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 In my dissertation I approach the symbolic side of the urban environment by studying civic identity and its role in major development projects. What does it mean for a city to have a civic or public identity? Does the identity of a city actually affect the life of its citizens or simply reflect deeper, more concrete realities? Since the rise of the new urban political-economy, our understanding of cities has been oriented primarily around the struggle over finite resources and competition between different interest groups. Non-materialist concepts such as identity or culture have been downplayed and cast aside or re-conceptualized in political-economic terms. This dissertation is driven by an attempt to reintroduce the notion of civic identity into urban sociology as an active, autonomous social force by drawing on recent developments in the sociology of culture, cognition, and organizations. To do so, the dissertation focuses on one area of urban sociological research where issues of political-economy and civic identity come together in a dramatic way: the construction of iconic architecture. Requiring a massive mobilization of power and wealth, iconic architectural development epitomizes the type of research that has fuelled the new urban political-economy. However, architecture also has an undeniable symbolic dimension, capturing the imagination of people, representing certain aesthetic tastes over others, and claiming “iconic” status – that is, symbolizing something larger than the building itself. It is these aspects of architecture that provide the basis for considering how civic identities are formed and come to influence urban life in real ways.
 The focus of the dissertation is on two iconic architectural developments that occurred in the city of Toronto roughly between 2001 and 2008. Both development projects involved major expansions of eminent cultural institutions in Toronto, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). Both projects also involved internationally-renown architects known for their unique, experimental buildings that depart markedly from mainstream modern architecture. Through a competition, the ROM selected German-based Daniel Libeskind, and the AGO directly pursued and hired California-based Frank Gehry. The ROM and AGO developments are typical of the culture-led urban regeneration projects that have been so heavily studied in the new urban political-economy. Yet the projects gave rise to competing notions of Toronto’s identity and the kinds of buildings that should appropriately represent that identity. These divisions cannot be reduced to simple interest groups acting to maximize and safeguard their own resources. Instead, explaining the stakes of the conflicts that emerged, and the behaviour of the groups involved require us to develop a deeper understanding of how people come to understand their city, its identity, and the way these understandings are used to evaluate major changes to the urban landscape.
The analysis of my dissertation addresses a series of research questions designed to better understand the link between identity and urban development: (1) what are the political and organizational conditions under which civic identity becomes salient to the stakeholders of urban development projects, (2) what cultural and cognitive elements do stakeholders draw on to construct identities for their city and/or neighbourhood, and (3) how do these identities get used to propose and evaluate changes to the urban environment as stakeholders struggle over what gets built and where?
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