Brian Pekar
Freedom (from) Trade Zones
https://freezonethesis.cargo.site/
As the city of Mississauga begins to feel the pressures of rapid and poorly proportioned growth they have begun to raise taxes on working class citizens to meet demands of public programs and critical infrastructures. These increased tax rates force greater distress on middle and lower class Canadians already suffering from ballooning costs of living while current planning trends place development emphasis on higher class neighborhoods. In the background of this urban struggle, the catalysts of the massive population and economic growth in the region enjoy egregious tax breaks as holdovers from a past, much less globalized, Greater Toronto Region. These actors are transnational corporations and the outdated tax breaks live under the title of Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Under Current federal regulations the SEZ that lives partially in Mississauga, surrounding the YYZ airport, is not held by predetermined boundaries but one that can grow and be added to with newly permitted Sufferance and Bonded Warehouses. This means that not only do massive corporations operating in this space not evenly contribute to the local economy but that they also have full federal rights to directly compete for land and resources with bordering cities like Mississauga. These two eventualities of growth are directly incompatible with the city and its people with virtually no leverage if they continue to operate in their municipal paradigm. In order to find any agency in preparation for the land clash that will ensue the city of Mississauga must be willing to redefine themselves to play by the same set of rules that the transnationals have been abusing for decades. The region has steady economic growth and will continue to once the playing field is leveled, the absurdity of local exploitation must be made known now.
By establishing a city owned corporation headed by elected council members, Mississauga becomes eligible to participate in the zones economic loopholes and by subsequently establishing a permitted sufferance warehouse on the current borderlands, the city stakes a claim to the no mans land of barren, clear cut corridors that would soon be consumed by the growing SEZ. Acting in a manner both familiar and revolutionary to the SEZs current operating structure, the new city backed institution capitalizes on trade flows by using them, along with novel hyper local trade flows and labor, as a generative process for a commoned new architectural framework. Combining city funds that have already been earmarked for municipal projects such as: spaces for trades based educational programs and guilds, community college spaces, library expansions, and infrastructure water management the total costs plummet allowing for more efficient and equitable investment. The resulting institution becomes a test bed for local crafts, trades people, and learners in which they have freedom to populate and fit out spaces within the initially constructed warehouse and its "zone limiting wall" that follows vacant boundary lines. Local private community groups like faith communities and hobbyists also have the chance to become involved at this border and benefit from the zones tax programs by fitting out more topological interventions within the frame wall, utilizing the same methods and tectonics of pairing hyper local craft materials with components acquired through the zone from international sources. The result is an infrastructure for a quilted scheme made up of swatches and typologies that benefit from different regulations in different ways, whether lucrative and nuanced or small scale and delicate.
Finally, this intervention is intended to not only hack the SEZ but also to form a buffer between the communities and zone. Attempting to mitigate sound pollution and industrial views into the zone the project pursues a future in which the airport and its global trade implications present an opportunity for hyperlocal growth versus global capital's dreams of disconnected, nodal aerotropolis.
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As the city of Mississauga begins to feel the pressures of rapid and poorly proportioned growth they have begun to raise taxes on working class citizens to meet demands of public programs and critical infrastructures. These increased tax rates force greater distress on middle and lower class Canadians already suffering from ballooning costs of living while current planning trends place development emphasis on higher class neighborhoods. In the background of this urban struggle, the catalysts of the massive population and economic growth in the region enjoy egregious tax breaks as holdovers from a past, much less globalized, Greater Toronto Region. These actors are transnational corporations and the outdated tax breaks live under the title of Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Under Current federal regulations the SEZ that lives partially in Mississauga, surrounding the YYZ airport, is not held by predetermined boundaries but one that can grow and be added to with newly permitted Sufferance and Bonded Warehouses. This means that not only do massive corporations operating in this space not evenly contribute to the local economy but that they also have full federal rights to directly compete for land and resources with bordering cities like Mississauga. These two eventualities of growth are directly incompatible with the city and its people with virtually no leverage if they continue to operate in their municipal paradigm. In order to find any agency in preparation for the land clash that will ensue the city of Mississauga must be willing to redefine themselves to play by the same set of rules that the transnationals have been abusing for decades. The region has steady economic growth and will continue to once the playing field is leveled, the absurdity of local exploitation must be made known now.
By establishing a city owned corporation headed by elected council members, Mississauga becomes eligible to participate in the zones economic loopholes and by subsequently establishing a permitted sufferance warehouse on the current borderlands, the city stakes a claim to the no mans land of barren, clear cut corridors that would soon be consumed by the growing SEZ. Acting in a manner both familiar and revolutionary to the SEZs current operating structure, the new city backed institution capitalizes on trade flows by using them, along with novel hyper local trade flows and labor, as a generative process for a commoned new architectural framework. Combining city funds that have already been earmarked for municipal projects such as: spaces for trades based educational programs and guilds, community college spaces, library expansions, and infrastructure water management the total costs plummet allowing for more efficient and equitable investment. The resulting institution becomes a test bed for local crafts, trades people, and learners in which they have freedom to populate and fit out spaces within the initially constructed warehouse and its "zone limiting wall" that follows vacant boundary lines. Local private community groups like faith communities and hobbyists also have the chance to become involved at this border and benefit from the zones tax programs by fitting out more topological interventions within the frame wall, utilizing the same methods and tectonics of pairing hyper local craft materials with components acquired through the zone from international sources. The result is an infrastructure for a quilted scheme made up of swatches and typologies that benefit from different regulations in different ways, whether lucrative and nuanced or small scale and delicate.
Finally, this intervention is intended to not only hack the SEZ but also to form a buffer between the communities and zone. Attempting to mitigate sound pollution and industrial views into the zone the project pursues a future in which the airport and its global trade implications present an opportunity for hyperlocal growth versus global capital's dreams of disconnected, nodal aerotropolis.
