIDs are deploying CCTV surveillance arrangements and interactive ‘ambassadors’ consistent with ‘clean and safe’, whereas others avoid these modes and rely upon and lobby for public sources. The role of BID coordinators in brokering specialized knowledge is pivotal in these varied security arrangements. Theoretical implications of this analysis are discussed.
Signage in urban 'open-street' CCTV arrangements is explored in relation to the strategies and forms of law brought to bear upon it. In the context of privacy regulation, CCTV signage's content reflects deterrence strategies and political subjectification consistent with liberal governmentality. CCTV signage is evinced to be both an agent and target of privacy and other forms of law and is therefore shaped and brought into being by complex webs of legal governance. Rather than befitting panoptic arrangements or merely amplifying CCTV's deterrent effects, CCTV signage signals and serves as a vital element of the surveillant assemblage. Possessing varied functions, including features attributed to surveillance cameras, CCTV signage is a material means by which the surveillance assemblage interfaces with the legal complex and by which urban timespaces are constituted. This analysis moves beyond previous accounts of regulatory signage and has broad implications for governmentality and surveillance studies.
In this article, we examine the spatial regulation of homeless people by National Capital Commission (NCC) conservation officers in Canada's capital city, Ottawa. We explore NCC officer practices by analyzing occurrence reports obtained through access to information (ATI) requests and interview transcripts. We contend that policing of NCC parks is organized according to a logic of dispersal. Dispersal policing aims to preserve an aesthetic for public consumption and ceremonial nationalism, entails specific temporalities, and is actuated through a public/private policing network. We argue that "dispersal" more accurately conceptualizes the spatial regulation in this case compared with alternative concepts (ie banishment) and thus supplements existing typologies of spatial regulation. We conclude with a discussion of these typologies and of the worth of ATI for future research on urban policing and regulation.
RésuméCet article analyse le projet de revitalisation urbaine d'un centre-ville canadien et le problème que posait la mise en lumière d'aspects négligés de relance urbaine, de sécurité publique et de transfert de connaissances. L'utilisation des propriétés du centre-ville de Windsor a peu à peu cédé aux forces du marché et le quartier a connu une prolifération de bars pour jeunes. Le résultat en était un problème de sécurité publique à connotation morale, ce qui a semblé grever les ressources policières et nuire tant à la vie et au développement résidentiels qu'au commerce de détail. En utilisant la gouvernementalité et des outils analytiques influencés par la méthode Latourienne, l'auteur examine; (1) le rôle de la Business Improvement Association (association pour favoriser le commerce) du centre de Windsor; (2) l'influence progressive du rapport d'un consultant auprès des institutions municipales; et (3) les mesures qui en ont résulté, incluant un règlement municipal provisoire suivi d'un règlement de zonage visant à redéfinir un type de bar à permis, appelé «bar pour jeunes» (kiddie bar) L'auteur discute des conclusions à tirer de cette analyse pour comprendre le rôle de la Business Improvement Association, la gouvernance «d'en bas,» et le transfert des connaissances.
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