Conflicting geographies of democracy and the public sphere in Vancouver BC

Theories of the public sphere have dominated political discussion for the past several years. Only recently, however, has the notion of the ideal public sphere been linked to geographically specific public spaces. The aim of this paper is to examine the reworking of the ideal public sphere in the context of a particular place and time: the contemporary landscape of an elite neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia. Despite its presentation as a public site of rational discourse, the Shaughnessy landscape has long operated as a space of hegemonic production for a dominant Angle elite. This production was successfully contested by Hong Kong Chinese cosmopolitans, who entered this formerly homogeneous suburb in large numbers in the past decade. It is argued that this contestation presents a significant rupture in the Canadian narrative of capitalism and modernity - a narrative which, in the context of the liberal welfare state, is largely reliant on the legitimacy of the ideal public sphere.