Blackening the City: Counter Cartographies as a Tool for Community Planning

Blackening The City: Counter-Cartographies as a Tool for Community Planning engages with the concept of counter cartographies as a tool for creating spatial equity, underpinned by Black Feminist Theory. Historically and currently, the spatial distribution of cities is heavily skewed to favour those in positions of power. Practices have focused on the needs of socioeconomic elites and prioritized the city as a vehicle for economic success, rather than the success of its residents. Access to social services, transportation, safe and affordable housing, healthcare, and other necessities need to be prioritized in marginalized communities for them to thrive. Black Feminist Theory offers a theoretical lens through which planning processes can be viewed, as it centres the intersection of racialized and gendered oppression towards creating equitable spaces. Black Feminist Theory elevates marginalized voices, as they are the most knowledgeable of the issues they face. This study focuses on Jane and Finch, a community in Toronto that is predominantly made up of visible minorities, with Black people making up just over twenty six percent of the population. The community is heavily stigmatized, due to stereotypes associated with racialized, migrant, and low-income communities. This study documents ways in which Black women move through and connect with their community using counter cartographic methodologies. Participants in this study are community members engaged in a participatory counter mapping workshop and walking interviews. The information gathered through walking interviews point to the several common spatial experiences of Black women, including consistent uprooting and movement, the need to create spaces where we can experience joy, and the need for resistance in hegemonic spaces. The mapping workshop shed light on themes surrounding desires for community and belonging, increased community resources and programs, safety, cleanliness, and infrastructural changes. A spatial analysis is then performed on the data collected, that culminates in an online mapping tool that writes the community from the view of its residents, and serve as a planning consulting and advocacy tool. Counter cartographies offer a vehicle through which Black Feminist Theory can be applied. Through using counter cartographic tools and methods, this study rewrites space through a gendered and racialized lens, and subverts the power imbalance that exists in traditional mapping. The final mapping tool includes the knowledges of Black women in Jane and Finch, and visualizes narratives of marginalized communities, voices, and geographies. This study investigates the use of counter cartographies as a vital planning tool towards creating more equitable communities where the needs of marginalized people are met, and their dreams and desires are written into their landscapes. Since urban planners regularly consult maps, I conclude that counter cartographies aid in reworking the underpinnings of planning, and thus ground planning in anti-colonial and anti-oppressive knowledges and practices.