YorkSpace

YorkSpace is York University's Institutional Repository. It supports York University's Senate Policy on Open Access by providing York community members with a place to preserve their research online in an institutional context.

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Communities in YorkSpace

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Recent Submissions

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    Advancing Sport Ecology: From Conceptual to Normative and Evaluative Frameworks
    (2026-08-31) Toman, Bennet; Winfield, Mark
    Sport ecology is an emerging academic discipline that has been gaining traction since 2016. It exists as an interdisciplinary and interconnected view on the dynamics of sports and the environment. Sport ecology sits primarily in a conceptual stage, with preliminary developments into a normative one - or how sustainable sports should look and perform, from the release of sporting sustainability reports and strategies. The focus of this major research paper will be how to move sport ecology beyond a conceptual framework, into a more substantive normative and evaluative one. The analysis of the paper is both quantitative and qualitative from the conceptual framework to derive the quantification of how sports ecology fits into a normative and evaluative frame. The quantitative analysis contains a scoring evaluation of mega sporting events on a scale of 1-5. The case studies used in the scoring analysis will be the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and the 2026 FIFA world cup. This evaluation will introduce sport ecology as more than an academic subdiscipline, but as an evaluation tool for sporting organizations and policy makers. This paper will broaden the meanings and dynamics of sport ecology and ways in which to advance it from being just a conceptual emerging academic subdiscipline.
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    Where is the Green in Transit-Oriented Communities? A Geospatial Analysis of MTSA Green Space Access
    (2026-08-31) Strzelczyk, Matthew; Taylor, Laura
    Are Ontario’s Major Transit Station Areas (MTSAs) being planned to provide adequate green space for the populations they are designated to serve? Provincial policy mandates the density of people and jobs in MTSAs in absolute terms, but no equivalent standard governs the provision of green space that is assumed to accompany that density. Using a network-based, populationweighted geospatial accessibility analysis of 50 MTSAs across Richmond Hill, Vaughan, and Markham, this study calculates an accessible green space per capita score for each MTSA and evaluates this score against measures of distributional inequality, transit-mode and density patterns, spatial autocorrelation, and external provision benchmarks. MTSAs planned for higher density and larger populations tend to have less accessible green space per person, not more. Green space access is also far less equal across these MTSA’s than it is for existing green space across the City of Toronto. The shortfall is severe for the region’s three largest growth centres, Richmond Hill Centre, Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, and Langstaff GO-Bridge. Even at full build-out, Langstaff’s own Secondary Plans parkland allocation reaches only 2.9 square metres per person, a fraction of the 24 square metres per person recommended by the Fields in Trust benchmark. A supporting policy review traces this outcome to specific mechanisms, including the absence of a quantitative parkland target in Richmond Hill Centre’s Secondary Plan and Bill 23’s reduction of the municipal parkland dedication tools available to offset that shortfall. These findings suggest that Ontario’s MTSA framework has, to this point, mandated density with considerably more rigour than it has mandated green space. Green space provision therefore should be a binding requirement of MTSA planning, comparable in enforceability to existing density targets
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    Approaching the Electrostate: Leaders and Laggards in the Global Transition to Net Zero Electricity
    (2026-08-31) Smith, Adam; Winfield, Mark
    The Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement are two legally binding international frameworks that outline commitments to remaining within safe levels of planetary warming. Central to these frameworks are Net Zero commitments—which include pledges to decarbonize national electricity infrastructure—communicated through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Previous research has examined what enables large-scale transitions; what constrains a country from dismantling its fossil fuel infrastructure; and which independent variables may influence clean energy adoption. However, research to date has not examined a large sample of countries across an extended period with multiple variables and categorization schemas in one rigorous analysis. Using country-level electricity data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) between 2000 and 2023/2024, this paper applies Spearman rank correlation and data visualization methods across 144 countries and 15 independent variables to determine not only which countries are decarbonizing their electricity systems the swiftest—measured through an original composite metric, the Electro-Transition Score (ETS)—but which variables and institutional alignments most strongly correlate with that progress. This paper determines that, beyond eight existing electrostates—defined as >99.5 percent clean energy generation (CEG)—countries within certain institutional blocs are accelerating faster than others, and that governance and development variables outweigh resource endowment in their association with CEG. However, outliers arise within the data that challenge the rigidity of these assertions, indicating that clean energy adoption is not one-size-fits-all. This paper thus illustrates the global picture of the ongoing 21st century energy transition from once-dominant fossil fuels to that of clean energy systems.
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    A Decolonial Approach to Strategic Energy Management for Urban Indigenous Housing Providers in British Columbia
    (2026-08-31) Shafazand, Shahed; Brand Correa, Lina
