Reshaping the Boundaries of Public and Private Life: Gender, Condominium Development, and the Neoliberalization of Urban Living

Taking feminist research as a starting point into the ways in which gentrification shapes gender relations in the city, this article addresses the phenomenon of new-build gentrification in terms of the re-contouring of gendered boundaries of public and private urban life. I examine how a widespread process of condominium development in Toronto is informed by neoliberal policy imperatives such as growth and competition. I also explore the ways in which the neoliberal, political-economic rationality underlying condominium development translates into changes in the ways that a particular group of city dwellers, women condominium owners, conceptualize their relationships to their homes, neighborhoods, and the city at large. This study suggests that condominium living produces a shift in the way that public and private spaces are understood and experienced, and that this shift has contradictory implications for the reshaping of urban gender relations.