Prioritized: That ghetto dude from Malvern

Malvern, a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, was turned into a designated area for affordable housing during its transformation into a modern community in the late 20thcentury. Any positive connotation that was once attached to ‘affordable housing’ as an idyllic space for hard-working residents quickly disappeared, however, and Malvern has repeatedly been labeled one of Toronto’s most dangerous neighbourhoods, in dire need of improvement. In this essay, I borrow from Omi and Winant (2015) to argue that the neighbourhood of Malvern is a racial project – that is, Malvern’s representations assign meaning to race, created not only through racist and classist planning, but also through the ways that Malvern is shared in the larger public, through media representations of Malvern, and the complex experiences and realities of its residents. Populated almost entirely by visible minorities, the mapping of criminal deviance alongside racialized individuals has ensured that Malvern and its residents continue to be marred by stigma and stereotypes, leaving residents feeling conflicted with internalized and arguably perverse understandings of themselves, and without the necessary support that disadvantaged neighbourhoods should receive. Today, Malvern is the product of purposeful, structural violence, with the people of Malvern perceived as lacking the civility to maintain the ideal space that was created for them. Using the work of Henri Lefebvre, this paper provides a detailed analysis of the way that Malvern was conceived and perceived to exist and the way that it continues to be lived as a racial project. Malvern, like other inner-city neighbourhoods in North America, has remained at a disadvantage since its inception. In this essay, I explore how the perception of Malvern came to be and how first-hand experiences within Malvern’s borders differ from those which are negatively portrayed in the media.