    The transition to low-carbon energy systems is recognized as a critical response to climate change, while housing quality and equitable energy access are now understood as essential determinants of well-being and health. Across Turtle Island, growing attention is being directed toward the intersections of housing, justice, and Indigenous self-determination as critical pillars of a just energy transition. For Indigenous peoples, climate vulnerability cannot be separated from the ongoing legacies of colonialism that continue to shape housing conditions, infrastructure quality, governance structures, and access to energy services. In British Columbia, where most Indigenous peoples live off-reserve, Urban Indigenous housing providers play a vital role in delivering affordable, safe, and culturally safe housing, yet often operate within conditions plagued by chronic underinvestment, aging infrastructure, capacity constraints, and fragmented policy and funding systems. Existing energy management and retrofit programs largely prioritize technical performance, cost-effectiveness, and greenhouse gas reductions, while giving limited attention to Indigenous sovereignty, cultural safety, well-being, and community-defined measures of success. This study sought to explore the role of a decolonial, Indigenous-led Strategic Energy Management Plan (SEMP) for Urban Indigenous housing providers in breaking the insidious loop of coloniality at the urban frontier and building equitable, low-carbon energy solutions. Drawing on lived experiences of Urban Indigenous housing providers, external partner expertise, and insight from the Aboriginal Housing Management Association (AHMA) staff, this research shows that conventional energy management approaches are insufficient to meaningfully address the interconnected challenges of housing quality, energy poverty, climate vulnerability, and Indigenous self-determination experienced within Urban Indigenous housing. The findings reveal that energy-related struggles are not simply technical problems but manifestations of broader colonial structures that continue to shape housing and energy systems. Participants consistently identified capacity limitations, fragmented funding programs, culturally unsafe processes, and denial of Indigenous self-determination as significant barriers to improving housing quality and climate resilience. The research further demonstrates that Urban Indigenous housing providers prioritize tenant well-being, safety, belonging, and long-term organizational sustainability above conventional energy metrics such as energy use intensity or greenhouse gas reductions. These findings extend existing scholarship by demonstrating that strategic energy management can be reimagined as a pathway for restorative justice, Indigenous sovereignty, and community well-being rather than solely a tool for energy conservation and emissions reduction. The study proposes foundational principles for an Indigenous-led SEMP, including cultural safety, energy justice, energy as a service, climate resilience, Two-Eyed Seeing, technological and data sovereignty, and community-defined measures of success rooted in human flourishing and a “Good Life” (Soh Kyo U’liih). This research contributes to emerging conversations on climate justice, energy justice, decolonization, and the invisible realities within urban sites by centering the experiences of Urban Indigenous communities, a population frequently overlooked in both academic research and climate initiatives. It argues that equitable energy transitions require more than technological innovation; they require structural transformation that restores Indigenous sovereignty, supports community well-being, and recognizes housing and energy as fundamental foundations for health, human flourishing, and collective resilience in a changing climate.
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    Spatial Variable Prediction of Housing Affordability in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area
    (2026-08-31) Russell, William; Remmel, Tarmo
    Housing affordability has become a notorious planning challenge in Canada, particularly within the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area (GTHA), where rising housing costs have exacerbated inequalities. While existing research has extensively documented the political economy of housing and the consequences of neoliberal housing policy, fewer studies have applied machine learning techniques to identify the relative predictive power of socioeconomic, housing, accessibility, and land-use variables in explaining census tract-level affordability. This study addresses this gap through a spatial analysis of 2021 census tract data for the GTHA. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), approximately 150 variables from Statistics Canada, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, municipal open data, and provincial datasets were compiled and processed into a unified spatial database. Classification and Regression Trees (CART) were used to explore the predictive relationships for housing affordability outcomes among variables before developing Random Forest regression models to predict the proportion of households living in affordable housing, defined using the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's shelter-cost-to-income ratio (STIR) of below 30%. Getis-Ord Gi* statistics were subsequently applied to the residuals of the final model to identify statistically significant spatial clusters where affordability outcomes remained unexplained. The final Random Forest model explained approximately 79.7% of the variation in housing affordability across census tracts, demonstrating that housing affordability is strongly associated with interacting socioeconomic and housing-market characteristics rather than any single determinant. Variables relating to housing tenure, household composition, immigrant status, housing costs, subsidized housing, and building age emerged as the strongest predictors, whereas older housing builds and housing suitability categories contributed little to no predictive value. Residual hotspot analysis further revealed localized areas where unknown factors influence affordability beyond those captured by the model. By integrating critical urban planning theory with explainable machine-learning methods, this research demonstrates how spatial data science can support planning practice while identifying structural patterns of housing inequality that warrant further policy attention.