GEOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT

Research Activities                                    Last updated: July 19 2006

1) Fraser Borderland. This research stream was initiated in 1999 with my colleague at UCFV, the late Doug Nicol. Together, we collaborated with Patrick Buckley at Western Washington University in Bellingham WA on the design of a unique international, team-taught, cross-border course (“Borderlands”) that brings American and Canadian students together in the winter semester/quarter with the objective of learning about the impact of the international border on the Fraser Borderland bio-region. The course has served as a spring-board for regional research collaboration between Buckley and me. Events that occurred during the current period include:

Publications

“Teaching Geography in an International Region: Challenges of the Pacific Northwest Borderland” with Patrick Buckley and Doug Nicol”, Journal of Geography 102(2) (2003) 47-57.

Paper Presentations Buckley, P. and Belec, J. 2004. “Issues of Cross Border Managementof the Fraser Lowlands Eco-Region”, Proceedings of the CNS ACSUS Convergence and Divergence Colloquium, Simon Fraser University , October 29-30 Buckley, P. and Belec, J. 2006. “An Incident of Failed Cross-Border Governance: Air Shed  Management in the Fraser Borderland.” Western Division Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Thompson Rivers University, March 11.

Current Research

“Imagining the Future of Cross Border Environmental Resource Management within the Fraser Lowland: A Delphi analysis”

This study is a unique bi-national collaborative effort between Geographers at University College of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford and Western Washington University in Bellingham. I am guiding work on the Canadian side of the border and my colleague, Dr. Pat Buckley, at Western Washington, is focused on the American side. The objective of the research is to investigate “possible futures” for the Fraser Lowland by eliciting informed opinion from an expert panel through a guided questionnaire exercise known as the ‘Delphi’ method.

We have created an expert panel of approximately twenty participants, evenly split on either side of the border. The first round questionnaire was distributed in February 2006, and the second in May. The final two rounds will be conducted during summer 2006 with the expectation that a summary report will be prepared in the fall.

Five types of research outcomes are expected from the study:

1. Predictions of key challenges and emerging issues that will affect the Fraser Lowland over the next decade.

2. Suggestions of innovative cross-border strategies for addressing local environmental resource management issues with potential policy implications that are both possible and probable.

3. Evaluation of the potential for greater local cross-border governance addressing local issues rather then relying on distant capitals, provincial or national.

4. An evaluation of the scale, both geographic and institutional, at which issues can and should be addressed and whether or not the subregional scale selected for this study is appropriate.

5. An assessment of the nature and strength of trans-border regional consciousness and assess whether Canadian and American positions converge or diverge as well as government on non-government positions.

Other

Memorandum of Understanding – University College of the Fraser Valley and Western Washington University. February 27, 2006.

I facilitated and hosted the signing of the MOU that took place at UCFV. The document endorses the value of cross-border collaboration between UCFV and WWU and commits the institutions to expanded research on the Fraser Borderland.

Field trip coordinator (with Patrick Buckley), “Fraser Low(Border)land”, Association of Washington Geographers, April 2004.

Future Directions

Ø Collaboration with Dr. Pat Buckley on Delphi questionnaire study summary/analytical report and academic article.

Ø Implementation of the MOU signed with WWU.

2. Evolution of urban housing markets and suburban communities.

My longest standing research interest has been in the realm of twentieth century housing market development, especially with regard to the role of lending infrastructure. This was initiated in my PhD dissertation (1988), a study of the origins, and urban impact, of Canadian federal housing policy (The Dominion Housing Act, 1935). In Canada and the United States, the modern mortgage market is generally regarded as having played a key role in the growth of the post-war suburbs.

More recently, my work has expanded to i) examine residential mobility and neighbourhood change patterns in early post-war Vancouver and ii) study the implementation of housing lending infrastructure in the “new” Europe.

i) Residential mobility in Vancouver, 1951.

The research here is based on primary data collected from copies of original mortgage documents located in the archives of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in Ottawa. The mortgages were granted through the joint-loan programme of the National Housing Act and provide a rich, untapped, data source to examine patterns of state supported residential mobility at the out-set of the post-war era. GIS techniques are an important part of the analysis with this dataset.

Paper Presentations

“Consuming the suburbs: Applications of GIS to the investigation of (post)modern Vancouver.” 2005. Western Division, Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting. University of Lethbridge.

Poster Presentations

“Mov’in out: Mapping modern Vancouver’s Trek to the suburbs”. 2004. Western Division, Canadian Association of Geographers annual meeting. Medicine Hat College.

Future Directions

Ø Academic article based on analysis of the archival data.

Target journal: Canadian Geographer.

Ø Extension of analysis to an in-depth case study of mid-century modernism design as it was implemented in one or two Vancouver neighbourhoods that had high concentrations of NHA housing.

ii) Home lending infrastructure in the “new” Europe

My study of Canadian housing policy is set within the broader context of regulation theory. As such, the establishment of the modern residential mortgage is understood to be critical to the intensive regime of capitalist accumulation of the latter twentieth century, that developed in Canada, and other advanced capitalist nations. It is generally argued in the literature that the development of the modern mortgage, promoted higher levels of home ownership especially in suburban settings. With the transition from a command to a market economy in the former USSR, my interest is to study the implementation of similar financial infrastructure, especially in the property sector, and its impact on housing patterns and urban morphology.

Paper Presentations

“(Sub)urbanization in aid of national development: the future of housing in the new Europe”, 2004. Western Division, Canadian Association of Geographers annual meeting, Medicine Hat College.

Future Directions

Ø Present a paper on the comparative analysis of housing in Canada and Lithuania at the annual Baltic Canadian Studies Conference.

3. Applications of Geographical Information Systems to urban studies

My interest in GIS began in 1994 when I was funded by the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia to produce a socio-demographic atlas of the Abbotsord-Mission area. The grant supported the purchase of Geography’s first pieces of GIS hardware (a plotter and digitizer) and software (ArcView 3.1). I developed the Department’s first course in GIS (GEOG 253: Introduction to Geographical Information Systems) in 1997, and continue to teach the course. In 2006/07, Geography hired its first full-time GIS specialist, Dr. Scott Shupe.

My research applications with GIS have focused on (i) urban housing (see 2(i) above) and, more recently, on (ii) applications in crime analysis. In 2006, together with Dr. Darryl Plecas, RCMP Research Chair in Crime, I supervised two students in an Insurance Corporation of BC study of vehicle theft in Fraser Valley.

Future Directrions

Ø Collaborate with Darryl Plecas on a report for ICBC on the geography of auto theft in the Fraser Valley.

4. Major Grant Applications 2003-2006

2003

Program: Community-University Research Alliance
Funding Agency: Social Science and Humanities Research Council
Role: Applicant

2004

Program: Community-University Research Alliance
Funding Agency: Social Science and Humanities Research Council
Role: Applicant

Future Directions:

Ø Successful CURA application.